Darren Jones: a different kettle of fish

In the right hands, the plumb job in Government is Chief Secretary to the Treasury.  Seat in Cabinet.  Just below the radar, but enormous power.  In charge of government spending - everybody needs to be your friend.   The best springboard imaginable: the partial list below is revealing[1].

And now, CSttT Darren Jones has sprung into another such job: CSttPM, no less, invented specifically for him, it seems (and to help dig the Starmermobile out of the rut in which its wheels are spinning idly as the engine races).  Yes - Darren, the sharp, confident, facetious smartarse, is in charge of more than just spending now.  Let's see what he does with it:  because such jobs and such people are in the type of pivotal position that can see significant results along several axes, personal as well as political and practical.

In business, the term once used was "troubleshooter" - a person appointed to get something Big & Awkward done, often away from the corporate centre.  Julius Caesar is perhaps the greatest example in history; there's Wellington and Slim in British military annals (and many other besides, of course).  Douglas MacArthur: the list could go on.  Right now, Putin has Sergei Kiriyenko[2].  It's happened to me three times in my career: being given plenipotentiary powers in the hope I could fix some unexpected, pressing difficulty.

The thing is: you're never sure how things will turn out - with the task itself, and what the Man does afterwards.  Caesar came back in triumph from Gaul - and immediately mounted a successful coup.  MacArthur had a coup in mind himself.  Wellington was a bit more constitutionally correct when he had the whole of Europe at his feet: he still became PM.  But Slim just quietly slipped away[3].

The troubleshooter appointment will always be given to someone believed to be capable - that's the whole point - but often also to someone viewed as maverick, which can give rise to the problematic aspect of what happens after the hoped-for success; the unwanted consequence of the Faustian pact.  And if he wasn't (identifiably) a maverick before the assignment, well, lots of power and a free hand, sometimes exercised way out over the horizon ... it can turn a man's head.  Capable, and hitherto reliable, doesn't always mean predictable.

We shall follow Mr Jones' progress with interest.

ND

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[1] Past CSttT's include: James Callaghan, Geoffrey Howe, Michael Portillo, Alistair Darling, Danny Alexander, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak.  (Oh yes, and Chris Philp, whose ambitious little heart nearly exploded at the prospect he had it made, when he briefly held the job.)

[2]  If you haven't heard of him, well most people haven't.  Aye, there's the wonder of the thing - as Sherlock Holmes said in related circumstances

[3]  Zhukov, of course, was effectively banished to Siberia!  but the CP has always been paranoid about military leaders: when you need 'em, you really need 'em.  But afterwards ...  

Sizewell: another win for French nuclear blackmail

Among the large numbers bandied around by Rachel Reeves was of course well over £10bn of UK money for Sizewell C: and FID is yet to be taken!  Exactly whether this dosh is envisaged as outright cash (as has been the case with the billions already gifted to EDF, even before FID), or dumped straight onto electricity bills, or a combination, I have not yet discerned.  

It's still outrageous - at best a humongous leap of faith, the beneficiary of which is a French concern (and indeed the French state) that has proven itself many, many times over to be unworthy of trust in such matters.  In return for what?  A plant that, even on the most ambitious and optimistic assumptions, could not be generating electricity before the next-Parliament-but-two, and in the meantime will have cost all of us a great deal of non-returnable money.  Who said politicians' horizons extend only as far as the next election at best, and the next headline at worst?

Well of course none of this is to be taken at face value.  They are already pitching for headlines reading "thousands of jobs", although as we know, the hi-tech jobs involved will without doubt be squarely located in France.  The sop of a bit of civil engineering for UK firms - and not even 100% of that, if Hinkley Point C is any guide, which of course it is explicitly meant to be!  If Keynesianism is the guiding theory, you could get a great deal more for your money on vastly more useful civil engineering projects that might actually make some kind of economic return decades sooner than SZC ever could.  Just keeping the money in the UK would be a start. 

And of course there are other short-term considerations, the giveaway being Mr Frog who, on the exact subject of demanding more money for both SZC and HPC (for which, contractually, EDF has sole responsibility) recently stated: "We [UK + France] need to stick together on many subjects - on Ukraine, on all dimensions of our relationship".  We may be sure he really means "cooperation on Small Boats", the carrot of which which the French continually dangle, and then promptly withdraw a couple of weeks later.  Oh, and we must pay for that "cooperation", too.  Such an easy game.

Why are successive UK PMs and Chancellors such soft touches?  Blair, Brown, Cameron, Osborne, May, Hammond, Johnson, Starmer, Reeves ... it's only been Sunak who has ever demurred, and then without any meaningful force.  The rest have all danced to EDF's protracted, staccato jig.  I despair.

