Turning corners
Rishi Sunak is obviously hanging on for something, anything which will enable him to say that the British economy is turning a corner.
His best hope is that the recession ends soon and he can claim to be out of the woods, but then he got us in the woods in the first place and we will emerge with low growth and low wages, so I doubt he will get much leeway with that one.
His next best hope is that the Bank of England cuts interest rates, but first he has done nothing to bring down inflation and secondly the Bank looks likely to hold on for longer before cutting the cost of borrowing. It thinks that inflation is stubbornly high and worse here than elsewhere.
Even if rates tumble and growth soars, the PM is not out of the woods. Just look at the scandals surrounding the government; tax dodging, PPE, the Post Office, Rwanda, dodgy donors etc. Then there are the problems which the government can’t or won’t deal with, we are spending 1/4 of the foreign aid fund on housing asylum seekers, Rwanda is a millstone, housing is a scandal, taxes are rising, the NHS is crumbling, defence an embarrassment.
Also he must have a real fear that there is another major scandal or problem out there.
Not MP’s sending dodgy pics or giving in to blackmail but what would the government say if real corruption was uncovered, a major politician was arrested, the report into Russian influence was leaked?
I strongly believe that there is at least one major unknown problem and/or scandal out there, there are just so many former cabinet ministers with insider knowledge and axes to grind, and the PM is at their mercy.
Why else could he let former cabinet ministers meddle in our diplomatic relations with Israel, or party with Nigel Farage, or blame a “deep state” for government failures, or even protect William Wragg?
Rishi Sunak is in office but not power, and even worse is at the mercy of his own backbenchers and events and he knows it.
Turning a corner for the PM doesn’t just mean slightly better economic news, he also needs competence, loyalty, honesty, morals, efficiency, decency, policies, leadership and control.
He will be lucky to get any of those.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.
By Jonty Bloom Media