Welcome to the 94th Treasury Committee awards, where Rishi Sunak was up for best Spring Statement. The red carpet glittered with the latest fashions. Rishi looked like a million dollars, which is probably what the suit cost.
Attending any discussion of economics makes me feel 130 per cent thicker. No joke – I tried to enter the room by pulling on a door that you push and, as I fought for a seat in the front row, I prayed to the spirit of Ronald Reagan that this thing would come with subtitles.
I needn’t have panicked – the story was easy to follow. There is no money, said Rishi, so he has to tax now to spend big without crazy borrowing – then cut taxes later. “That’s the direction of travel going forward,” he concluded, in fluent Jargonese.
His style is chatty and patient, like a man from the gas company kindly explaining why you have been cut off. The best questions came from the Left, who are immune to his star power. The SNP’s Alison Thewliss nailed the absurdity of a government lending people their own money to pay their energy bills. Debt piled on debt.
Labour’s Siobhain McDonagh – think Margaret Rutherford in her prime – rattled off the many ways in which the Tory economy now looks like communist Poland (“tax burden rising to the highest level since the 1940s, the worst fall in living standards since the 1950s”). Rishi repeated that this is precisely why he has to raise taxes, dodging the real question of why we are in this mess to begin with.
Covid, tick. Ukraine, maybe. But the Tories were planning to spend like Cecil B DeMille before the world blew up, and yet none of the committee’s Conservatives, or so I heard, asked “can we afford net zero?” or “is it true this statement was designed to clip Boris’ wings?” Not even: “Love the shoes, darling, how much were they?” (Rishi was spotted last week in a pair of trainers thought to be worth £335).
This is because Westminster is of one mind – we must go green and we must spend. The industry has forgotten who it is meant to be entertaining (the voters) and just makes movies that tickle its own fancy (reboots of old, socialist policies). That is why these committee ceremonies are watched by so few people. If only something could spice it up…
“You’ve made a political choice to plunge 1.3 million people into absolute poverty,” said Labour’s Dame Angela Eagle. The room woke up.
No, replied Rishi, I’m trying to account for “forces outside my control … You might have preferred not to cut taxes.”
“Don’t put words into my mouth!” snapped the Dame. “You’ve increased taxes 15 times … You can’t only talk about one side of this equation,” the tweaks and tricks that take as they appear to give, “and expect everybody to be fooled!”
It was a low-tax slap caught on camera before a global audience of dozens. Later, the committee issued a statement: “Westminster does not condone Thatcherism in any form.”