ND

"Best prepared new govt ever" - what? UPDATED

So the story goes, that the Liz Truss meltdown at the back end of 2022 convinced the world and his dog that Labour was nailed on to be the next government.  At this point, the money and consultancy-resources started pouring in, the media suspended their critical faculties, foreign governments started paying attention to David Lammy, Sue Grey was hired to ensure the would-be ministers were knocked into shape, etc etc[1].  

In short, this was to be the best prepared, most seriously focussed incoming government in living memory.  No more Johnsons, no more Trusses - the grown-ups are in town, taking names and kicking butt!

Well.  In announcement after announcement it transpires they've been winging it all along, and continue to do so.  Just a tiny sample of nonsenses.  Energy: we're obviously covering this one in detail as it unravels, but suffice to note here that in the past few days there's been loose talk from the new energy policy establishment suggesting that when he walked into his new office Miliband had no serious plan whatever to achieve his fatuous 100%-decarb-by-2030 goal, not even a figleaf or some blotchy notes on a napkin: he's now commissioned work to establish whether it's feasible at all[2].

Housing:  any fool could have told Rayner that the Grenfell Inquiry would inevitably result in urgent works to remove and replace cladding up and down the land, absorbing a material chunk of the building industry's available pool of labour.  OK, Yvette Cooper will be told to issue a million more work visas, but it still means Labour's housing targets are as empty as their energy plans.

Tax:  we read today that plans to tighten up on non-doms might raise either nothing at all, or maybe even less than nothing, because walking away is such an easy option for the people in question  -gangway for Mrs Sunak there!  (Is this the most pronounced Laffer Curve known to man?)  But, oh dear, Reeves needed £1bn from non-doms for, err, something worthy!    

You can no doubt chip in with your favourite examples of industrial-scale non-preparedness in terms of detailed policy.  And as for the ethos of casual money-grubbing self-enrichment ...

And then there's Sue Grey herself.  Exactly where is her genius for political management and administrative competence?  Can anyone point to a single manifestation?  The best anyone seems to have on offer - and these are Starmer-directed Cabinet stooges talking off the record in vain attempts to stem the tide of sewage coursing down Whitehall - is that she's really quite a good listener, and if they butter her up nicely they might get some airtime with Starmer just once in a while.

Someone will always say:  Thatcher looked pretty stupid in her early months.  I disagree.  She certainly suffered from Cabinet dissent - not something that Starmer seems likely to replicate - because she'd picked such a 'balanced' team, including some of the most independent-minded, initiative-replete heavyweights that UK politics has produced.  Well, dissent can certainly be a drag.  But she was a master of detail, knew her mind, and had the drive to bring everything with her.  (She also had some genuine capital-P Political strategists on the team: Morgan McSweeney is just a superior student politician of the Jack Straw / George Osborne variety.)  

Very late in the day, Starmer was fed the line that awkward decisions can be dodged if you simply Go For Growth, and that's about all he's got.  A slogan.  Oh, and it's his self-proclaimed responsibility to stop the embarrassing leaks.  Too late, mate, the media have un-suspended their critical faculties and scent blood - lots of it.

Where does improvement in this government's performance come from?  It's not obvious, is it?  

ND

UPDATE:  a BTL Anon has just reminded me of something.  Before the election someone, probably Guido, wrote that Labour high command had been tipped off that a Serious Personal Scandal (within their camp) was circulating in the meejah, and would probably be disclosed during the election campaign; and that they had hatched a strategy for dealing with it.  Then everything fell silent.

If we want to go Conspiracy on this, it's not difficult.  The thing about nuclear weapons is: nobody ever really reckons The Moment has arrived to deploy them - there will always be an even rainier day when you'll need it even more.  The Tories had obviously given up the ghost already - why waste a thermo-nuclear device when there's no hope anyway?  Plus, what has Labour got on, errr, any of us?  Better hold back this time.  That would explain the silence ... but some of those Angry Spads would know ...

Or, there isn't a scintilla of truth in it!

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[1] One can point to several other amusing symptoms, my favourite being the odious Dale Vince who switched from being a financier of the revolting green yoof, to becoming a highly partisan Labour activist, to the point of very ostentatiously attacking the Green Party in seats where they looked like (and indeed were) a serious threat to Labour.    

[2] I can save him the bother, and my fees are modest compared to those of PWC.  The answer is 'Nope'.

Election blues, election reds: new compo question

I have just read the election manifestos published so far[1], and mighty depressing reading they make.  Realistically, only the Labour document has the slightest bearing on anything: and given its complete divorce from reality, even that only exists to make fun of Starmer in later years when he fails to deliver on any but the most trivial items from it.  In large part it adopts the old Blairite formula of sentences without verbs, or purely descriptive sentences[2], so that no promise whatever is contained within.

