DAILY MAIL COMMENT: No more buckling on dash for growth, PM
Politicians, said Tony Benn, need to be signposts, not weather vanes.
Not constantly spun around by the fickle winds of public opinion, but pointing the way ahead – unyielding in the face of criticism or challenge.
Liz Truss became Prime Minister indicating that, in tough times, she’d be that signpost. Rather than chase positive headlines, she declared she had the iron will to take unpopular decisions based on what she believed was good for Britain.
Well, that went well. Yesterday, not even a month into her fledgling leadership, she buckled at the first sign of trouble.
Liz Truss became Prime Minister indicating that, in tough times, she’d be a signpost pointing the way ahead
It was deeply humiliating that just 24 hours after insisting her logical plan to abolish the 45p top income tax rate was set in stone, she and Kwasi Kwarteng performed a screeching U-turn.
Of course, it takes strength of character and courage to stand up to a baying mob, especially a political one. But how depressing they flunked the test so badly.
For there were sound economic reasons for the tax break, a centrepiece of the Chancellor’s mini-Budget. The reform sought to make it easier for Britain to attract top talent and incentivise entrepreneurship.
So why has the Government backpedalled? As soon as the proposal was unveiled, the Left toxified it – squealing falsely and maliciously that the Tories were doing nothing but lining the rich’s pockets during a cost of living crisis.
And why was Labour’s hypocrisy not called out forcefully? After all, Miss Truss sought only to return the top rate to 40p – the level that existed throughout New Labour’s 13-year rule, bar the final month.
That would be lower than the rate in France and Germany, and closer to that of the US – boosting our competitiveness. Ministers’ failure to explain and defend the policy has been naive at best, inept at worst.
With the Party’s popularity plummeting, it’s no wonder that a raft of Conservative MPs (whipped into a frenzy by embittered Rishi Sunak supporters and the anti-Tory broadcasters) showed all the spine of jellyfish and successfully got it scrapped.
So we now have the worst of both worlds. Miss Truss’s and Mr Kwarteng’s political credibility and authority battered. And stuck with a tax which raises a trivial sum and deters investment.
The tragedy is, the mini-Budget was incredibly positive, with three hugely popular measures – unprecedented help with families’ energy bills, a penny off the basic rate of income tax and the loathed national insurance hike spiked.
It is imperative Miss Truss holds her nerve on her radical agenda, which rejects the failed high-tax, low-growth consensus and aims to adrenalize our atrophying economy, creating jobs and prosperity.
But smarting Sunak-ites seem determined to destabilise her as she battles to lift Britain out of the economic doldrums.
Next in their sights is her plan to save £7billion in welfare payments to help meet the cost of the tax-cutting revolution and energy handouts.
And having scented blood, might they spitefully scupper any crucial reforms needed in planning, energy and infrastructure to get the UK moving?
The reality is, Miss Truss’s policies are the only hope of avoiding a Labour government. Yet the rebels seem to hate her more than they fear Sir Keir Starmer and his Left-wing cranks seizing power.
While he poses as a centre ground politician, no one should forget Labour’s leader fought tooth and nail to get Marxist anti-Semite Jeremy Corbyn into No 10. His tax-and-spend policies would ruin Britain.
Squabbling Tories must ask themselves seriously whether they would prefer to see Miss Truss in Downing Street – or the man who tried to thwart Brexit for years and thinks women can have penises?
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