It has been just over a month since Rishi Sunak took office as the UK’s prime minister, the youngest prime minister in two centuries of British history. His main task since October 25 has been to bury the incoherent economic plan of his short-lived predecessor, Liz Truss – which combined lowering taxes for the wealthy classes with a notable increase in public spending – in order to once again embrace the postulates of orthodoxy. financial and tax.
In these few weeks at 10 Downing Street, Sunak has raised the minimum wage, pensions and basic social benefits to inflation levels, but has not been able to prevent the country from entering a new era of austerity and even your government has had to admit that the UK is in recession. The prime minister’s new tax program has stoned Truss’s ultra-liberal plan, raised taxes, especially for the rich, and tries to maintain social spending.
In an era of austerity and recession, the prime minister raises taxes and curbs public spending
In his first speech after being elected, Rishi Sunak has already admitted “mistakes” and warned of the risk of “a deep economic crisis.” But with inflation that will be at 9.1% this year and a public debt that is close to 100% of GDP, this crisis has become a kind of perfect storm that is going to fall especially on the middle classes, who will have to pay new taxes and face the exorbitant price of electricity, and you will see how the number of unemployed increases.
The measures taken by Sunak are intended to save the UK £54bn and shore up public finances, but will affect household income. His fiscal plan marks the return of the country to orthodoxy in tax policy and has won the backing of the IMF.
Sunak is a guardian of fiscal orthodoxy and a supporter of Brexit. He has not been elected prime minister at the polls, but rather by the deputies of his party and it is, perhaps, the last chance for the tories emerge from the political chaos and infighting in which they have long been ensconced and can lead the Conservative Party to the 2025 election and win a fifth consecutive election, just as the polls are currently leading the opposition Labor by 15 points .
However, first it will be necessary to see what response he is capable of giving to problems such as immigration, the war in Ukraine, the environment and relations with the European Union, which he would like to reconsider in order to relaunch the British economy. But, above all, he will have to deal with austerity and more taxes –which goes against his own ideology– the very serious economic and social crisis that the United Kingdom is going through, which is facing a winter marked by strikes, the recession and rising electricity rates.
