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Never was the puritanical Protestantism of politics in Great Britain made clearer than in the downfall of Boris Johnson. The champion of Brexit who secured an eighty-seat majority for his party at a general election was laid low by that most devastating and destructive of enemies: a piece of cake enjoyed at a work gathering that many—including the Metropolitan Police—construed as a social event. And so, the United Kingdom finds itself in the midst of a contest for the leadership of the Conservative party.
Johnson himself had ascended to the prime ministerial office after just such a leadership election in 2019: Theresa May threw in the towel following her repeated failures to get Parliament to approve any of her Brexit deals. (In the interest either of full disclosure or self-importance, I am obliged to note that I worked for Johnson’s campaign in that bout.) He won a sweeping victory of 66.4 per cent of the Conservative membership’s vote against his rival Jeremy Hunt’s 33.6 per cent and on July 24, 2019, “kissed hands” with the Sovereign and was appointed her Prime Minister.
Inheriting a minority government, Johnson had no more success than his predecessor in getting the truculent House of Commons to pass an agreement to leave the European Union. The government’s working majority (thanks to confidence and supply provided by MPs from Ulster’s Democratic Unionist Party) had effectively been shot to pieces. Party numbers didn’t reflect the everyday reality when the issue was not one of which leader you support but how or even if the UK should leave the European Union. Tory Remainers were effectively a Trojan horse for the opposition within the ostensible government party, and there was every chance that Parliament might go rogue by passing legislation regarding Brexit that the government itself did not support.
Johnson did what he could, deploying legal and constitutional jiggery-pokery while hemmed in by the fact that—thanks to David Cameron’s Fixed Term Parliaments Act—he couldn’t call a general election by prime ministerial fiat as Britain’s constitution had previously allowed. Speaker John Bercow had abandoned all pretence of impartiality by aiding the Remainers in Parliament who wanted to block both a deal itself and a no-deal Brexit. The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom—a Blairite constitutional innovation—even intervened by ruling Johnson didn’t have sufficient grounds for advising the Queen to prorogue Parliament—an unprecedented judicial innovation. It was clear nothing could proceed with the Parliament that stood, but Johnson succeeded in passing a one-off act simply calling an early general election (Fixed Term Parliaments Act notwithstanding).
This report appears in September’s Quadrant.
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The subsequent vote was ground-breaking. Pro-Brexit Conservative candidates united behind Johnson managed to smash into the “red wall” of northern Labour seats—many of them turning blue for the first time in nearly a century. Bishop Auckland returned the first Conservative MP in its 134-year history, as traditional Labour voters who had also backed Brexit decided to give Johnson’s team a chance.
The new Prime Minister used his mandate to pass the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 which received royal assent on January 23, ratified by the European Parliament days later. At 11 p.m. on January 31, 2020, the United Kingdom ceased to be a member of the European Union, forty-seven years after joining the European Economic Community in 1973.
By virtue of securing Brexit, Boris Johnson had managed to make more history in the first six months of his tenure in Downing Street than some prime ministers have in their entire time in office. But the very day Brexit became reality, the BBC reported that two Chinese nationals staying at a hotel in York had tested positive for the novel coronavirus that had emerged in Wuhan, China, a month earlier—the first cases of Covid in the UK.
Having endured but finally solved the saga of Brexit, the country, like the rest of the world, was plunged into the coronavirus drama. The threat to public health allowed the state unprecedented interference into the ordinary lives of citizens through strenuous regulations and emergency measures. Several lockdowns varied in what was and what was not allowed, but the revelation that the Prime Minister had been ambushed with a piece of cake on his birthday in his place of employ provoked fury and rage on the part of his opponents. His initial chief adviser Dominic Cummings was revealed to have driven his children to be looked after by other family members and made other trips all of which it turned out were completely within the law. Civil servants and political appointees working in Downing Street—facing immense pressure in an unprecedented crisis—were severely criticised for drinking cheap white wine after a long day’s work or gathering in the office to see off colleagues who they had worked beside in stressful circumstances who were leaving for new positions.
