The Brexit libertarians are in control of our destinies for at least the next two years and already the extent of the threat they pose to our wellbeing and security is becoming clear. The prime minister, Liz Truss, may have swallowed her own words of just a month ago that she was against “handouts” to launch the biggest handout in our history, but that was to buy her and her acolytes the political breathing space to launch their programmes. The energy price cap might have been a breathtaking U-turn, but it had a darker purpose.
The intent was betrayed by the chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s summary sacking of Sir Tom Scholar, one of our best and most dedicated civil servants, now former permanent secretary to the Treasury. Kwarteng’s thinking was revealed when he blamed “the same old economic managerialism” for leaving Britain “with a stagnating economy and anaemic growth”.
