Mark Dolan: Boris Johnson might have forgotten he's a Conservative - Rishi Sunak has an opportunity to prove he still is

The Chancellor is drawing up plans to cut taxes, according to today’s Times.Rishi Sunak is preparing to cut income tax by 2p in the pound or to slash VAT rates before the next election, the paper has learnt.

The chancellor has told officials to draw up detailed plans to reduce the tax burden, with a third option to cut inheritance tax also under consideration.

Under the proposals: the 45p higher rate of income tax could be scrapped, basic rate payers would be up to £750 better off each year and VAT on green energy could be reduced.

I've got to say, as the prime minister gets bounced from one crisis to another, Rishi Sunak at number 11 seems to be our only hope. This young Chancellor is the grown-up in the room.

I've always said that lockdowns should not have happened, but if you're going to make people stay at home, you have to compensate them and the furlough scheme in that objective was a triumphant policy success and it looks to have saved not just countless businesses, but millions of jobs.

But we know that Rishi Sunak is genuinely troubled by the eye watering amounts of borrowing that continue to happen on his watch and it's rumoured that he is reluctant to see any more Covid measures inflicted upon the British people.

Needless panic over omicron has already seen office parties and organised events cancelled, with the resulting economic damage and more pain for an already beleaguered hospitality sector, who were desperately hoping to make some coin this Christmas.

But I suspect Sunak also knows that we've had almost two years of undiluted socialism – we have paid people to stay at home, we have crashed the economy and we have borrowed billions.

Sounds a lot like socialism to me. Boris might have forgotten he's a Conservative. Rishi Sunak in the months to come has an opportunity to prove that he still is.

There's no point banging on about money for the NHS, pay rises for public sector workers, police on the streets, education, overseas aid or levelling up if there is no money coming in.

For too long, the economy has been the whipping boy of this pandemic, needlessly assaulted for the pursuit of this unprecedented scientific experiment of lockdown, which in my view has failed dramatically.

So if you're going to save lives and get Britain back on a path to recovery, you're going to need a healthy economy. Drunk on a diet of endless borrowing, politicians and Whitehall mandarins are hooked on spending someone else's money.

With the national debt now over 2 trillion quid, accountable for over 100% of GDP, that money is running out.

So we must grow to recover and we've got to pay our bills from our income, rather than endlessly extending the nation’s overdraft. You know as well as I do, that you cannot spend more than is coming in indefinitely.

A country is ultimately no different to a household. One way to get the economy growing, is to cut taxes, which are currently higher than they have been since the 1950s. You put money back in peoples’ pocket and let them decide how to spend it.

You give businesses the wiggle room with which to hire more staff and invest in their product. High taxes are a vicious circle, more debt and diminishing financial returns.

They are a race to the bottom. Low taxes are a race to the top. They stimulate growth, encourage investment and will be the key mechanism by which Britain recovers from the biggest recession in 300 years.

Anyone with any sense is an anti-taxxer. Let’s hope Rishi Sunak is.