There were suggestions yesterday that,
following his sudden resignation from the cabinet, the former chancellor might
also be about to resign from parliament and pursue an alternative career. In the light of his surprise discovery
yesterday of the fossilised remains of a human backbone, perhaps he could be
guided towards an exciting new career in archaeology. Almost anything would be better (for the rest
of us anyway) than for him to return to his former
life selling the sort of dodgy derivatives which caused the 2008 financial
crisis.
The reactions to his departure have caused
me to question my memory. I was sure
that the slogan on the barn read ‘four legs good, two legs bad’. I have a vivid recollection that, for the
last ten years, the Tories have been telling us that a balanced budget was
absolutely essential, and that the markets wouldn’t stand for unfunded
expenditure. Yet the immediate reaction
in the financial markets to a suggestion that replacing Javid with someone who
will do whatever Dominic Cummings Boris Johnson tells him to do,
including abandoning the aim of a balanced budget so that Johnson can ‘splash
the cash’, was very positive, and the pound soared. I don’t think I dreamt the bit about the party
(Labour) that is now looking like the fiscal conservatives being regularly accused
of being profligate for urging rather less expenditure than the PM is now
proposing. Either my memory is seriously
defective, or else the Tories have simply been lying to us for the last decade. It’s not exactly a tough call between the
two.
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1 comment:
You have cycles like business cycles, economic cycles, political cycles, bicycles, motor cycles etc etc This is a hybrid of as many cycles as you care to construct in that it is a case of "make it up as you go along" and with a liar at the helm the capacity for unrestrained statements and inconsistent behaviours is expanded geometrically.
I am sometimes accused of being paranoid although my defence is that I have a highly attuned sensitivity to any deviant behaviours. My take on this sudden surge in spending is that it is superficially a major shift but in its dark reality it is just a mere continuation of policy.
Since before the intro of "austerity" in 2008 -10 there was a focus on privatisation where public assets were acquired by the corporate sector at a discount ( = theft from the public purse).
With austerity public spending was curtailed and very rich individuals and corporates were rewarded with tax breaks etc while the rest got screwed (= shift of wealth from poor to rich).
Boris' big spend on ultra big budget projects is a continuation of this in that major corporates and their seriously rich stakeholders will benefit from contracts while the rest of the country will fund these overpriced vanities. Thus shifting more wealth into the coffers of the rich and the major corporates.
Impoverished and enslaved by stealth.
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