Some MPs have even reached a point where they’re rebelling against their own core beliefs so paralysed are they by the pursuit of positive reinforcement, Twitter likes, focus group vibes and polls instead of long-term results. ![]() The whole system, sluggish and debt-addled, seems unsustainable, yet it is also impossible to do anything about it. Slashing taxes isn’t the only route to growth, but other solutions, including planning liberalisation, seem equally far off – and no doubt will be less popular with disgruntled backbenchers after the past week. A growing number of departments, such as health, are, in practice, politically untouchable. Many want benefits and pensions to rise in line with inflation. Yet they also won’t countenance spending reductions that would, in turn, pay for falling taxation. Tory rebels seem to want faster growth, but not if the tax cuts Truss deems necessary to boost the economy are paid for by borrowing (fair enough). Tory MPs may have ousted Boris Johnson, but the “cakeism” which defined his administration lives on. But when a solution is presented, especially a potentially difficult one, nobody wants to listen. Almost everyone insists they want more growth that more young people should be able to buy a home, that people should be in work rather than on benefits. This is true on a practical level but the past week has also shown just how fiendish it is politically. The Cabinet has splintered into different warring factions – each of which is, like Tolstoy’s unhappy family, unhappy in its own way.īut Liz Truss’s central analysis of the problem afflicting Britain remains accurate: it has become almost impossible to do, or build, anything. ![]() Interest rates were already rising before the “fiscal event” now the Government will shoulder the blame. Conservatives forfeit their reputation for sound money at their peril but now any spare fiscal capacity has been swallowed up by the gargantuan energy bailout. We will study last month’s mini-Budget for years as a masterclass in appalling communication and strategy. But perhaps the biggest hangover is yet to come. This one feels closer to a mass therapy session, with alcohol as the preferred medication. Last year’s conference had an oddly jubilant air about it – eerily so, I wrote at the time, given the spiralling petrol prices and chaos outside the conference hall. Was the Roman Empire putting it away like this when the Visigoths breached the Salarian Gate? A period in opposition might be just what the party needs, mutter some Conservative MPs. Pint after pint sloshed down the hatch into the slough of despond. ![]() Glasses of tepid Chardonnay, necked in despair at the Hyatt hotel bar. But rarely have I seen so much drinking in one place. This Tory party conference has woken up with a terrible hangover (though not me, since you ask, because I opted for an unaccustomed early night).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |