The Sunday Times - UK (2022-05-29)

24 The Sunday Times May 29, 2022

COMMENT

Robert Colvile

on those most in need, while absolutely

the right thing to do, means some will be

a lot worse off than others.

So Sunak is in the strange position of

handing out huge amounts while

warning people they will still get poorer.

There is a parallel here with NHS waiting

lists: because of the godawful Covid

backlog, the government is spending

billions more to ensure not that things

will get better by the next election, but

that they will get less worse.

Politically, this is not a place any

government wants to be. That is why,

despite the generally positive reception

for the chancellor’s measures, those in

Downing Street aren’t getting ahead of

themselves. They know it’s hard to win

on bread-and-butter issues in a world

where the butter costs a fiver.

Can the Tories pull through? One

senior figure has been reading back

through the memoirs of Thatcher,

Lawson and Howe to find how they

coped with similar periods of economic

dislocation. His conclusion was that the

government can survive if it keeps a

united front and tells the electorate a

consistent story about what is

happening and why it is doing the right

things. But in today’s Tory party, unity

and discipline can be in short supply.

@RColvile

in cash terms, and the value of that cash

falling, how many secretaries of state

will be willing to economise, and how

many will come to the Treasury

demanding a budget boost? No 11 will

argue that ministers have a choice

between spending now and tax cuts at

the election. But the prime minister is

not the only Tory whose policy on cake

is both to have it and eat it.

In other words, Sunak got his

decisions broadly right last week — with

the exception of the damaging decision

to impose a windfall tax, the only

consolation of which is that it is

enormously popular. Households really

did need extra support. And the limited

inflationary impact will probably be

offset by further interest rate hikes —

though that will add to voters’ pain.

The political problem, however, is

that the chancellor is not compensating

people enough — and never can. After

the spring statement, the Office for

Budget Responsibility estimated that he

had cushioned them from about a third

of the impact of the cost-of-living shock.

Economists I’ve spoken to guesstimate

that the many extra billions handed out

last week still take the proportion to less

than half. Even if there are more

giveaways in autumn, most of us will still

be worse off. And focusing the spending

within government. The public sector

unions will demand huge salary

increases — the railway workers are

already leading the charge. The

government will want to stand firm, to

help ensure inflation remains a

temporary problem rather than a

permanent condition. But some in the

Treasury are worried ministers may not

stand firm themselves. With budgets set

The chancellor, in his speech, insisted

that the Bank of England could get on

top of this. But the Bank’s governor is

rather less sure. Earlier this month, he

told MPs he was effectively powerless in

the face of global price surges. And he

has a point. Inflation here is moving in

lockstep with the rest of the West.

There is a silver lining. Because they

stop people spending money on other

things, energy price shocks contain the

seeds of their own destruction. Less

economic activity means less demand

for oil and gas, which means prices fall.

There are, however, two problems.

“Everyone stopping spending money” is

also called “a recession”. And even that

may not curb inflation if it has really

become baked into the system — escaped

the containment field, in my gizzard-

related analogy.

One crucial test of this will be the

scale of pay rises. It is a great Tory

achievement that unemployment is at its

lowest since 1974, though the shrinking

of the workforce post-Covid has played a

part in that. Yet that also means the

labour market is incredibly tight. If firms

start giving workers huge pay rises,

whether to cope with price increases or

just to keep them from defecting, it

could pump inflation up further.

This, indeed, will be the next big fight

O

n Thursday, Rishi Sunak spent

an enormous amount of

money. Once you add together

the £400 subtracted from

every consumer energy bill,

the extra support for

pensioners and those on

benefits, and the welfare

increases promised next year, you end

up with a larger amount than was

pledged in the entire 2019 Conservative

manifesto. In other words, the

chancellor spent more on cost of living

in a single afternoon than his party once

promised to spend over five years on

everything.

But, to look at it another way, Sunak

didn’t spend nearly enough. By autumn,

Ofgem expects the energy price cap to

stand at £2,800 — £1,500 higher than at

the beginning of the year. So for millions

of working households, that £400 is a

plaster, not a painkiller.

But the problem goes deeper than

that. The Institute for Fiscal Studies,

which specialises in UK taxation and

public policy, estimates that once you

net the tax rises against the tax cuts, the

spending announced last week and in

March is equivalent to 0.5 per cent of our

national income — a very big number.

The Resolution Foundation, another

think tank, says that all this cash will

“offset 82 per cent of [the] energy price

rise, rising to 93 per cent for poorer

households”.

This crisis, though, is no longer just

about gas bills. Early in his speech,

Sunak warned that, “even excluding

energy and food, core inflation has

become broader-based and elevated”.

This is the economic equivalent of the

moment in a movie when a lab-coated

scientist shouts: “Oh God, they’ve

breached the containment field!” —

shortly before his gizzards are devoured

by extradimensional horrors.

