T.I.N.A

The Chancellor is obviously under immense pressure, she needs to not spook the markets but she needs to borrow and invest a lot, lot more. Education, prisons defence, the NHS all are broken, HS2 is a joke, investment is far too low, house building is a disaster, the list of must do’s goes on and on; meanwhile the right wing press are attacking a government with a huge majority relentlessly.

We are in danger of getting into the situation in America, which is basically the fault of Newt Gingrich, who came up with a cunning plan. The Republicans would never admit they had lost an election, would block every law and policy they could regardless of its worth or whether they actually supported it.

The result is Trump, a rigged Supreme Court and politicians calling on Joe Biden to do more to help Florida when they voted against the funds to let him do that.

The opposition have to let the winners govern. In 1945 Winston Churchill told his friends that the British public had heard quite enough from him and obviously wanted a rest, he was back in power within 6 years.

Whichever non-entity wins the Tory leadership would do well to remember those words. Meanwhile while Winston was concentrating on his painting, Clem Attlee built the NHS, the welfare state, nationalised vast swathes of industry, developed the bomb and successfully turned the economy from war production into a consumer society; which ensured 30 years of growth.

It can be done but whether the state or the government is good or wise enough to do the same is doubtful and we know that with just 122 MPs the Tories are going to snipe all day every day for 5 years.

In the end Labour lost and the Tories reaped the benefit of their hard work, but it was still the most successful government in post war history.

Someone has to do the right thing and we know now it can never be the Tories, someone has to break the doom loop of always searching for tax cuts regardless of the state of the nation.

We need to invest, huge amounts, we have decades of missed opportunities to make up for. There is no alternative.

Jonty’s Jottings

Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.

By Jonty Bloom Media