Don’t panic – there’s an obvious solution to the UK’s debt pile

Cutting spending or raising taxes won’t be enough to get the country out of debt. But there is another way out, says John Stepek.

Rishi Sunak
Sunak won't let himself to be associated with anything that smacks of “austerity”.
(Image credit: © David Cliff/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Rishi Sunak is in an extremely unusual position, in that he’s probably one of the only Cabinet members whose reputation has improved as a result of Covid-19. He’s the safe pair of hands. He’s the calming grown-up presence in a playground full of hysterical overtired kids. He’s got some idea of what he’s doing.

Trouble for him is, he’s also been playing Santa Claus for most of the year. And now, just as we’re coming up to Christmas, people are murmuring about what the bill for all of this will be. So what’s Sunak going to do? And what might it mean for your pocket?

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John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.