Tumbling Dice, Tumbling Careers...

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Looks like our [probable] next PM might be in a future financial hole, even before the final ballot that will lead to her 'coronation'. It seems [papers, i] that the figures she was working to in crafting her Thatcherite tax-cutting economic strategy for her first [and probably last] term in power fall somewhat short of her expectations: by about 50%, according to The Office for Budget Responsibility.

It never ceases to amaze me that the Tories always - always - accuse Labour of being the party of tax and spend, which would seem at least fiscally responsible; as if it were in some way a negative. They, by contrast, seem to believe that taxation is inherently bad, seek to avoid it wherever possible, and simply rely, like Truss, on 'headroom': slack leftover in the economy for whatever reasons, usually fortuitous, nay, even serendipitous.

The trouble with serendipity is, it don't always come your way, and really can't be relied on when you're in charge of the economy of even the most tin-pot of countries, let alone a major western one. The problem with Truss and her supporters is that they only see taxation from one standpoint: the wealthiest; and they choose - cynically - to ignore the fact that those most in need pay little or no tax and benefit not from tax cuts, unlike the rich and powerful they in reality serve.

Without the safety-net of serendipity, Truss has no economic policy whatsoever, and yet still looks to be a shoo-in for PM at the behest of a Tory party membership bereft of sense, perspective, social conscience or even the most basic of grips on reality. Her opponent, Rishi Sunak, while on the surface at least displaying a modicum of fiscal sense, is as unsuited to the job of PM as Truss, the outgoing disaster or anyone else in the current claque of clowns that they can draw upon to replace them. For the country, this is not good. Let's hope that a change of government comes sooner rather than later, and that the new one draws its economic policies from the real world rather than the fantasy island dream of UK plc., that the Tories promulgate.

 

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