The big state is back. The Budget puts Britain on a path to having the highest tax levels since the 1950s, and a state that controls as much of our GDP as it did in the days when it still owned carmakers, phone lines and travel agents. Despite Rishi Sunak’s best efforts to contain spending, the figures are likely to go higher still, as the bills for the NHS, social care, and disrupted education continue to rise.
But it’s not just about the numbers. Even before the pandemic, the political winds were blowing towards larger government, with Boris Johnson embracing a more muscular, state-led industrial strategy. But the pandemic has put that on steroids.
The largest disruption to our lives since the second world war has been matched by a return of the wartime spirit — the feeling that we’re all in it together, that it’s the government’s job not just to get us through the crisis but to carry the economy forward after it.
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