Rishi Sunak’s budget is proof that big spending is always a political choice | Giles Wilkes

Politicians have more power over the economy than they like to admit. The chancellor is deploying his to the full

I am used to being astonished by Conservative budgets. Towards the end of my time as a special adviser to Vince Cable under the coalition, I was incredulous at how the then chancellor, George Osborne, was willing to threaten years more of cuts, despite having already slashed spending across the "non-protected" departments. Never mind whether the economy could take it, or the bond markets demanded it - this was no longer cutting fat or even muscle, but bone.

Now I stand equally astonished, but this time for the opposite reason. The figures produced by Rishi Sunak in his first outing as chancellor might have come from a Conservative attack document titled "Labour's secret plans to borrow hundreds of billions". Glance over the budget measures table and you can find promises to spend an extra 175bn over five years, and raise just 25bn of that in tax. And this not just for cherished projects like the doubling of R&D or an infrastructure revolution - this is a chancellor willing to bandy around phrases like "fiscal stimulus". The once-heretical idea that public spending might boost the economy is back with a bang.

Related: Rishi Sunak's big-spending budget throws Labour a huge challenge | Martin Kettle

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