George Osborne’s former adviser Rupert Harrison: Extra spending in Budget is ‘welcome’
Reported today on City AM
For the full article visit: https://www.cityam.com/george-osborne...
Rupert Harrison has spent the last few weeks monitoring obscure economic indicators – everything from pollution in Chinese cities to traffic in Milan – in an effort to guide his clients at investment giant Blackrock through the worst market crisis since 2008.He's no stranger to financial turbulence, however, having been chained at the hip to then-chancellor George Osborne as he navigated the Eurozone meltdown and the recovery from the financial crisis as the top policy adviser at Number 11. It was a role he held for five years, during which some took to calling him the "real chancellor".Read more: IFS: Budget deficit could surge to five-year highHarrison is well-placed, then, to talk about the colossal pressure on Britain's 39-year-old chancellor Rishi Sunak, who will tomorrow give the first Budget since the Conservatives' landslide election win in December. Once billed as the Budget that would "level up" spending across the country, it is now set to be an exercise in coronavirus damage limitation. "The economic impact is most like a natural disaster," says Harrison, who has been a portfolio manager at Blackrock since leaving Downing Street in 2015.To add to Sunak's difficulties, he has only been in the job a month. He was promoted to chancellor – his first full cabinet role – in February after his predecessor Sajid Javid clashed with Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his adviser Dominic Cummings.The real problem Sunak faces in the upcoming Budget, Harrison says, "is how do you reach millions of small businesses struggling with cash flow" as the virus disrupts supply chains and dents demand. "Trying to get up and running systems to reach those businesses and try and help them survive the period is going to be a challenge," Harrison says. "I think in practice, you probabl