Over arduous weeks, Johnson lost immense political capital thanks to his failure to tackle the issue head-on and his typically evasive responses. Whether in Parliament or the country at large, some are convinced the Prime Minister was the greatest exemplar of lying hypocrisy since the Dawn of Man while others are convinced he did nothing wrong, immoral or illegal—merely unwise. The gap between these two views is effectively insurmountable, but the political damage has been immense. There is a feeling among Boris supporters that the media and the establishment class consider Brexit an unpardonable and irredeemable act for which the Prime Minister must be forced to pay, one way or another.
Despite the onslaught of criticism and allegations of hypocrisy, Johnson stood firm until the straw that broke the camel’s back arrived in the form of a good old-fashioned sex scandal. Chris Pincher MP is as apt an example of nominative determinism as ever walked the halls of Westminster. In a subculture where unwanted sexual attention is unfortunately more frequent than in the world outside, the government’s Deputy Chief Whip had long had a reputation for roving hands and improper conduct towards young men. Following a drunken evening in the Carlton Club during which he was alleged to have sexually assaulted two men, Pincher was forced to resign from the Whips’ office while retaining his seat and his status in the parliamentary party. Further allegations against Pincher came to light, and Johnson admitted it had been a “bad mistake” to ignore the MP’s reputation and previous allegations and appoint him to a government position.
The double resignation of Health Secretary Sajid Javid and Chancellor Rishi Sunak on July 5 provoked a wave of resignations the following day. With sixty-two of the collected 179 government ministers, parliamentary private secretaries, trade envoys and the party co-chairman resigning from office, Boris Johnson was persuaded to call it quits on July 7 with plans for a new leader to take the helm on September 5.
The 1922 Committee of backbench Conservative MPs agreed on the timeline for choosing a new leader on July 11. Nominations would open and close the following day, with each candidate needing the support of at least twenty colleagues from the parliamentary party to make it to the first ballot on July 13. With the entire parliamentary party voting, leadership candidates would need to secure thirty votes in order to proceed to the second ballot. The candidate with the lowest votes would be eliminated until only two candidates remained, and their names would be put to the overall membership of the Conservative party to decide which would become party leader and thus the presumptive next Prime Minister once the Sovereign was certain he or she could command the confidence of the House of Commons.
The early front-runner was the unruffled Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace. Polls of members and soundings of MPs showed Wallace ahead by a large margin, but he decided against throwing his hat in the ring. Dominic Cummings, the impishly difficult former adviser to Boris who has turned into one of Johnson’s most fervent opponents, speculated about candidates being “spad shaggers” (sleeping with their appointed special advisers) but declined to name names. It was alleged that a campaign to launch Nadhim Zahawi into Number Ten was being crafted by Mark Fullbrook, a former associate of the election guru Lynton Crosby, but questions about the Baghdad-born MP’s personal financial interests quickly holed his bid below the waterline.
Rishi Sunak, the resigned Chancellor of the Exchequer whose furlough programs to keep people employed during Covid were much praised, quickly emerged as the favourite, attracting big names as well as strong numbers of parliamentary supporters. Sunak’s rise is all the more surprising since just months ago his star waned when it was revealed his wife has non-domiciled status, allowing her to avoid paying tax on her income earned abroad while living in the United Kingdom. This at a time when the UK’s tax burden is the highest since the Attlee government and ordinary voters are facing a severe cost-of-living crisis.
Penny Mordaunt emerged as the emissary of the dark forces of establishment liberalism. Further along the social liberal spectrum than even Cameron, Mordaunt served as equalities minister, in which role she ardently defended proposed government legislation that used the term “birthing person” instead of mothers, even after the Lords justifiably exercised their revising capacity in amending it to refer to mothers. Despite being the wokest of woke, Mordaunt was popular with party members owing to her militarist persona—she is a low-ranking Royal Navy reservist, daughter of a naval officer, and was named after HMS Penelope. But the more party members learnt about Mordaunt the less they liked her. All the same, she nearly made it to the final round.
The continuity-Boris candidate turned out to be Liz Truss. Raised by liberal academics, Truss was a Liberal Democrat as a teenager, speaking to their party conference and—worse—calling for the abolition of the monarchy. She converted to Thatcherism and the Conservative party shortly after finishing university in the mid-1990s and entered Parliament in 2010, serving as a junior education minister before being appointed Environment Secretary and then Lord Chancellor—the first woman to hold this ancient office. A liberal herself, she proved willing to challenge the woke consensus by urging government departments to disaffiliate from sexual activist group Stonewall’s Diversity Champions program on the grounds that it was poor value for money for the taxpayer. Using liberal arguments to achieve conservative ends might mean that Truss, so often breezily dismissed as a lightweight, could have more political prudence and understanding than expected.
