There are alternative ways of looking at politicians who rapidly change the script.
The traditional riposte is to describe it mockingly as a U-turn. A kindlier approach is to follow the diktat of the nation’s most celebrated economist, John Maynard Keynes, who insisted that when facts change, he changes.
Rachel Reeves has embarked on an ambitious reversal with her emphasis on growth. Indeed, it is not just the Chancellor who is changing but the tone of the whole Government.
Appearing on the Robert Peston show on ITV last week, Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall abandoned the stale rhetoric of the Tory legacy of a £22billion black hole and waxed lyrical about all the great stuff that Britain does in tech, pharma and creative industries.
Currently it is impossible to turn on the TV without hearing Britain’s gloomster-in-chief, the Chancellor, describing how she is going to unleash growth.
As laudable as this change of heart may be – getting behind Britain’s cutting-edge AI, bio-sciences, finance and creative sectors is critical – the horse already has bolted.
Turnaround: Chancellor Rachel Reeves has embarked on an ambitious reversal with her emphasis on growth
The £40billion tax-raising Budget and workplace reforms have scared employers to death. Jobs are being shed and companies, such as WH Smith (see below), are rethinking operations.
No week begins without surveys showing how the Government’s previous rhetoric and actions have erased consumer and business confidence.
The employers’ group, the CBI, which had great hopes for Labour, forecasts a ‘significant decline’ in business activity over the next three months as jobs freely are axed.
Incomes Data Research says firms are likely to cut pay awards in the coming months, in response to tax hikes, damaging consumer spending.
The silver lining is that the despair may encourage the Bank of England to go faster on reducing bank rate from 4.75 per cent when it meets next week.
So what do we know so far about Reeves’s growth push? She is bravely taking on the green zealots in Cabinet and among Labour MPs over airport expansion.
The Chancellor is going maximalist, supporting change at all London airports. That means greater use of runaways at Gatwick, terminal improvements at Luton (badly needed!) and, most boldly, a third runway at Heathrow.
The latter is hugely important and critical to London’s role as an entrepot and services dominated economy – but with the best will in world that is not going to happen over the next decade.
Historically, among the biggest opponents is British Airways owner IAG which fears losing its iron grip on the best Heathrow landing slots.
A common theme of many of the Reeves growth proposals is that they don’t increase government spending.
Planning changes will be helpful and ideas for housing, on the grey and greenbelt around railways stations, are not new.
They were first explored by former chancellor Sir Sajid Javid when it was part of his portfolio. But it is possible to make a difference by taking on ‘nimbyism’.
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner already has shown a willingness to reverse past rulings giving the go-ahead to M&S’s proposed redevelopment on Oxford Street in central London.
The best way to power-up output is technology, as evidenced by the US. The decision to revive a plan to create a tech-hub on the Oxford-Cambridge arc must be right given the new tech and biosciences pouring out of the labs there.
But it also needs a step lift in government R&D expenditure and tax breaks. Reeves was off to terrible start when she cancelled Edinburgh’s supercomputer project in her July 30 audit.
She has little choice but to repent on pessimism having rapidly lost support on the markets, in business and among consumers. The concern must be that the damage is irreversible.
Risky refit
WH Smith is not the first UK company to decide a traditional business – its British news, stationery and books chain – is a distraction from a faster growing enterprise.
Tate & Lyle extracted itself from sugar, GSK from consumer healthcare and so on.
But too many high streets already are sad cases and the possibility of 500 stores in uncertain ownership, with 200 Post Offices sacrificed, is alarming.
Beware get-rich-quick sharks, posing as turnaround merchants, aiming to squeeze every penny out of property assets with no interest in fortifying a great UK fixture.
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