Place your bets
So the campaign has started in the press for the Chancellor to do more to help with the cost of living crisis. The poor Chancellor listened to his party, which still witters on about being the party of low taxation, and saved up his considerable war chest for a pre-election give away.
As a children of Thatcherism this is to be expected, the current generation has been brought up a diet of unfailing devotion to the Iron Lady.
I have thought long and hard about why this is and why it lead to Brexit. The fact is that the Tory party cannot abide the fact that the UK is not a world power anymore, hence all this rubbish about Global Britain.
Joining the EU was a way of turning Europe into a significant world player because none of its constituent parts was capable of doing so anymore, but that was treason to the Tories.
Because this decline coincided with the welfare state, it had to be at fault and has been undermined by them ever since.
British workers are lazy, not poorly educated, trained and managed. They need to have the threat of poverty hang over them to make them work harder.
This has all been justified by spurious economics, remember trickle down economics or monetarism or all tax cuts raise more money? Just enough of an intellectual justification for doing what they wanted to do all along.
Just look at P&O Ferries, the Tories want to slash workers protections further.
Place your bets on when the Chancellor will be forced back to the Commons to do more for the poorest.
But don’t hold your breath - it won’t be enough. It is not in his nature.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.