The social Right of the party failed to unite around a single candidate, though Kemi Badenoch’s bid marked her out as the brightest and most plausible of all those seeking the leadership. As a black woman who is deeply anti-woke, she would have been electoral kryptonite for Labour and would have stood the best chance of winning the next general election, securing a two-decade streak of Conservative-led government in Britain. But Badenoch was fishing in the same pond for votes as rivals Suella Braverman, the outspoken Attorney General, and Jeremy Hunt, the former Health Secretary who made it to the final round in the last leadership election. This kept all three towards the bottom of the table of MP supporters, allowing Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss to steal the limelight, gain momentum, and make it to the final two names presented to party members for the vote.
The battle between Liz and Rishi has evoked no great enthusiasm from anybody. Boris supporters, Brexiteers and the social Right have largely swung in behind Truss and her ascent now looks unassailable. If Sunakites hit home when attacking Truss’s lack of gravitas, Liz supporters’ criticism that Rishi is a numbers man who lacks vision also rings true.
What is Truss’s vision? She’s made sometimes cringe-worthy attempts to portray herself as the next Maggie but as commentator (and former Commons clerk) Eliot Wilson has sharply pointed out, “If the Conservative party is to develop a coherent, effective and radical set of policies for the 2020s and beyond, it must consign Thatcherism to glorious history.”
Twelve years of Conservative government do actually have some accomplishments to show: holding a referendum on the EU, delivering Brexit, commissioning a record-breaking coronavirus vaccine, the rollout of two jabs of that vaccine plus a booster, protecting jobs and small businesses during the lockdown. All of these, however, are effective responses to emergencies rather than the fruits of a positive vision. Good policy-making is dependent upon ideas and the ecosystem needed for conservative ideas to be proposed, debated, shot down, championed or enacted simply does not exist. Decades of dumbing down education and the hollowing out of institutions has resulted in rampant mediocrity. People are less clever, institutions are less resilient, and the paucity of serious talent in the front bench of both parliamentary parties reflects this.
On the Blue Labour side, Dr John Ritzema has pointed out that the British constitution makes Parliament, and therefore the executive that controls it, “basically omnipotent”, yet “it’s almost unfathomable how unwilling the Tories are to use the power they fight so ruthlessly to acquire”. Entrenched liberalism, whether social or economic, has killed Conservative leaders’, cabinet members’ and MPs’ ability to conceive of the effective exercise of state power which is so obviously needed to solve the problems of today. Energy bills are skyrocketing and sclerotic planning procedures prevent new homes and infrastructure being built. Ambulance services are strained thanks to underinvestment while the NHS is bloated with highly paid administrators and a shortage of trained doctors and nurses.
Sometimes you need a Thatcher—Britain in the 1970s certainly did. But sometimes you need a de Gaulle to craftily wield the state rather than roll it back. Labour is incapable of moving rightwards on social issues, but the Conservatives are capable of moving in a less liberal direction on economics. This presents Tories with a huge strategic advantage—but only if they realise it and use it. The Conservative party needs to give voters a reason to vote Conservative.
Andrew Cusack’s previous London Letter appeared in the June issue
If you look closely there are more insights in this article about the practicalities and functioning of our system of government than you’d read in a year in our mainstream media – if ever.
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Although the article is about UK politics there are direct insights for us here.
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Thanks Andrew Cusack.
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Thanks also to Quadrant. It’s these sorts of insights that you seem to be equipped to provide us with, particularly from a conservative perspective. A perspective that is missing generally in our media and, when it does appear, it’s often intellectually sub standard and lacking in credibility.
To expand a little on what I meant above: buried in the article is an incredibly timely insight which applies equally to conservative and left-of-centre policy development in Australia.
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It’s so timely it’s worth repeating:
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“Good policy-making is dependent upon ideas and the ecosystem needed for conservative ideas ( I’d add all ideas) to be proposed, debated, shot down, championed or enacted (- it) simply does not exist.”
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The Coalition hasn’t really attempted policy development ( apart from its very belated and insufficient AUKUS policy) since its energy policy blow up; and Labor has cynically decided on a small target policy approach – concentrating its election campaign not on debating policy ideas but on dismantling Scott Morrison’s character.
