Rishi Sunak’s Spring Statement has not benefited from closer examination. Many have pointed out that the Chancellor’s attempt to pose as a tax-cutter lacks credibility given that the tax burden is forecast to rise to near-record highs over this Parliament. Even leaving aside the ill-judged rise in National Insurance contributions, the promise of a 1p cut to the basic rate of income tax in 2024 will hardly help when the Treasury is freezing income tax thresholds now. 

Yet the incoherence extends well beyond tax. Mr Sunak made a great play of his view that there are limits to what the state can do, and is planning to counteract only a small proportion of the cost of living tsunami crashing into household finances. Rhetorically, he speaks like a Thatcherite. 

However, the Government’s actions will result in the size of the state increasing considerably, notably through a large injection of funds into the NHS and the assumption of extra responsibilities for social care. There has been little attempt to unwind the cultural shift towards dependency that was accelerated by the pandemic, and which appears to have become particularly embedded in the public sector. Ministers still talk as if they want to throw an arm around the public, to protect them from the hard realities of the world. 

The question many voters will be asking is: what do the Conservatives actually stand for? Are they still the party of individual ambition, of personal responsibility, and of a smaller, more effective state? Or are they now something else: a more social democratic party that has embraced soft-Left economics and “social justice”? Mr Sunak’s Spring Statement was an opportunity for the Government to answer this question, to start laying the intellectual groundwork for the next election. Instead, it left behind only confusion. 

In the autumn, the Chancellor must elaborate on his plans to increase the country’s economic growth rate, to support households whose disposable incomes are collapsing and to make the national debt more sustainable. Mr Sunak said little this week about how that might be achieved: Conservatives have long understood that the best route to increased prosperity is to empower companies to grow, and individuals to earn more, via tax cuts and deregulation. That deficiency must be rectified urgently, or the intellectual chaos into which the Tories have descended will cost the country dear.