Spring Budget 2020 response

Britain’s new Chancellor gave the country a big Budget, combining a larger-than-expected response to coronavirus with a resetting of the Government and Conservative party’s approach to managing the public finances. A large appetite for increasing public spending has been combined with far less appetite to raise taxes. The result is a Conservative Chancellor now planning a bigger state than was seen under Tony Blair, financed through higher borrowing than Gordon Brown oversaw as Chancellor. The new Conservatism is certainly far from fiscally conservative.