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We are likely to be saddled with existing poor policy and the absence of policy – with at best governments reacting to immediate circumstances ( which arguably applies to AUKUS) .
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Lack of policy leadership is exemplified today with totally unacceptable energy prices in a country astoundingly over-endowed with energy resources.
By way of contrast, BalancedObservation, the coalition government currently holding office in Australia is blithely charging ahead with policy ‘leadership’ with total disregard for historical evidence, informed articulation of the certain ‘unintended’ consequences or any sign of genuine concern for the broader electorate. Unless there is shortly an epiphany, which may coincide with the lights going out and business and industry grinding to a halt, this may take several generations to rectify. The ramifications defence-wise in our region don’t bear thinking about.
Thanks for your comment Stephen Ireland.
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The impression given by the Albanese government is that they’re charging ahead. They’ve been allowed to create that impression by a poor opposition. No one is charging ahead. So far it’s all talk. The Dutton opposition is not holding them to account.
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And our energy policies have been a disaster for years. It’s taken poor policies for years to put a resource rich country like Australia in the predicament we’re in now with energy prices and threats to supply. Of course Labor won’t improve things. They’ll probably make things worse.
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Defence policies are totally inadequate on both sides of politics.
Stephen Ireland
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You do have a point that I should have acknowledged.
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In the past Labor ( and arguably the Coalition as well) has gone ahead with as you say policies with “disregard for historical evidence, informed articulation of the certain ‘unintended’ consequences.”
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That is a consequence of not having the sort of policy eco system that Andrew Cusack referred to which allows for proposed policies to be initiated, widely debated within the party and in the broader community before they are adopted. Unintended negative consequences of proposed policies can often be weeded out if that is done.
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Without such a policy ideas eco system it can for example lead to a policy desert or to grand policy promises before an election which have not been thought through or tested adequately in debate.
Bojo was not critizised for eating “a piece of cake on his birthday,” nor government workers “for drinking cheap white wine after a long day’s work or gathering in the office to see off colleagues who they had worked beside in stressful circumstances who were leaving for new positions.” They were criticized for doing these things while the government was forbidding similar privileges to the rest of the population. Large numbers of Britons were forbidden from even working alongside their colleagues, much less partying with them! Some of those ordinary people might possibly have been also “facing immense pressure in an unprecedented crisis”–pressure that included, for many, being forbidden from working AT ALL.
How many Britons could not properly farewell their nearest loved ones for the last time (with or without getting drunk)? How many were denied the chance to observe important milestones, gather together for Christmas, see many of their family and friends for months, except on a grainy screen?
Growing angry over such rank, elite hypocrisy is scarcely “puritanical Protestantism.” Johnson brought in lockdowns; he oversaw the tyranny, against criticism (at least at times) of certain of his own colleagues who had some knowledge of the definition of “conservative”; he was involved in at least some of the “one rule for thee, one rule for me” shenanigans. He deserves no sympathy from those who value freedom and integrity.
In reply to Rebekah Meredith.
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Most would think the actions of Boris Johnson to break his own lockdown rules were indefensible. And I wouldn’t attempt to defend what he did. You make powerful points: that it was “rank, elite hypocrisy” and certainly not “puritanical Protestantism”.
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But most, particularly those who elected him, probably wouldn’t think it was enough to remove him from office.
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I understand the Westminster system but his removal is undemocratic in my view. Yes it’s legal. It’s not unusual. Particularly in Australia where the PMs job has been somewhat of a revolving door. But nevertheless it’s arguably undemocratic. His is a pretty clear case of just how undemocratic such a move on a PM can be under our Westminster system.
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For all Boris Johnson’s sins Australia’s lost a good friend and a strong European leader at at time when we really need both. That is especially the case when you look at the calibre of those Australia has in charge on both sides of politics now. Men who’d probably never break lockdown rules but who will arguably fail to provide the strong leadership we need.
You may well be right, Balanced Observation, that Johnson shouldn’t have been removed from office for what he did. I don’t think that Gladys Berejiklian probably should have lost her position over what she did, either. There own wrongdoings don’t excuse unfair treatment, but I still think they probably both got what they deserve. Now if only the same would happen to Dictator Dan and Chairman Mark…
I should have clarified that I am not putting all of these in the same category, overall; but they’ve all been dictators during the Present Crisis.
