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Newspaper headlines: Sunak's spending spree and 'the Bankers' Budget'

By BBC News
Staff

Published
Image caption, Unsurprisingly Wednesday's Budget features heavily in the morning's papers. The Guardian sums it up as "spend now, cut taxes later", and says that Chancellor Rishi Sunak intends to cut taxes before the next general election. The paper also says Mr Sunak has been criticised for a lack of green measures ahead of the COP26 summit in Glasgow.
Image caption, "Sunak's spending spree" is the Times headline. It says that an extra £150bn is announced for public services, with public spending going to its highest sustained level "since before Margaret Thatcher". The paper reports that the spending will be paid for by better-than-expected economic growth and tax rises.
Image caption, "The bankers' budget" is how the Daily Mirror describes it, under the headline "Champagne for the rich… real pain for the poor". The paper says that the "tax on bubbly [is] cut as the cost of living is set to soar".
Image caption, "Cheers Rishi" is the headline on the Metro alongside a smiling picture of the chancellor raising a pint alongside Boris Johnson. It reports that Rishi Sunak "kept Britain's economic taps running" with the biggest beer tax cut for 50 years and a "£150bn public services binge".
Image caption, The Daily Express strikes a similar tone as it says "Cheers! Rishi on a mission to cut taxes". It says in a "defining Budget for the nation's future" the chancellor has declared that it is time the Tories moved away from the Covid era "when the government was expected to have the answer to everything".
Image caption, "The drinks are on us" declares the Daily Mail under a picture of Rishi Sunak and the prime minster lifting beer kegs. While the paper says business rates have been slashed and beer and Prosecco is cheaper it does have a warning for the chancellor: "Keep your tax cut vow".
Image caption, "Hey, big spenders" is the headline for the Daily Telegraph, alongside a picture of Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson. The paper says the chancellor has announced plans to take government spending to the "highest sustained level since the late 1970s" and declared the Conservatives the "real party of public services". It says in a an "attempt to prove his Tory grassroots credentials" Mr Sunak said it was his "mission" to cut tax further before the next election. The front page also carries a story on households facing a squeeze from inflation and flat wages.
Image caption, The i refers to the chancellor as a "big spender" as it says he is taking the tax burden back to the 1950s. The paper reports Mr Sunak took advantage of an economic upgrade to raise state spending in every department. But it says that while universal credit cuts have been scaled back, "rising inflation is forecast to wipe out projected wage increases next year". It also says that green groups have criticised cuts to air passenger duty for domestic flights just days before the COP26 climate summit.
Image caption, The Financial Times says the chancellor has backed Boris Johnson on spending by using his Budget to "pump more money into public services recovering from the Covid-19 crisis". The paper says taxes are heading to the highest level since 1950, but it adds that Mr Sunak concluded his speech by reassuring Tory MPs that he wanted to cut taxes before the next election. In his sketch Henry Mance says the chancellor played party politics by cutting the price of Champagne and says he and the PM have decided they are "pro-secco".
Image caption, The Daily Star takes a different take on the 3p reduction of beer duty as it channels Hollywood film The Hangover. The paper says the teetotal chancellor "obviously has no idea how much a hangover costs".
Image caption, "I ballooned to 15st on a diet of wine, beer and chicken wings" says singer Ed Sheeran in a Sun exclusive. He tells the paper he put on weight when he stopped touring but has shed five stone since stopping bingeing.

The chancellor appears on every front page - either holding the traditional red box containing his Budget; or pulling pints at a south London brewery with his boss, Boris Johnson.

'The drinks are on us!', proclaims the Daily Mail, after Rishi Sunak cut duty on a pint of draught beer by 3p.

Both it and the Guardian call it a "spend now, cut taxes later" plan.

There are "cheers" too from the Metro and the Daily Express, with the latter concluding that the chancellor is on a "moral" mission to cut taxes.

But the Daily Mirror fears it is "champagne for the rich", and "real pain for the poor", accusing him of failing to tackle the cost of living.

Image source, PA Media
Image caption, Rishi Sunak's Budget gets a mention on all of Thursday's front pages

"Hey, big spenders", declares the Daily Telegraph, which says spending is back at 1970s levels, while the Times and the i both note that Britain faces its highest tax burden since the 1950s.

The Financial Times says "Sunak backs Johnson on spending - for now".

A sketch in the Guardian describes the Budget as more of a hostage video than "Brand Rishi's big plan". His teeth had been whitened for the "numerous photo opportunities", it says, but his heart just was not in it.

The paper imagines "Boris Bertie Booster" ripping up 90% of the original speech, before telling Mr Sunak he had "hardly spent a thing" and handing him an entirely new one.

"People who say this is not a proper Tory government may have a point," writes Quentin Letts in the Times, who's bemused by the way Conservative backbenchers cheered rises in the cost of "full-bottomed clarets" as heartily as cuts in the price of rosé and Asti spumante. "Pink wine?," he asks, "Tory grandees used to scorn it as Chateau Mouthwash for home counties hairdressers".

A former Tory chancellor, Norman Lamont, tells the Mail it was "The Two Rishis Show" - one expansive, exhilarated, and leading us to the Promised Land; the other, fiscally responsible, and wanting to take away the PM's credit card.

Mr Sunak "flagged his distaste as he spent like a sailor", writes Robert Shrimsley in the FT. But the chancellor did make one "stand for his beliefs", he argues, by sticking with his £6bn cut to the Universal Credit uplift - then reforming it with changes that will cost just over a third of that sum.

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A cartoon in the Times shows Mr Sunak and his New Labour predecessor, Gordon Brown, standing separately outside Number 11 as gradually they morph into one another.

Image source, PA Media
Image caption, Some papers made the comparison between Rishi Sunak and his Labour predecessor Gordon Brown

"The Tories' nightmare conversion to Brownism will end in catastrophe", warns Allister Heath in the Telegraph, saying: "Staggering tax rises and reckless spending weren't forced on Sunak by Covid: they were an active choice".

The Sun's leader column agrees. "First Covid," it says, "now there's an 'epidemic' of government spending".

But for the Guardian the sums being spent are not enough. The hidden economics of this budget can be "found in the small print", it argues, as "most of the extra money for public services disappears in two years' time".

Finally, the Mail reports that John Lewis has been forced to pull what it describes as a "woke" insurance advert, starring a boy in a dress rampaging around his house - after the watchdog found it misleading and confusing. The Financial Conduct Authority, it says, ruled the ad did not make clear the home contents product covered only accidental - and not deliberate - damage.