- November 20, 2022
- Posted by: Bastion team
- Category: World News
The writer is shadow chief secretary to the Treasury
Jeremy Hunt’s Autumn Statement was an hour-long reckoning with his party’s 12 years in power. Another package of tax rises and spending cuts; another appeal to the public to tighten their belts. The Conservative reputation for sound economic stewardship has been destroyed, killed by their own hand.
The chancellor tried to blame both Covid-19 and President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Real as these challenges are for all countries, only in the UK did the government respond by driving the economy off a cliff in a catastrophic ideological experiment. Only here did we have emergency interventions from the Bank of England to prop up the pension system. And only in Britain has there been such a shattering of international confidence that our own prime minister had to own up to it at the G20.
The public is now being sent the bill for the eccentricities of September’s “mini” Budget. Yet the made-in-Downing-Street aspect of Hunt’s plan is not just about the past 12 weeks but about the past 12 years. Low rates of economic growth have left the country less able to weather external shocks and left our citizens worse off.
The UK’s current problems can be laid firmly at the door of No 10 and 11 Downing Street and their many recent Conservative inhabitants. But no political party can escape the responsibility of ensuring financial stability.
It is a responsibility Labour understands and will meet. We have…