The maiden voyage of the Titanic is proceeding well and passengers should not be alarmed by reports of a colossal iceberg ahead.
The Captain, Rishi Sunak, preserved his usual confident demeanour when he took questions at noon, and at 12.36 the Chief Engineer, Jeremy Hunt, rose to deliver a statement in which he set out to reassure all passengers, particularly those travelling in third class, that he has their best interests at heart, and is going to get the ship to steam a bit faster by shovelling just the right amount of extra cash into the boilers.
Hunt was watched by his wife and children from the gallery, and opened with a personal announcement: “I come today with good news – it’s my wife’s birthday and unlike me she’s looking younger every year.”
He cast his eyes upwards for a moment towards her: see the photograph above this article.
But from then on, he made a point of showing no partiality towards the Hunt family. The children had already endured, with charming fortitude, a chunk of Northern Ireland Questions, followed by Prime Minister’s Questions, but now had to listen to a whole hour of their father on the “110 growth measures” with which he is going to “back British business”.
The rest of us were expected to listen too, and many of us wondered how we would find the necessary stamina. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to go through them all,” Hunt went on.
This was compassionate conservatism in action. Hunt and his team in HM Treasury will take care of the details.
Already he had launched into a passage about sound money: “I will not take risks with inflation.”
If Hunt meant what he said today, he will not take risks with anything. That, he frequently asserted, is what Labour would do, for “they think compassion is about giving money – we think it’s about giving opportunity”.
Throughout the statement he drew this contrast between Labour and the Conservatives. Labour wants higher immigration, he asserted, while “we say we should unlock the potential we have right here at home”.
When he said unemployed people who refuse to look for work will lose their benefits there were angry shouts from the Labour benches.
“Conservatives know the best way to tackle poverty is through work,” Hunt retorted.
There had been rumours he would cut inheritance tax: the sort of measure which might benefit the Hunt family. But instead he cut National Insurance, a measure which if noticed by anyone, will be noticed by the low paid.
Rachel Reeves rose to reply for Labour. She accused the Conservatives of “13 years of economic failure”, and pointed out that as recently as January last year Sunak proposed to raise National Insurance: “Yet again the Prime Minister is left arguing against himself.”
The Hunt family now left the gallery. This was not a case of “women and children first”, for the Press Gallery had emptied the moment the Chancellor of the Exchequer sat down, so reporters could attend the Treasury briefing about what the Autumn Statement actually meant.
“No one can trust the Tories with taxpayers’ money,” Reeves said. We too could take no more, and slipped away.
The Conservative Government sails on, and perhaps somehow it will avoid the iceberg. But there was nothing in this Autumn Statement to suggest that Hunt has decided to change course.