As we found in the 1970s, a world

where energy is expensive is a world

where everything else is too. Heating

homes. Driving cars. Building things in

factories. Making fertiliser. Growing

crops. Hence my local Tesco now trying

to charge me £5 for a tub of Lurpak.

This feeds into the wider economy.

Research in the US confirms that for

every extra dollar people have to spend

filling their car with petrol, they cut

other spending by the same amount.

Earlier this month, as reported by Tim

Shipman, polling by Portland

Communications found 58 per cent of

those surveyed had stopped themselves

spending money in the previous week

because they felt poorer. And as people

spend less, the economy suffers.

Even if there are

more giveaways

in autumn, most

of us will still

be worse off

The problem for a chancellor who likes to dig

deep: it won’t touch the sides of this crisis

A beggar

benefits

from the

generosity

of the

Scottish

reformer

George

Wishart

All wrong

Liddle objects to being asked,

“How can I help you today?”

I’d love it if that question

were posed instead of the

ubiquitous, “Are you all right

there?”

Helena Newton, Ilford

Sinking feeling

Liddle will no doubt share my

concern when hearing

Memory bunk

Can Liddle now deal with

phrases like “I’m making

memories”? I am in my

seventies and never set out to

“make memories”. Was I

lacking as a mother? My

children remember things we

did together. But making

memories? Oh come on...

Brenda Ellis

Martock, Somerset

Top up

The latest Sunday Times Rich

List (last week) highlights

again the huge increase in

wealth. Since 1980 the total

wealth of British households

has surged from three times

GDP to over seven times.

However, tax on wealth has

remained flat.

As the cost-of-living crisis

causes misery for millions,

we need to find new sources

of income to ease the pain. A

tax on some of the large gains

in wealth needs to be part of

the solution.

Mubin Haq, chief executive

abrdn Financial Fairness

Trust, Edinburgh

Loving and giving

The French economist

Thomas Piketty showed five

years ago the way to reduce

the continuously growing gap

between rich and poor is a

wealth tax. This also assists in

redistribution, essential for a

Christian society.

Church Action for Tax

Justice campaigns for such a

tax: £10 billion could be

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LETTERS

TO THE EDITOR

The Sunday Times,

1 London Bridge Street,

London SE1 9GF

Email: letters@

sunday-times.co.uk

1453 Constantinople

captured by Ottoman army

and renamed Istanbul

1942 Bing Crosby records

world’s biggest hit: 50m-

selling White Christmas

1953 Edmund Hillary and

Tenzing Norgay reach

summit of Mount Everest

1985 At Heysel stadium,

Brussels, 39 fans die in

Liverpool v Juventus match

Rupert Everett is 63 today

ANNIVERSARIES

BIRTHDAYS POINTS

Annette Bening, actress, 64

Mel Brown, Spice Girl, 47

Danny Elfman, composer, 69

Rupert Everett, actor, 63

Noel Gallagher, rock star, 55

Prof Peter Higgs, particle

physicist, 93

Nanette Newman, actress, 88

Martin Pipe, racehorse

trainer, 77

He gets my vote

Thank you for cheering up

my Sunday morning. The

photo of a broad-shouldered

man casting his vote in

swimming trunks, with his

little girl wrapped up against

the coming winter, captures

the essence of Sydney’s

eastern beach suburbs

brilliantly. It may well be

posed, but it’s none the worse

for that.

Penny Metcalfe

Nailsworth, Gloucestershire

Nudes worthy

Camilla Long queries the

value of “getting one’s boobs

out” as a form of protest on

the red carpet (Comment,

last week). The point is not to

blame those at the event for

Russian war crimes, but

rather to ensure the attention

of the world is on the issue.

The protester appears to have

achieved this.

Sarah Asan, London N10

Follow my leader

Philip Sherwell says of North

Korea’s Covid surge that Kim

Jong-un “is deploying the

classic despot playbook of

finding fall guys for the

failings of the state”. Tim

Shipman writes of the No 10

parties: “For months Johnson

has told anyone who will

listen that ... he was badly let

down.” No similarities there.

Ian Harvey, Norwich

Failing with age

As a 77-year-old graduate I

can pass all the standard tests

for dementia, yet I can’t

remember much about

recent holidays and family

occasions (“Better-educated

people ‘can hide dementia

longer’”, News, last week). A

CT scan showed small vessel

disease and slight shrinkage

of the brain. As these are part

of ageing, professionals are

dismissive. But it is evident to

those closest to me that

something is very amiss.

Barbara Burford

Hemel Hempstead

Slotting in a goal

I share neither the religious

nor the sexual leanings of

Richard Coles, but I was

delighted to see him

contributing to Week Ending

(Comment, last week).