Readers will not be surprised to learn I focus most closely on the Energy sections.  Labour's is remarkable for proclaiming 650,000 new "Green Prosperity" jobs across the country by 2030.  Oh, and these will be "good" jobs - presumably of a technical nature?   Y'know, building all that truly epic amount of new stuff on their shopping list, that will deliver a zero carbon electricity system by 2030?  Right, so where is the skill base that would enable 650,000 new technical staff to spring to attention when required?  Not home-grown, that's for sure.  More work visas all round!  Or, in the alternative (as lawyers say), if 650,000 skilled personnel are required, yet another among the dozens of reasons why it ain't gonna happen.

The other phenomenon, which almost deserves some kind of psychological analysis, is that all the manifestos cheerfully state that more renewable energy will bring down energy bills forever.  Why do politicians feel able to write this utterly nonsensical stuff down in black and white?  Why do notionally intelligent people seem to believe it?  

But enough: there's no point.  Moving to more light-hearted matters:  will anyone bother to vote?  Many traditionally ultra-loyal Tories are heartily pissed off by Sunak's D-Day faux pas.  Many people assume Labour will win so comfortably, they won't need anyone actually to get off their arses and go to the poll.  Da yoof is pretty pissed off all round, and they know voting Green gets you nowhere.  So ...

2024 predictions compo: Midsummer supplementary question - what will be the voter turnout at the GE?

ND

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[1]  Nothing yet from SNP or Reform.  But we know what they think.

[2]  E.g. from the 'Make Britain a Clean Energy Superpower' chapter:

Without action, flooding and coastal erosion will pose greater risks to lives, livelihoods and people’s wellbeing

OK - so then, errr ..?   But we wait in vain, because no concrete actions are promised.

Sunak's net zero rethink: good politics?

Without the slightest doubt, every nation will be forced to rein back its 'net zero' plans - because with the technology available right now, they are infeasible, never mind costly.  That's even before we factor in the eventual but inevitable electoral unpopularity of the 'politics of compulsion'.

The questions, therefore, are of timing and tactics.  Sunak has decided to make it a General Election dividing line.  The ULEZ fiasco speaks in favour of this judgement, but as Chris Dillow is wont to say - but, but, but ...

The greens have obviously been out in force from the moment this broke - prematurely, of course and obviously leaked maliciously by Someone (the candidates for having done this are legion).  Right now it looks like a tsunami of "international condemnation" is being orchestrated.  Starmer, for sure, has absolutely no desire to be tarred with anything here, including becoming the Green Champion; so he'll just snipe judiciously and try to restrain Ed Miliband & other rank liars who'd love to promise to reinstate every crazy scheme, and more.  We know this of Starmer: he has form, including specifically on 'green' issues of which ULEZ is but one.  But there will definitely be some free hits available to him here, and he may not be put on the "OK-so-what-would-you-do?" spot very much at all.

So Sunak has gone for the 'up-front partial-truth-telling' approach, which is looking a bit, errr, courageous right now.  He should at the very minimum have come up with a Cummings-style Very Good Slogan: "more pragmatic, proportionate and realistic" is not it !

What other strategies are available to governments wishing to back-pedal, as they all must?  Here are some:

• say nothing, but simply miss all targets as they come along, as will inevitably be the case, and deal piecemeal with whatever opprobrium arises, as and when.  Hope it's the other lot that will have to break the Bad News.  (Even Sunak is still doing a bit of this - viz retention of the NZ 2050 target.)
• wait until after an election
• quietly but positively engineer delays in costly net zero measures (easily done) so that, perhaps imperceptibly to observers, the actual costs being incurred are materially reduced
• build consensus before back-pedaling, via a careful campaign of softening up pubic opinion
• wait for an absolute crisis which clearly derails their net zero plans, so that nobody demurs (actually, we just had one of those and it was only partially exploited thus)
• come up with a quid-pro-quo that the electorate finds rather attractive, e.g. - enough of the crazy heat pumps, but we are going to insulate all your homes

UPDATE: spurred by Matt's comment BTL, there is another consideration - the crazy aspect of having targets "legally binding".  Well, Parliament can do whatever it likes but in jurisprudence terms, this is a real nonsense and, as we've seen, leads to endless fatuous court cases, in the UK and other countries.  As I've written before, there will logically come a point where either (a) the courts tire of this, and rule in such a way as to neuter it, and/or (b) governments tire of it, and legislate it away.  Another item for the strategy list.   

