Rishi Sunak’s sleight of hand aims to shift blame for hardship ahead

theguardian.com:

Rishi Sunak’s spring statement opened by summoning the power of free societies and open markets, as a counterpoint to Russian aggression in Ukraine. “What the authoritarian mind perceives as division, we know are the passionate disagreements at the heart of our living, breathing democracy,” he said.

It was a Thatcherite rhetorical flourish aimed at stirring his supporters on the Conservativezx backbenches, but also framed the statement as a response to the war, which Sunak said had made the UK’s economy more fragile and underlined the need for “security” at home.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) is now forecasting the steepest one-year decline in living standards since records began in the 1950s. So perhaps it should not be surprising that Sunak appeared keen to paint the hardship ahead as a contribution to the war effort rather than the result of deliberate political choices.

He didn’t quite say the privations to be faced by the British public over the next 12 months were a price worth paying (Kwasi Kwarteng almost went there last week, saying the public were prepared for “sacrifices”). But he was sending a clear signal to voters that when they open up next month’s energy bill, or wince as they get to the supermarket till and see how much their shopping costs, they should put the blame on an international crisis, not on the government.

Labour believes that won’t wash with a public who were already feeling the impact of rocketing inflation – and Conservative policies, including the cut to universal credit – even before the tanks rolled across the Ukrainian border.

There was another political sleight of hand at the heart of Sunak’s statement, too. With great fanfare, he highlighted the announcement that the