He is so evidently kind and

generous of spirit, and his

piece about the footballer

Jake Daniels was the best I’ve

read in that slot.

Richard Minter

Calne, Wiltshire

Gâteau guzzler

I disagree with David Austins

(Letters, last week) about

cake being for sharing. Cake

is for having it and eating it,

as Boris Johnson has so ably

demonstrated.

Ali Kelman, Fetcham, Surrey

Loose threads

The conclusion of the

Metropolitan Police opaque

inquiry into No 10 parties

leaves several serious

questions unanswered. For

example, why were more

recipients of fines female,

why were recipients

primarily in junior positions

and, in particular, is the Met

considering entering a

candidate into next year’s

Great British Sewing Bee?

Adrian Hetherington

Worksop

More letters are published

online: sundaytimes.co.uk

raised by a tax of 1.1 per cent

on wealth above £10 million.

The Patriotic Millionaires

would settle for £5 million:

that’s true patriotism.

The Rev David Haslam

Evesham

Easing does it

Your editorial (Comment, last

week) is guilty of the “lazy

cry” that no new money can

be created. Overcoming the

banking and Covid crisis was

predominantly paid for by

the Bank of England’s

quantitative easing (QE)

programme: between 2009

and 2021, £895 billion of new

money was created, with no

resulting inflation.

It’s time for QE3.

Colin Hines, Twickenham

Flat rate

Given Sunak’s 222nd position

in your Rich List, it is obvious

he should be our next prime

minister. For a start, he would

have no difficulty in paying

for the redecoration of the

Downing Street flat.

Peter Cash, Stoke-on-Trent

GETTY IMAGES

The government seems to be

paralysed by disagreement

over how to deal with the

cost-of-living crisis (News, last

week). It’s seldom I find

myself agreeing with Iain

Duncan Smith, but there is a

system explicitly designed to

help the poorest: benefits.

Any other solution to the

crisis (reducing VAT, two-year

MoTs and so on) will spend

more taxpayers’ money for

less benefit to those who

need it. Some solutions

(lower income tax thresholds;

cuts in fuel tax) actually help

the rich more. The only

possible reason anyone is

talking about them is that

many Tory MPs would rather

do anything than raise

benefits. It’s an attitude that’s

been in play since the time of

Elizabeth I: if the poor are not

starved, they won’t work.

Jeremy Cushing

Taddyforde, Exeter

Northern exposure

With regard to rising energy

costs, I would point out that

temperatures are usually

lower in northern than

southern Britain. This means

that, especially in late winter

and spring, the heating has to

be switched on more in the

north than the south. Could

there be some regional

allowance to reflect this?

Andrew Whiteley

Consett, Co Durham

Expat duty

Many private pension

schemes rely on business

success to build the savings of

their members. A windfall tax

on energy firms would hurt

those who don’t benefit from

a public sector scheme.

I suggest the chancellor

follows America’s lead and

taxes all UK passport-holders

on global earnings, wherever

they live. The Treasury would

get a welcome boost from

five million extra taxpayers.

David Crowther

Melton Mowbray

Raise benefits or admit you want the poor to suffer

conduct themselves is insane.

They wouldn’t allow them do

it did for anything else.

Schools are there to educate

children. Indulging their

immature and ill-informed

beliefs about gender identity

is doing the exact opposite.

Liz Langrick, Mansfield

Victorian views

All the child wanted was to be

respected. To force a child

into not just a name but a

whole identity they are not

comfortable with is cruel.

This teacher has old-

fashioned views in a modern

world and should go the way

of the loom.

Richard Curtis, Ascot

American airline captains

announce that “we will be in

the air momentarily”.

Neil Mendoza,

Bushey, Hertfordshire

Working definition

I’d like to add “work

colleagues” to Liddle’s

collection. What other sort is

there?

Andrew Critcher, Macclesfield

Pupil’s side of the story

I am in year 8 at a London

comprehensive. The

countless times I have

witnessed bullying of my

LGBTQ+ peers shows another

side to the story.

In many schools most

children would support

teachers if they refused to use

a pupil’s preferred pronouns

and name. It is very bold of

the pupil in the article to tell

the whole school how they

identify.

Name and address withheld on

request

Bad education

Letting children dictate to

teachers how they should

social care problems

alongside their traditional

callouts to life-threatening

illness and injury. NHS

Providers recently estimated

that England’s ambulance

trusts are underfunded by

£240 million a year.

The public generally has

great faith in the ambulance

service, but the government

does not appear committed

to tackling the challenges it

faces. That has to change.

Professor Leo McCann

University of York

Give waste the boot

Following Jim Crean’s

comments on NHS waste

(Letters, last week), I

ruptured my Achilles tendon

last year. After two week in

plaster I was fitted with a

Vacoped boot, a wonderful

piece of German engineering.

