Panicked, Rishi Sunak reverses course and unveils a windfall tax. He is right to panic: the tide is turning against the Tories
Let’s have barrel loads more outrageous behaviour inside No 10, if that’s what it takes to panic the government into finally unlocking Treasury coffers for those in most need. Now the chancellor relents, but it was as recently as 26 April that Rishi Sunak called it “silly” to provide more help for families sinking under soaring inflation.
He stripped people with the least of that vital £20 a week in universal credit, those already stricken with one of the meanest benefit systems among members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. It would be “silly” to give them the money back, he said, and he hasn’t. He has at least compensated them for the rise in their energy bills since then, but that was a one-off. Unemployment pay has had its greatest fall in real terms in 50 years, tumbling since 2013, while child benefit has fallen by 30% since 2010, according to the Child Poverty Action Group.
Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
