No. 132 – It’s a Joy to be Alive. Unless, of course, you are a Human Being!
Dear James,
This morning the sun is rising over the Suffolk countryside, birds are singing and clouds of white blossom bloom against a clear blue sky. In front of my window, daffodils are nodding their glorious affirmations to anyone or no one, rabbits are high tailing it across the meadow and the tiny leaves of rose bushes are emerging unblemished into their early prime. On this beautiful spring morning, nature is clearly at ease with herself. It is a joy to be alive.
Unless, of course, you happen to be a human being. Today, large sections within our particular evolutionary niche, are worried, anxious or downright frightened. COVID 19 is amongst us. And it is a very nasty, and sometimes fatal disease. From Italy, to France, to the USA, the world is in lock-down. We can no longer go out and about to pubs, restaurants and shops. Life as we have known it is ended – at least for the moment. Probably for ever.
Yesterday, Boris announced that pubs and restaurants must close their doors. Immediately afterwards, the Chancellor, announced the part natIonalization of our UK economy. Our government will pay up, for up to 3 months, 80% of the wages of employees on PAYE earning up to £2,500 per month, who are no longer working yet have a job. The self-employed will have to depend on upgraded welfare benefits. This is desperate stuff for desperate times.
I have much sympathy for you James but there has clearly been a long and bitter battle inside government. In a few hours it moved from mitigation (flattening the curve) to suppression (long enough to create a vaccine - one year +). A week ago Mr. Sunak offered a ‘massive’ £10bn as a package to see us through our problems. This week he’s upped it to £330bn! That’s some jump. Is this the final confirmation that government has become ultimately responsible for everyone and everything? Since 1798, when William Pitt introduced the first income tax to fund a war against Napoleon, this tax has risen in stops and starts, through the 1909 People’s Budget when social security first became a government role, to the social turmoil during both World Wars, and finally to the welfare state of today. Bit by bit the government has taken on more burden. Now suddenly it is not just the lender of last resort, it is - to use the right wing pejorative of old - the ‘nanny of last resort’. Except that no one in the Tory Party would dare use that phrase today. Now it is called social responsibility. It has realised that everyone is in this together and that we all have responsibility for each other. We are living in a single society. And this Tory Chancellor has become the first truly ‘socialist’ chancellor ever. Wow! No one saw that one coming!
But making such decisions is the easy bit. Firstly, our much derided civil service has got to make it work. The logistics are mind boggling. How do we get all this cash into the hands of the needy, quickly? But secondly, the government has got to deal with the real consequences of this massive change of everything. Our national debt which until recently has stood at a around £1.8tn, will balloon massively. We have spent the last decade in austerity, attempting to reduce this debt but now the picture changes completely. Long-term though, what will it do to your party’s social philosophy and geo-political reality? In the end you are going to have to redefine what the Tory Party stands for. Surely, small government, low tax Conservatism and its neoliberal philosophy of every man for himself, is out of the window? And what about all that ‘levelling-up’ and investment in the northern powerhouse? It all seems such a long time ago now.
On February 12, the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit an all-time high of 29,551, but on Friday, March 20, it closed at 19,173, a loss of a third of its value, wiping out the gains of which Mr Trump has boasted since 2016. Trump can see his whole project floundering. But perhaps, so can Boris? What sane government would contemplate trying to fund many billions of extra deficit at the same time as exposing us to WTO terms in a catastrophic withdrawal from the EU? Populism never did work when faced with reality and today’s reality is bigger and nastier than anyone could have guessed even a few weeks ago.
It must have been quite tiring for you this week James, so why not take a quick break, come up to Suffolk, smell the blossom and remind yourself of what it is to be truly human? Something your party might eventually consider too?
Kind regards,
BH - Your Concerned Constituent