AS far as budgets go this has to be one of the more interesting ones in recent times. Anyone new to UK politics could be forgiven for thinking this was a Labour Party budget with an increase in tax, increase in public spending and a firm commitment to levelling up across the UK but this was the Conservative Party’s budget where Rishi Sunak spoke about the United Kingdom as being one family.

Opposition parties will do what opposition parties do and will critique the budget, which is fine, after all that is what democracy is about.

Are we starting to see the emergence of a different Tory Party that now favours big government and high taxes and a move away from the Cameron/Osborne administration that advocated austerity which the May administration continued. Time will tell but I suspect that we will see a realignment of core Tory values at some point.

The constitution was clearly on the mind of the Chancellor when drawing up the budget plans in an attempt to win over Scotland. The red, white, and blue budget is cemented in the idea of investing in Scotland to show the people here that the Union is on their side. The other aim is to show up the Scottish Government. It’s abundantly clear that the Conservative Government are pinning their hopes on the argument boiling down to rhetoric versus practical government in this almost pre-election budget.

It could be argued that this is an interesting state of play by the Johnson administration as the key target voters for both the pro-Union parties and the SNP are those that are undecided on how they will vote should there be another referendum on independence.

The SNP know that rhetoric alone won’t change opinion and Boris Johnson knows that if you want the support of people you have to give them a reason to back you, and this is what he did while he was Mayor of London.

This strategy has the real possibility to shift support from those undecided on independence to potentially supporting the Union but is it limited in scope? Only time will tell but I think the people of the UK are looking for a government that will invest and not make cuts, and also show that it is a government of the Union.

Or is it the case that Johnson, whether you like him or not, is fairly politically astute when it comes to navigating the political landscape and recognises that to follow his predecessor’s path and adopt austerity won't go down well with the electorate across the UK. Furthermore, Johnson knows this would give his opponents a window of opportunity to highlight government failure and hypocrisy when it came to the levelling up agenda.

Instead of allowing that to happen, Johnson and Rishi Sunak have nipped it in the bud by doing the one thing that will have Thatcherite Tories running for the hills: spending money or as I said last week investing today for a better tomorrow. The question is for how long? Will we see austerity through the back door and back to core Tory principles?

The thing about Johnson is he is used to playing high stakes political poker, just look at the way he weighed up his options over Brexit before coming out supporting the leave camp. This was purely on the basis of where he thought the UK was and, sadly, he was right.

Johnson also recognises that one of the major complaints from opposition parties in Scotland tends to be that the SNP have a budget underspend, which is money that could go to local authorities, to spend on capital projects and other priorities.

As I said last week the Scottish Government could offset the impact that 176,000 people in Scotland will feel from the withdrawal of the Universal Credit uplift. It’s almost as if Johnson has scrutinised what the SNP did to take power and did the same thing by embracing what his opponents are saying rather than try to counter it.

At the heart of this budget is a clear mission for the UK Government to have a more visible presence across Scotland in the hope of being seen to be more active and investing in key areas which it is hoped will boost support for the Union.

Barrie Cunning is managing director of Pentland Communications and a former Scottish Labour Parliamentary candidate