Opinion: ‘No project behind this government’

By the time this is published, we will have a clearer idea as to who will be in her cabinet.

I cannot say that her potential selections fill me with a great deal of hope.

It says something if Priti Patel, who is apparently not the easiest person to work with, refuses to work for you.

I wish the new Prime Minister well.

I hope she exceeds expectations and deals with the cost-of-living crisis.

I fear that any measures she undertakes will be some sort of fiscal slight of hand. Stopping price rises now by asking individuals to pay for it later via debt is not a solution. We must admit that there are certain industries which never should have been taken out of public control, particularly those that are necessary for human life and those for which there is a natural monopoly.

The idea that we will all essentially pay for our energy consumption now on credit is ludicrous.

Maybe the energy companies should have been compelled to live within smaller profit margins; this is the case in Germany and France.

The new Prime Minister may be right that profit is not a dirty word: extortion, however, definitely is.

The new Prime Minister is going to face into a number of difficult questions, but perhaps the most challenging will be: why are you here?

There appears to be no project, no great underlying idea behind the Truss government.

It is more of the same, pushing on the same piece of string that Thatcher did back in 1979: a belief in cutting taxes, rolling back the frontiers of the state.

But when do tax cuts do more harm than good, for example, when pumping money into an economy without sufficient goods to meet the demand fuels inflation.

When is deregulation and rolling back the frontiers of the state a step too far?

Perhaps when water companies were allowed to dump raw sewage into our seas?

Thatcher herself provided limited guidance on when to stop.

Her acolytes seem determined to keep going, even when reality, such as we experienced via the Covid 19 pandemic, shows we need a state to ensure national security.

No doubt Truss will continue to talk a good game about “levelling up”.

However, words alone won’t ensure a single mile of rail is laid, nor a single school’s roof is repaired.

Until there is a change of government, we as a country, are on our own.

What happens at Downing Street may hinder; it is unlikely to help much, if at all.

Cossetted by rich donors, they may tell themselves all is well: and for them, it is.

But this only shows how out of touch this 12-year-old regime has become.

As it is in Westminster, so it is in Peterborough, except the Tories have been in charge for even longer.

Why are they here?

What good do they do?

I believe we have come to know the answer.

It is time for a change of government on all levels.

I have little doubt this will happen, surely as spring follows winter. But how long and deep that winter is to be, it’s difficult to say.