The Chancellor recanted on the Conservatives’ 11-year experience of downsizing the state, concluding that running public services at a lower cost is no longer compatible with winning elections.

However, the £ 30bn cost of Brexit each year has forced the Chancellor to choose between respectably funded public services and low taxes. Sadly, it is a legacy of the past 11 years that the government does not yet seem willing to revisit.

The Chancellor’s statement was interspersed with references to returning to spending levels not seen since 2010, a remarkable retraction of much of the past 11 years. The post-2010 austerity program embodied two convictions. One was that controlling the deficit was essential to safeguard the economy and public finances. The other was that it should be achieved by cutting deep into the functions of the state. Sunak doubled the first but repudiated the second.

Rishi Sunak shares George Osborne’s commitment to balance the daily budget. Its new fiscal rule commits the Treasury to ensuring that all current spending is funded by taxes by 2024-25. But unlike 2010, he addressed the risk of a precipitous withdrawal of budget support from a still fragile economy, loosening the purse strings by £ 25 billion next year compared to previous plans.

But the Chancellor’s decisions on public spending were more remarkable. After a year of record tax hikes, the Chancellor poured out more extra money for public services than expected. And while spending in some areas will remain tight, the big picture is that this government wants to undo the failed experiment of state shrinking, which its predecessors made the key dividing line in British politics. Sunak concluded that running public services at a lower cost is incompatible with winning the elections.