Thanks for your response Rebekah Meredith.
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This may seem a little obtuse but I don’t think it actually is: saying Boris Johnson and Gladys Berejiklian got what they deserved is a variation on shooting oneself in the foot.
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It’s a time when we need real leaders here and in Europe. We aren’t exactly over-endowed with them that we can afford to discard reasonable ones.
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However Daniel Andrew’s has become a real problem. And I’m not talking about lockdowns.
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For example a report has recently found 33 people died in Victoria as a result of inadequate ambulance services. That’s outrageous but it’s simply the tip of the iceberg when it comes to health system failures.
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Daniel Andrew’s who appeared daily during the pandemic has not even been publicly available at a press conference for questioning or comment on the immensely worrying ambulance report.
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Things must be really bad when Jon Faine is writing negatively about how Daniel Andrews has centralized power to a huge degree in the premier’s office.
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But at least we are seeing a revitalized Victorian Opposition putting up a creditable effort to hold the Andrew’s government to account on the clear health system failures in Victoria.
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Federally there’s little political leadership on the main current threat facing our economy: the inflation risk. The Labor government is taking pretty much a handsoff approach – leaving all the significant action to the Reserve Bank to lift interest rates – with Labor refusing to use effective fiscal measures available to it. Labor’s lack of fiscal action and its general rhetoric risk fueling inflationary expectations. But the moribund Dutton opposition is letting them get away with it.
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Unlike in Victoria, the Dutton opposition is failing totally to hold federal Labor to account. Dutton has allowed Labor to pretty much establish in the media that the looming inflation is partly the Coalition’s fault.
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However surprisingly – for someone who’s been around for a long time and hasn’t exactly been the darling of the media – Dutton seems to be getting a honeymoon ride in the press but certainly not with voters according to two recent polls.
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Astoundingly at each poll since the election Peter Dutton had managed to lower the Coalition primary vote even further below the 70-year-low at the election. He’s looking like a rabbit caught in the headlights. He’s just not up to the job.
BalancedObservation, perhaps Dutton is worn out after years in government. Whatever the case, he needs to find some energy, conviction and courage soon. So far he has been a lame duck.
Why isn’t Dutton pushing back against Labor’s racist Voice proposal? Why is Dutton silent on Labor’s plan to increase permanent immigration to record high levels in the midst of a national housing crisis? Why isn’t he making a stronger case for nuclear energy in Australia?
Thank you Farnswort for your response.
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You have identified a number of important issues that the Dutton opposition needs to hold the government to account on but is failing to. Peter Dutton has actually made the opposition irrelevant on the important issues you referred to.
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However leadership is now most critically needed on the biggest most urgent concern confronting the Australian economy : the immediate short term serious inflation risk. It needs to be tackled by the Labor government as a matter of urgency but isn’t being. All the government is doing is talking very loudly about it and saying how bad it is and leaving responsibility to the Reserve Bank to fix it. And the moribund Dutton opposition is failing to hold them to account.
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If inflation gets out of hand it could devastate our economy and living standards placing huge cost of living pressures on ordinary citizens. Inflation is already being predicted to go to 22% in the UK.
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In order to avoid any accountability for the inevitable pain involved in subduing inflation Labor has left all the work to the Reserve Bank which is only equipped with a single blunt instrument to address the problem: interest rates.
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Labor has failed to implement any effective fiscal measures to address the problem or to calm or restrain inflationary expectations. In fact Labor’s rhetoric and lack of fiscal action will arguably further inflame inflationary expectations. It’s a very dangerous mix.
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By Labor leaving all effective action to the Reserve Bank, interest rates will need to be much higher than if Labor had used fiscal measures to help blunt the threat. This also increases the risk of overreaction on interest rates. That is raising them too high, leading to recession.
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We have all the elements in place for a perfect inflationary storm:
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Labour shortages
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Pent up wage demands
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Supply chain shortages and disruptions
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Energy supply shortfalls
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Inflationary fall out from the Ukraine war
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Billions in tax cuts and election handouts set to add to demand.
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Meanwhile the Labor government is constantly reminding the work force of how it’s been cheated out of wage increases by the previous government through a deliberate policy of wage restraint. It’s simultaneously telling workers that it still intends to give billion of dollars in tax cuts to higher income earners yet is expecting workers to show restraint.
