Rishi Sunak sounded empathetic, sincere and even competent – what a contrast to Boris Johnson

Editorial: The chancellor’s winter economic plan broadly strikes the right balance and his sombre tone shows a sensitivity to the public mood

The contrast between chancellor Rishi Sunak and prime minister Boris Johnson is striking (PA)

No doubt the chancellor of the exchequer is a conscientious patriotic figure who is focused on the threat to the long term vigour of the national economy, as well as the immediate threat to public health. His winter economic plan (WEP) broadly gets the balance right. As with much else this year, the 2020 budget has been scrapped, and HM Treasury has taken the unusual decision to spend, and borrow, more now, and tax later.  

The Job Support Scheme and the other measures were well targeted, and of course they could have been more generous and extensive in areas such as training, as shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds pointed out. However, Mr Sunak left little room for Ms Dodds to make much political capital out of his announcements. Rather than risk having to return to parliament to boost the package, Mr Sunak has erred the other way, as he did with the first furlough scheme. It is true that he should not have ruled out, for most of the time, extending support after the end of the furlough scheme this month, but, with luck he will not have to ask the speaker to present another mini-budget before the spring.

Rishi Sunak, though, remains a politician, one with an eye to his own prospects, and a sensitivity to the mood of the nation. The contrast with the prime minister, absent from his usual supportive place on the front bench during the WEP, is striking. Where Mr Johnson is bombastic, all fists jabbing and soaring rhetorical panto, Mr Sunak is quietly sombre. He does not talk of moonshots, trillion-dollar British tech giants, or world-beating schemes that never materialise. Instead he gives us the bad news straight: there will probably be a “more permanent adjustment” in the economy, and he “cannot save every every business”, or every job. He sounds more empathetic and sincere than his boss, as well as looking more competent, and it is being noted.