Boris and Phil and Dave: May’s Strong Men

This week we have Phil’s first full Budget. We also have the best piece of news coming out of the Foreign Office for more than five years. Boris is off to Moscow. And at the end of the month Article 50 is triggered, putting David Davis into overdrive. These three are the big hitters who hold the fate of Theresa May’s government in their hands. So far May’s vicarage style rhetoric has carried the Tories to dizzy heights few expected. But the time for speeches is almost over. Action and indeed outcomes will now begin to drive the political climate. As we know, they speak louder than words. Boris, Phil and Dave will be in the thick of it. The rest of the government are muddlers and nonentities, failing at almost every level.

The first set piece event is the Budget on Wednesday. This blog will declare its disappointment in advance. We have a stagnating economy which would have no growth at all without immigration and PPI compensation. The whole economic model is dysfunctional, with the relationship between money supply, asset inflation and interest rates completely broken down with nobody either in charge or in control. Tinkering with tax rates will have no effect and more borrowing, even to invest, is questionable when the interest bill for the government, at very low rates, is already over £50 billion per annum. The solution, indeed the only viable option and the economically correct one, is to have a big stimulus funded by treasury quantitative easing. Until that is accepted beyond this blog, nothing much will work as planned. But the forecasts will continue and the targets will be missed.

The chances of the cautious Hammond having the courage to do this are slim. But he may surprise us. Let us hope so.