When I asked where to

return the boot ten weeks

later, I was told to “bin it”.

They cost £240 online. The

cynic in me suspects the NHS

is paying twice that to some

dodgy middleman.

Robert Shotton

Nantwich, Cheshire

NHS relapsing

into cover-ups

Your story “NHS covered up

ambulance deaths scandal”

(News, last week) showed

how far we have to go to have

an open and fair culture

across the NHS. In 2014 the

government brought in a legal

“duty of candour” — a legal

requirement for NHS bodies

to be open and honest when

things go wrong and cause

harm to patients.

It was a watershed

moment for the NHS. No

longer would cover-ups be

tolerated — or so we hoped.

Things are improving, but

to complete the job we need

to see robust action taken

when organisations do

breach the duty of candour.

Peter Walsh, chief executive

Action against Medical

Accidents

Trouble at the top

This latest ambulance deaths

cover-up scandal is yet

further evidence that the NHS

is broken. But who is

ultimately responsible for

driving a culture of secrecy

and silencing whistleblowers?

A 30-minute delay in

getting to my father’s

witnessed cardiac arrest last

July revealed that NHS

England and Sajid Javid, the

health secretary, had known

for weeks that trusts across

the country were not

providing timely emergency

care for heart attacks and

strokes, resulting in countless

unnecessary deaths.

Simultaneously, years of

political failure to tackle

head-on two of the biggest

drivers of the population’s

dire health, Big Food and Bad

Pharma, has resulted in a

healthcare system that can no

longer cope with the strain.

Dr Aseem Malhotra

Consultant cardiologist and

president of the Public Health

Collaboration

State of emergency

The pressures on the UK

ambulance service are

unsustainable. About 30,000

calls a day are made to 999,

and ambulance crews are

increasingly dealing with

primary care, psychiatric and

Teachers despair

over trans wars

The story of the teacher who

felt forced to leave their

school because of gender

identity policies (News, last

week) is not uncommon.

Many cannot bear being

compelled to lie to children.

When a girl is “affirmed”

as a boy and socially

transitioned, often behind

parents’ backs, ideology is

overriding reality in a way

that may harm the child.

Teachers are not qualified to

make such decisions.

Stephanie Davies-Arai,

director, Transgender Trend

The howlers that

make us scream

One omission from Rod

Liddle’s list of grammatical

horrors (Comment, last

week) is using “basis” instead

of an adverb. As in “I exercise

on a daily basis” (daily).

Peter Cartledge

Tetchill, Shropshire

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We’d like to report that it was

Nicola Benedetti’s views on

boycotting Russian musicians

that had Culture readers

sparring. But no. They were

arguing about dinosaur sex.

“‘We learn that T. rex only

made noise when it was

mating,’” a sceptical Geoff

Corner wrote, quoting our

review of David

Attenborough’s new

television show — “how does

a study of a fossil tell us this?”

bluearmyfaction had an

inkling: “The programme will

probably say.” Steve

Shepherd already knew:

“Researchers looked at over

200 species of modern birds

and when their ancestors

evolved the ability to make

closed-mouth vocalisations

...” Actually, Steve, do you

mind if we watch the

programme after all?

Cheese and onion

chocolate divided readers too

— in some cases because it

was too tame. Noel Hegarty

demanded “a salt-and-

vinegar-with-dark-chocolate

version”. He’d opened the

weird-food floodgates, and

Bob Blunt revealed: “In

Wigan they’ve been known to

sell pie and blue cheese

panini.” Dane Batt reflected:

“I’ve been eating toast spread

with Marmite and peanut

butter for years — and now

you can buy jars of it ready

mixed.” Janice Lindsay liked

“chocolate digestives with a

piece of strong cheddar

cheese”. For brammbles

heaven was “a mouthful of

proper salt-and-vinegared

chip-shop chips with

Cadbury milk chocolate”. Dr

Nick Cornish had stumbled

on the taste sensation of

“Worcester sauce crisps with

a Twix”.

If anyone’s hungry after

that, Jane Graham’s cost-

cutting advice won’t help.

“The biggest saving is to stay

slim,” she averred. “You will

spend less on food and drink.

You can wear your clothes for

decades. You will stay well

and keep earning.” “Now you

tell me!” wailed bobulator.

But A Moniker reasoned: “If

you’re less well insulated

you’ll need to turn the

heating up.” What we need is

a hot drink so vile you won’t

ever put on weight. Vindaloo

and liquorice Bovril, maybe?

Rob Nash

Last week we asked: Should the government impose a

windfall tax on oil and gas companies?

From a poll of 14,775 Times and Sunday Times readers

This week’s question:

Should Ukraine cede territory to Russia for peace?

Have your say at sundaytimes.co.uk/poll

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