In his Budget 2021 announcement this month, Chancellor Rishi Sunak faced a balancing act – of continuing to use public funds to navigate through the coronavirus pandemic, but also finding ways to balance the books after the largest public spending campaign in living memory.
It was billed as a “Recovery Budget”, making no secret of the fact it would involve a certain amount of give and take. Surely enough, Sunak said his Budget would “protect the jobs and livelihoods of the British people” but needed to “begin fixing the public finances”.