Hard times: why Rachel Reeves must be bold and ditch her Dickensian rulebook | Will Hutton
In her crucial statement this week, the chancellor would do well to reject the Gradgrind mindsetThere are two inconvenient if fundamental truths about Britain’s economic and budgetary stasis. The first: Labour’s ceaseless repetition about its terrible legacy has led its army of critics from left and right almost to dismiss the profundity of our economic plight as political staging. Yet a succession of feckless, intellectually bankrupt Conservative governments really did leave a disastrous mess.The second: while there must be a determined response, it must be more than regressing to the Gradgrind orthodoxies of the penny-wise, pound-foolish “Treasury brain”. A Labour government must have a credible political vision and some imaginative, progressive ways of finessing the desperate need for more resources for defence, together with repairing our overstretched public services; of boosting growth and raising extra revenue that does not provoke electoral wrath. It’s not just the Labour party and its voters that expect this – so do financial markets, which understand that economic and political credibility are intertwined. Continue reading...
In her crucial statement this week, the chancellor would do well to reject the Gradgrind mindset
There are two inconvenient if fundamental truths about Britain’s economic and budgetary stasis. The first: Labour’s ceaseless repetition about its terrible legacy has led its army of critics from left and right almost to dismiss the profundity of our economic plight as political staging. Yet a succession of feckless, intellectually bankrupt Conservative governments really did leave a disastrous mess.
The second: while there must be a determined response, it must be more than regressing to the Gradgrind orthodoxies of the penny-wise, pound-foolish “Treasury brain”. A Labour government must have a credible political vision and some imaginative, progressive ways of finessing the desperate need for more resources for defence, together with repairing our overstretched public services; of boosting growth and raising extra revenue that does not provoke electoral wrath. It’s not just the Labour party and its voters that expect this – so do financial markets, which understand that economic and political credibility are intertwined. Continue reading...