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At a time when the leverage of workers has been markedly increased through labour shortages the government’s ill advised rhetoric risks inflaming a wages breakout at a time when restraint is needed.
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It’s a perfect mess and there’s no effective opposition to hold the government to account.
Dear me. I suppose under a decent policy ‘ecology’ we might, perhaps, if it’s not asking too much, hear some introduction of the words ‘Royal Commission on Climate Science Predictions and Empirical Realities’, as a base from which to judge certain ‘policies’ that seem currently sacrosanct? Inflation will run rampant as long as energy prices remain sky high, because they add an inflationary pressure to all production and all consumption, because energy drives both of these things. Without serious public scrutiny, and with the ideological fervour of the ‘saved’, the climate boondoggles in Australia (as elsewhere) such as Snowy 11 and other large sinks for public monies will also continue to claim their unfair share of the benighted taxpayer’s dollar.
Boris is still rambling on in his departure speech about green energies, although he now strongly spruiks nuclear power, and it seems there is much in the green carpetbag that his wife carries that he still agrees with. One simply despairs. Covid modelling and other failed public health modelling should at least raise a tiny suspicion in the occasional politician that climatic models may not be quite all that they seem or claim to be.
Until the flakey fundamentals that sustain the house of cards that is the ‘great reset’ are addressed in both science and policy then the points of difference between the UK politicians don’t amount, as the Americans say, to a can of beans. If Liz Truss pours more taxpayer support into propping up the flailing UK energy mess then she is simply doing what was done re Covid with ‘furlough’: using government monies to cover up a problem created by shoot from the hip government policy making. Fix the policies first – get rid of net zero and all it implies. There is no climatic emergency. Say it and have done with it.
Elizabeth Beare I sympathize with your frustration.
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There’s no question that energy is an important ingredient in the inflation equation. It’s a serious factor in what we are facing right now : the immediate inflation threat right on our doorstep. That’s beyond question.
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It’s also true that it’s taken a long time to make Australia – one of the most energy rich countries in the world – now so vulnerable to what’s currently happening worldwide on energy.
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That didn’t happen overnight. That’s a result of poor energy policy for many years. It’s quite an incredible, almost unbelievable outcome that one of the very richest energy endowed countries on a per capita basis is facing huge energy price hikes and supply concerns. It’s hard to exaggerate how bad the outcome is given how energy rich or potentially rich we are – in nearly every form of energy!
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We have disastrously failed to leverage the huge energy resources and potential energy sources we have been endowed with to protect our own energy security.
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And even our management of the fraught energy mix which hopeless past policy approaches has landed us with has been compromised. We’ve also allowed ownership of this fraught mix of near monopoly energy supplies to be concentrated in private hands where pricing can be exploited. It’s taken a lot of time and dithering and poor decision-making to stuff ourselves up to the extent we have.
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On energy policy we certainly haven’t had the benefits of the sort of sound eco system for policy development that this article alludes to. What an understatement that is.
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And of course we should be immediately redressing the huge errors and dithering around on policy that’s been happening for well over a decade and a half, probably longer.
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But even if we could act immediately to redress all the mistakes on energy policy – if we could start to turn it all around today – it’s not going to help the immediate and very serious inflation threat on our doorstep right now.
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And of course there are a number of other inflationary factors besides poor energy policy which are causing the immediate threat. For example perfect energy policy would not have stopped supply chain problems arising largely from the aftermath of covid. I mentioned other causes of our current inflation threat earlier.
Elizabeth Beare I find myself disagreeing with your sentiments on Boris Johnson.
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My worry is that we are going to come to regret his removal as PM. He has been the strongest leader in Europe on the current defence threats the free world is facing. And in that important regard he’s been a very good friend of Australia’s.
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From my observations, for all his sins he’s the best we could probably have hoped to have as UK PM out of the current lot available. Polling shows the UK Conservative party seems to think so too.
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On the immediate inflation threat… it is taking my attention because of how serious it potentially is for Australia. I sympathize with your absolute frustration with energy policy but expressing that frustration doesn’t really provide any remedy to the immediate inflation threat on our doorstep. I explain why in a another post here today.
