, Columnist
Boris Johnson Hits the All-You-Can-Eat Buffet
Rishi Sunak’s lavish first budget sought to contain the impact of the coronavirusm — and to kill off Labour for years.
A feast of spending.
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If Britain’s December election saw the Tories park their tanks on Labour’s traditional turf, the government’s first budget set out a vision for how that territory will be transformed with Tory roads, homes, schools and public services.
It’s a project so interventionist it would have filled previous Conservative administrations with horror. But not only does it reflect the political mood of Brexit Britain, it is firmly grounded in the realization that successive Conservative governments have under-invested for too long (creating some of the conditions that helped produce the Brexit vote).