Her royal duty that day, in the Queen’s Speech, was to outline the proposed legislation that would prepare the UK for its departure from the European Union. As the BBC reported, it did not escape notice that the design on the Queen’s hat that day bore a striking resemblance to the flag of the European Union. Before the 2016 referendum there was a malicious report in the right-wing press that the Queen was a Brexiter. The message on the hat was a thoughtful response. As Guy Verhofstadt, then the European Parliament’s chief Brexit negotiator, observed: “Clearly the EU still inspires some in the UK.” The 2017 snap general election was held before Boris Johnson, the Brexiter in charge, ousted Theresa May as prime minister and took over himself. We are living with, and desperately trying to deal with, the consequences of firstly the Brexit referendum which the bogus Johnson and his crew pushed on the public, and secondly the way it has managed to infect the Conservative party. To put it mildly, by sacking everyone in his cabinet who was not a Brexiter, Johnson handed his party members a precious choice when it came to choosing his successor. They have now achieved the equivalent of what Labor did by adding Jeremy Corbyn to the shortlist in 2015. He was essentially a joke candidate. So does Liz Truss. But he was chosen, as was she. And here we are, once the commemorations for the Queen’s life have subsided, we’re back with an economy in serious trouble and a Prime Minister who’s a laughingstock. Unfortunately, laughing in high places can cause problems, and Truss is in the process of doing just that. He started by sacking the most senior and most experienced Treasury official, Sir Tom Scholar. New governments need experienced and reliable officials. In my experience, Treasury officials adapt to new governments even if they have their doubts about their agendas: the Treasury adapted successfully under Chancellors such as Nigel Lawson (1983-89), John Major (1989- 90), Norman Lamont (1990-93). ), Kenneth Clarke (1993-97), Gordon Brown (1997-2007), Alistair Darling (2007-10) and George Osborne (2010-15). Since then there have been so many chancellors that there has hardly been much adjustment time. Given the constant invocation of the spirit of Thatcherism by Truss and Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, the example that comes to mind is the change of government in 1979. Sir Brian Unwin, a senior Treasury official at the time, recalls how the Treasury “adapted overnight” to radical government change. “We produced a new Conservative budget within weeks and although he was a well-known Keynesian and not ‘one of us’, Margaret Thatcher retained Sir Douglas Wass as permanent secretary of the Treasury so that his knowledge and experience would remain available in her news. government.” Financial markets may sympathize with a deregulated, right-wing government, but they know a financial crisis when they see a I understand that Kwarteng had doubts about firing Scholar, but he did the dirty work for Truss. His arrival at the Treasury was definitely a farce: he goes on about the need for growth as if it had never happened at the Treasury before. Under Lawson and Brown, for example, growth, productivity and the need to improve the ‘supply side’ were all the rage. But they haven’t had to deal with the self-harm of putting up trade barriers in our closest and most important export market, or the fallout from that nasty xenophobic Brexit campaign that has put a huge hole in the workforce as vital workers have flown back to their countries EU. As for the chancellor’s plans to remove the post-crisis 2008 cap on bankers’ bonuses on the grounds that it would improve the City’s competitiveness, that is patently politically stupid and socially insensitive at a time like this. I wonder what the duped “red wall” voters are making of this so-called “Brexit benefit” as they contemplate their reduced financial situation. This country’s competitiveness problem extends far beyond the city. Compounded by the impact of Brexit, our external balance of payments current account deficit, at 8.3% of GDP, far exceeds that which drove the 1974-79 Labor government into the hands of the International Monetary Fund. Financial markets may sympathize with a deregulating, right-wing government, but they know a financial crisis when they see one. How is your pound today?
