David Steel once said of Margaret Thatcher: " I wish I were as certain of just one thing as she is of everything."
Liz Truss is from the same mold and doesn't even have to pretend. In her interview on Radio 4 this morning she confined herself to slogans. She will "Hit the ground running," "Get things done," "Get the economy moving."
What she's actually "got done" is short on detail. She claims "the Australian trade deal," though on "Farming Today" earlier we were told that Britain's farmers are up in arms about it and feel they have been sold down the river. She also claimed to have the "Led the West" in organising support for the defence of Ukraine, though her boss P.M. Johnson also claims that role, and what the rest of the world thinks about British leadership in anything other than boasting is not known. (Since Suez we have mostly cravenly followed the US, the main exception being Harold Wilson, who kept us out of Vietnam)
Like Mr Johnson, M/s Truss has an uncertain relationship with the truth, as her trashing of her Roundhay School, which has a highly respectable reputation and serves one of the poshest parts of Leeds, for having such low expectations that all she achieved was a place at Merton College Oxford.
It is said that, traditionally when Tory Constituency Selection Committees were interviewing potential parliamentary candidates they were really choosing young men who would make good sons-in law. Rishi Sunak fills this bill: he is highly personable, of presentable appearance, smiles a lot and can string two sentences together without too many ominous pauses. Although his style is different, he offers the same as Mr Johnson: persuasive communication skills.
However, as an earlier post argues, his record as Chancellor of the Exchequer is a poor one. His furlough scheme was later, shorter and less generous that those of the French and Germans. His "Bounce Back" loan scheme was subject to massive fraud (and M/s Truss claims she told him) and his help to the poor was niggardly and too soon abandoned.
Although he had the sense to raise taxes to pay for his carelessness and profligacy, he chose the wrong ones; in particular the NICs, a tax on employment, the last thing one should tax when we need to to stimulate an economic recovery.
M/s Truss remained a wiling collaborator in the Johnson debacle to the end, and Mr Sunak to the last forty-eight hours (or was it twenty-four?) They are both complicit in the years of Tory misrule.
Historians might be able to pinpoint a time when the nation was faced with an even greater poverty of choice, but I think we have plumber the depths.
She claims "the Australian trade deal," though on "Farming Today" earlier we were told that farmers are up in arms about it and feel they have been sold down the river.
ReplyDeleteI wish people would remember that trade deal are dones to benefit consumers, not producers! The question is not whether it will benefit British farmers but British shoppers!
. His furlough scheme was later, shorter and less generous that those of the French and Germans.
His furlough scheme was actually one of the earliest, and it went on far, far too long. It's in large part because of the sheer amount of money printed and pumped into the economy during months of unnecessary furlough that we are now suffering from runaway inflation (though of course decades of too-low interest rates have something to do with that as well).
Trade Deals: You make a good point, but it really has to be a bit of both. It it is true, as they claim, that Australian standards of animal care and hygiene are inferior to British ones, then British farmers are placed at an unfair disadvantage. Also hygiene standards can have an adverse effect on consumers. Regarding a possible trade deal with the US, we are warned that 1 in 6 Americans falls ill each year from food poisoning, compared with 1 in 28 in the UK.
ReplyDeleteInflation: is almost entirely generated by the rises in fuel costs and the difficulties created by the war in Ukraine, not British domestic policy.
It it is true, as they claim, that Australian standards of animal care and hygiene are inferior to British ones, then British farmers are placed at an unfair disadvantage.
DeleteAnd it's not an 'unfair' disadvantage if consumers (according to their revealed prefernces) don't care about animal welfare standards. It can hardly be called an 'unfair disadvantage' if one team chooses to play with, say, their hands tied behind their backs, and the other team doesn't.
You make a good point, but it really has to be a bit of both.
ReplyDeleteNo it really doesn't.
'Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer' — Adam Smith.
Consumers matter. Producers don't, except insofar as they serve consumers.
Regarding a possible trade deal with the US, we are warned that 1 in 6 Americans falls ill each year from food poisoning, compared with 1 in 28 in the UK.
Do you have a source for that claim? Similar claims I've seen have turned out to be comparing apples and oranges.
Inflation: is almost entirely generated by the rises in fuel costs and the difficulties created by the war in Ukraine, not British domestic policy.
No it's not. Domestic UK inflation was rising long before the war in Ukraine started (and it's been warned about since the middle of last year, at least). The war may have given it a bost but he main underlying causes are the UK's loose monetary and fiscal policies.