Hopefully it will be crisis averted, and we’ll have a bit more time to fix the hole. But sooner or later, difficult choices on tax and spending are coming.
Ministers can carry on trying, through the British Business Bank or directly, to push on this Gordian Knot – or slice through it.
I’m acutely aware that in our rural communities, where we are a few weeks behind major cities, knowing someone in hospital is more rare.
Whether moderate right Conservative, or moderate left, austerity is dead, and this new age will be with us for a long time to come.
The reason we will get away with it again, as we did in the banking crash, is that there is so much deflation around, inflation is not a problem.
The theoretical aim of policy then should be bridging over what is hopefully a short pause in activity – eliminating near-term distress for households and businesses.
The implications of the crisis are such that Johnson and Sunak need not so much to think outside the box as to trample it to tatters altogether.
Sooner rather than later, they will find a growing number of constituents coming to them for help with this latest twist in the housing crisis.
We are in danger of losing sight of the simple truth which has been a favoured phrase of Tory politicians through the ages: borrowing today is simply taxation deferred.
In the first piece of a mini-series, our guest author also argues the Government should look again at IR35, and make it more worthwhile to work.
My answer would be “maybe, provided the spending or tax cuts significantly improved our growth potential.”
They keep changing. But does it matter? For the last 30 years, when it comes to the public finances, the diet always starts tomorrow.
The Transport Secretary insists the Manifesto pledge to lower debt over this Parliament will be honoured.
In this new political battle, the greatest tension will not be left v right or even fiscal
doves v economic hawks. It will be a battle between creativity and convention.
As in 2008, the line between survival and disaster will rest on the bond markets’ trust in the British Government and on the reputation of the Bank of England.