Just when you thought it was safe to go out again … Most people who care about their sanity will have spent much of Wednesday hiding under a duvet. It’s one thing to endure a budget that is pretending to be something it isn’t. That’s insult enough.
It’s another scale of hell, though, when the gaslighter-in-chief who is delivering this nonsense is Jeremy Hunt. Someone so obviously out of his depth as chancellor, it’s painful to watch. A man so bad at his job, he has had to pay more than £100,000 so far to stay in it. Not the best investment he’s ever made as he’s likely to lose his seat at the next election. Hardly the ideal advertisement for Jezza’s financial savvy.
If his family and friends really cared about Hunt’s mental health they would persuade him to quit. Try and talk his ego down. It’s OK, Jezza. You’ve nothing to prove. You’re just making things worse for yourself. It can only end in total humiliation. A Michael Portillo moment. So quit while you’re behind. Don’t worry about finding another job. Someone will sort something out for you. They always do for men like Jeremy. If the worst comes to the worst, you can chill out in the Lords.
Unfortunately, though, there was more to come. Because tradition dictates that the chancellor has to endure trial by radio and television the next day on the morning media round. By which time the more obvious fictions in the budget have begun to unravel and the Tory backbenchers are busy preparing their resignation letters to their constituencies as they can’t face losing their seat or a decade in opposition. So everyone’s breakfast got wrecked. Lucky us.
Thursday morning found Jezza in Liverpool. Though he didn’t seem to know what he was doing there. Then, he seldom seems to know what he is doing from one minute to the next. He gives the appearance of being permanently startled. Boggle-eyed and startled. As if everything is a complete mystery to him. Every day a new adventure. He’s like a fantastically dim – if generally amiable – labrador that lives entirely in the present.
By the time Hunt turned up for the 8.10 interview on Radio 4’s Today programme, he was already looking decidedly ragged. As if his mental faculties had been tested to the limit.
On BBC Breakfast he had come to the conclusion that libelling academics was an essential part of a cabinet minister’s duties. With friends like this, Michelle Donelan will be toast by next week. And on Times Radio, dearest Jezza had had to admit that the whole section in his budget speech on getting rid of national insurance had been a fantasy. He had no idea how it could possibly have got in there. Such a shame then, that it became the Daily Telegraph splash. The rightwing media are partial to a £45bn unfunded spending commitment.
Now Jeremy was to fall apart. Amol Rajan began with immigration. In his speech, Hunt had said that growth couldn’t come with unlimited immigration. But in the small print of the Office for Budget Responsibility, it clearly stated that the only way the government could meet its growth targets was by increasing immigration. So he had been telling porkies, hadn’t he?
“That’s not true,” Jezza said, trying to stem the rising sense of panic. So he then answered another question entirely. Maybe if you reclassified immigrants as non-immigrants then everything would be fine. Rajan didn’t have time to argue the toss. It would be pointless. Halfwits are bad enough. But stubborn halfwits who can’t connect with reality are the limit.
Next up were the OBR forecasts that said GDP per head had been downgraded. That too, according to Hunt, was not true. “It’s a mechanical mathematical problem,” he said tartly. Really? How the hell would he know, even if it was? Is there anyone left in the country who actually thinks Jezza understands the finer points of statistical analysis? Because he consistently misses the point when he repeats the lie that UK is far better off than Germany.
“So who is worse off in this budget?” asked Rajan. Jezza needed to think for a while. Non-doms, he said eventually. He had always wanted to close that loophole. Which is obviously why he had never done it. Deferred gratification.
He could also have mentioned pensioners. But best to hope your core vote hadn’t noticed they had been screwed. And how about those affected by the infected blood scandal? Jezza had prioritised a tax giveaway over doing the right thing for people who had been badly betrayed. All heart.
On to fiscal drag and the highest tax burden since 1948. Jezza hurriedly shuffled his script and looked for salvation. “The difference between us and Labour is that we want to bring taxes down,” he sobbed. Mmm. Most of us want to do a lot of things. How about we all decide that we want to pay our taxes but unfortunately we’ve come to the conclusion we just can’t do it this year? Because that’s the level of nonsense we’ve reached. HMRC are going to love that.
Now Jezza was starting to get really shirty. He wasn’t being shown nearly enough respect. The way it worked was that he invented an economic fiction and a compliant media reported it as if it was really going to happen. Which, to be fair, is frequently what happens with Tory ministers.
But not this time. Rajan reminded him that as health secretary he had promised in 2013 that there would be numerous cost efficiencies in the NHS by 2018. None of which had happened. So why should we believe him this time? B-b-because … B-b-because, he said so. Hunt speaks, the world listens. Feel the entitlement. There was going to be a new drone force patrolling the skies for health emergencies. Anyone thought unlikely to survive would be machine-gunned. Call it the New Triage.
We then reached the closing credits. Rajan rattled off the list of political and economic failures of the last 14 years. So familiar, we all know them by heart these days. “That’s unworthy of the BBC,” shrieked Jezza. “And it’s unworthy of you, Amol.”
Yup, unworthy to point out some uncontroversial home truths. The BBC was meant to be an extension of the Tory party. Didn’t everyone know we were going through an economic paradise? The cost of living crisis a distant memory. We had all never had it so good. Give thanks and praise to the mighty Jez.
“I’ve done my best,” Jezza wept. Gestalt therapy so often ends in tears. Hunt probably had done his best. After all, no one had high expectations of him. It’s just that his best isn’t nearly good enough. A decline in real wages for two decades. We really might as well not have bothered. Thank you and goodbye. The line went dead. Perhaps now, someone would tell Hunt what he was doing in Liverpool.
