It is axiomatic for
Conservatives that ‘the markets’ can and will solve problems – it’s just a
question of matching buyers and sellers. It’s an axiom which is coming under
some pressure in relation to the Rwanda scheme. Those who own the aeroplanes are
concerned about reputational damage if they become involved and the Home Office
has so far failed
to locate any planes which can be made available. It’s not because there aren’t
any, it’s rather that the ‘sellers’ of aeroplane services aren’t willing to
provide those services to the ‘buyers’, for reasons which (in the Holy Grail of
capitalist economics) are a distortion of the market because they have nothing
to do with money. For the purists, money is the only driver in economics.
Perhaps capitalist
economics will reassert itself if the buyer is prepared to offer such a high
price that the sellers will ‘take the money and run’. Turning reputational
damage into filthy lucre would hardly be a first. It may even be something that
a
certain Conservative peer might be able to assist with. She has no planes
of course, but a lack of capacity to produce useable PPE proved not to be a bar
either. And Chris Grayling managed to contract
ferry companies with no ships, so there’s plenty of precedent. If the pile
of filthy lucre is high enough, capitalism decrees that someone should
eventually respond. But if the market does indeed fail, fall back plans seem to
consist of hiring a plane in unbranded livery and hoping no-one will find out who
owns it (probability: close to zero) or using RAF planes rather than commercial
ones.
The Rwanda scheme
isn’t the first occasion on which a government has rushed into a plan with a
lack of detailed planning and preparation, and it won’t be the last. But it’s
certainly shaping up to be one of the worst debacles in recent times. But then,
the initial announcement was never intended to be taken seriously; it was
always a Johnson-style plan to divert
attention in the short term from his own behaviour. Sunak could have
scrapped it within days of taking office (Johnson really wouldn’t have cared,
although he might have huffed and puffed a bit just for show); how and why Sunak
decided to double down on a half-baked plan which was never going to work is
something which is likely to become an essay question for future students of
the decline and fall of the Conservative Party.
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3 comments:
An acquaintance of mine, long dead, once remarked that not everyone could be bought. But he went on to say that there were always enough people who could, so as to enable one to work around any difficulties.
One of the best recent examples of the market in action is of course the criminal gangs involved in the little boats. They've spotted a gap in the market - some might say created by a closing down of safe and legal routes, I wouldn't know - and gone for it with true entrepreneurial [thank you spellchecker] spirit. I mean, why all the fuss; it's not as though they are ripping off public funds or anything like that ...
Your late acquaintance was obviously a wise man. Your other point underlines the well-known but little-understood fact that there is a very fine line between a 'successful entrepreneur' and an 'undetected criminal'. Far be it from me to suggest any connection between that fact and recent events surrounding PPE.
What they have not done is to discover that most airlines do not own the aircraft they operate, as they are on lease from exceptionally large companies which most people have never heard of. I can assure you these companies will provide aircraft ( if the price is right) as they lease airtime and have no opinion as to what market they operate in, again they can lease aircrew from a world market and set up an operating company that will have no difficulty in obtaining a UK licence.
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