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I’m also concerned with the immediate inflation threat because of the poor policy response to it from the Labor government.
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It’s actually worse than a poor policy response. It virtually represents no effective policy response. The government’s hands off approach relies on the Reserve Bank to do all the work to subdue inflation with its very limited and blunt policy weapon: interest rates.
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Of course the big advantage of that aproach for this government – which was elected on a small target strategy – is the hope that the public and the media will blame the Reserve Bank for the inevitable negative effects you have when trying to subdue inflation.
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The media seem to have begun doing that already – conveniently helping Labor remain a small target in government and avoiding leadership. Of course Labor are saying a lot and very loudly and repeatedly about the inflation threat but they aren’t doing anything effective to subdue it. Simply talking loudly constantly, and sympathetically about the inflation threat is not leadership. Taking effective fiscal action would be leadership.
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The government’s hands off approach which has involved no effective fiscal action whatsoever makes the RBA’s job even harder. Using interest rates alone without accompanying fiscal action means interest rates will have to be a lot higher than they otherwise would be to work. It also increases the risk of miscalculation – lifting rates too high leading to recession.
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There are billions of dollars in home purchase and child minding handouts and tax cuts to high income earners about to add to demand. The former handouts are going to people with incomes up to $150,000. But the government refuses to show any restraint to even temporarily pull back on them given the serious inflation threat we face. Any restraint here would have a salutary and calming effect on reducing inflationary expectations.
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But it gets even worse. Labor is telling workers that their wages are too low through the deliberate policy of previous Coalition governments. They’re adding that workers must restrain their wage claims now because of the inflation threat while Labor is going ahead with tax cuts to higher income earners. This is at a time when the workers have more leverage with Labor shortages. It’s foolhardy.
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So what answers does the Dutton Coalition have? Less than Labor has. Peter Dutton has essentially been looking for gotcha moments to taunt the government with like constantly asking mantra-like when will the government deliver their energy price guarantee? I doubt any fair-minded even rusted-on Coalition voter would expect the government to to be able to do that in the current world environment. It’s such a foolish mantra to continue with.
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Peter Dutton has also allowed the government to substantially get a foothold in the media with the view that the current inflation threat was partly the Coalition’s fault.
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Peter Dutton is responsible for the smallest target, most ineffective and moribund Coalition opposition in history. And the last three polls continue to reflect that. Astoundingly he’s managed to continually reduce the primary vote in the last three polls to below the 70-year-low at the election. Anthony Albanese is nearly three times as popular as preferred PM when Scott Morrison was generally ahead of Anthony Albanese in most polls as preferred PM.
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Peter Dutton is not up to the job. He’s like the dog who caught the car it was chasing. He’s got no idea as opposition leader.
There’s now been a new announcement from the government taking its stance on inflation to an even greater level of hypocrisy.
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Jim Chalmers is continuing to speak with great concern about inflation while doing nothing effective with fiscal policy. However
he is now virtue signalling saying there won’t be any new handouts for cost of living support because of how seriously the government takes the inflation threat.
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Yet the government plans to continue without any restraint whatsoever to unload on demand the billions of dollars more from election handouts about to be unleashed. It doesn’t plan on reducing one dollar of them. That will raise demand at a time when restraint is required.
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Then Jim Chalmers has the audacity to project this as some sort of restraint virtue. It’s like saying we’re going to throw more petrol on the inflation fire as we’ve already planned to but we aren’t going to throw more on top of that.
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It’s quite incredible that the opposition are letting Chalmers get away with this. Peter Dutton does not have a clue on economic policy. With a moribund opposition the government is pretty free to set the entire policy narrative in the media.
I start this comment by the date which is 8 September 2022. I wish that Quadrant had retained the date, and maybe also inserted the time also, on comments although I like the idea of being able to reply to another’s comment directly.
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I like BO’s analogies of Dutton being caught in the headlights and catching the car (and not knowing what to do with it).
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Now to BO’s latest about Labor not resiling from election handouts notwithstanding the inflation danger. These types of expenditure are a major flaw in our democracy. That is, the ability of interest groups to continually seek funding for almost any project and for candidates at election time to bribe them with promises.
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All that in addition to all that we face in massive increases in energy costs, etc. etc
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It’s time Dutton and his merry band of backside protectors took a stance on these issues but I fear that would just be too much for them.