What do we reckon on all this?  Maybe Sunak reckons he has to take risks like this if there's to be any hope at the next GE.  Has he judged the politics of this correctly, or has he been just too candid for his own good?

ND

Smack of Firm Government?

Seven months ago I wrote that in his problems with public sector pay on many fronts, Sunak had been immeasurably helped by the sheer number of concurrent disputes, and the extreme claims being made in some of them.  There was 'obviously' no scope for him to concede them all, so he would find it easier to resist[1] them en bloc.

And thus, it seems, things have transpired.  How many PMs have even been able to stand at the lectern and say, no more talking, that's yer lot  -  and plausibly get away with it?  But, plus or minus the junior doctors, he might have done.

Even more remarkably, he even chucked in a culture-war twist: the award is to be partially funded 'by "significantly" increasing charges for migrants coming to the UK when they apply for visas and the levy they pay to access the NHS'.  To my amazement this has been very little commented upon (yet), and we may guess any belated squeals will not be originating officially from the Opposition front bench[2]. 

Is this the fabled Smack of Firm Government?  It has some of the trappings.  And in Starmer's current mode of saying 'no' (to the considerable dismay of the Left & the greenies) to everything that anyone suggests deserves a call on his largesse when putatively in power, presumably he's essentially going to take this development lying down - though it is always possible to script a hostile soundbite in response to anything.

So how does it all play?  Does it basically strengthen Sunak's standing with voters?   Or will it be a cause of sullen resentment?  A lot will depend on "whether it works", i.e. whatever inflation does next.  In any event, Starmer's stern stance makes resentment a lot harder to parlay into votes for Labour, so maybe it's the smaller parties that pick up the resenters.  Which, of course, may be a decent second-best for the Tories at the next GE.

ND

UPDATES:

(a) the predicted cries of anguish haven't been long in coming - from "charities, unions and politicians".  "Borderline racist", they cry.  But not Labour politicians, naturally (see above).

(b) see strikethrough below and dearieme's comment 

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[1] Of course, BTL here Kev has pointed out the remarkable inflation-busting 'award' already made (passively, under the triple-lock) to pensioners, possibly to be repeated next time too.  But, hey, priorities / politics / votes.

[2] I find it hard to believe we've heard the last of this.  Not least, because the Tories are likely to big it up in order to provoke a leftie response. 

 

Open Thread: BUDGET DAY

Any signs of an Actual Strategy that we can see?  Or is that too much to expect?

ND

David Cameron is right - no new taxes now

Rishi Sunak, so beloved of the media last year as Chancellor giveaway, had a harder time addressing the media ahead of the UK Budget this week. over the weekend. 

He has been harassed by panicky mandarins into raising some taxes to plug the enormous deficit caused by the Covid pandemic inspired economic shutdown. 

However, as David Cameron said last week. We don't know how deep the damage really is until we re-open the economy. It might well bounce back fairly well. 

Of course, there are hundreds of billions blown on furlough and tax collection is well down, there is a huge hole in the Government balance sheet. But the same is true across the world. Raising taxes on business is his favourite idea, along with taxes on entrepreneurship. 

Given the current impact of Brexit, this is the worst idea of a tax rise. Right now, we need to stop businesses relocating to Luxembourg, Dublin and elsewhere in the EU. Having paying businesses leave the Country for the EU is a loss in a zero sum game. 

Instead, the Chancellor should be doing a mini-budget, introducing some austerity to public spending ex-NHS and reducing the furlough scheme from April. Then, when hopefully things are more normal in the Autumn better stock can be taken of what needs to be done to pay for the pandemic over future years. 

All that really matters is that we get Government income and tax rises at the right level to start reducing the debt as a percentage of GDP in 2022 - anything before that is likely to have a net negative impact on an already sclerotic economy. 

Tax rises during lockdown is surely the worst idea yet from the Treasury! If you had too, then maybe a digital tax on online sales as part of the great re-balancing around business rates and the changing economic model - but in theory these should be tax neutral changes in any event. 

Budget reaction - blurgh

What budget?




Despite getting a good review in the media, Rishi Sunak's first budget has been lost in the global crisis. Was it any good?

Time will tell but my hunch is turning on the spending taps is the right call this year, the Tories have reduced the deficit and Debt/GDP ratio substantially and there is at least some room to have a year or two like this. Not unrealted are that Gilt issues are below 0%. the current cost of extra borrowing is positive - what a bizarre world we live in.

Will it help if the markets dive down into the 4000's and all but gaurantee a deep recession - a little but then the fun will begin as social security spending balloons and we have a mini-2009 deficit situation again.

At least we won't be alone, as this is more or less a global crisis that began in China...