We just need to hold our nerve. That was Rishi Sunak’s message to the country over the weekend. Time to remind us Brits to rediscover our inner stiff upper lip. To shrug off the increased, unaffordable mortgage repayments. To laugh as wage rises fail to keep pace with inflation. To quote Kipling as debt rises to more than 100% of GDP.
Easier for some than for others. If, like Sunak, you don’t have a mortgage then maybe you can feel detached about interest rate rises. Perhaps even be secretly pleased that you might be getting a healthier return on your multimillion-pound investments.
Harder still for those who have been told their public sector pay will be determined by wage review bodies. Only to be now told that the government reserves the right to ignore their recommendations. In a Total War on inflation, the War is more Total for some than for others. Only some will be asked to make the ultimate sacrifice.
Still, it turns out that holding your nerve is also proving tricky for some Tory MPs. This time last year, when Boris Johnson – remember him? – was prime minister, the Labour lead over the Tories was just five percentage points. It’s now up to roughly 25 percentage points.
And this with the Conservatives having switched to a more competent, user-friendly leader. Someone who could be trusted to get things done. Who understood politics. Phew! A big relief to those Tories looking into the maw of oblivion.
But holding your nerve is now all that the government has left by way of policy. It’s the last idea still standing. Other than closing your eyes and hoping for the best. Though, come to think of it, that’s really just a variation on holding your nerve. Just not so openly desperate.
Nerve implies courage. When the reality is that you don’t have a choice. The debt will come for you one way or another, whether you like it or not. But, hey. Beggars can’t be choosers.
We’re just talking survival now. All pretence of making a better life for ourselves and our children has gone. It’s just how to get through the next few years without ending up on the streets.
Call me forgetful, but I don’t remember that being plastered all over the side of a bus in the referendum campaign. Or else I’m just not up to speed with the latest iteration of the Tory dream. Leave this world as you came into it. With nothing whatsoever. Apart from unpaid debt.
Then again, even if there were good news, I’m not sure that Jeremy Hunt is the best person to impart it. Because, urbane and polite as he often is, there hasn’t been a chancellor who knew less about running the economy for decades. Even George Osborne knew more. Someone sign him up for an A-level evening course. Just for the veneer of self-worth.
What’s more, his sense of panic when asked to explain something is desperate. The fear in his eyes could set off a run on the pound at any time. So when he says he has a solution, the rest of us know it’s time to leave the country.
Jezza was in the Commons to give a statement on the mortgage charter he had fixed up with some lenders last Friday. Interest rates were now at 5%. He didn’t seem to really know if that was a good or bad thing. Or if they were high or low.
Certainly no one appeared to have told him they are predicted to go up to 6% by this September. This getting inflation done priority is working a treat.
“I understand people’s anxiety and concern,” he said, tentatively. He doesn’t really. This is a man who once apparently forgot to declare seven buy-to-let flats. Easily done.
But here was the thing. Under his new voluntary charter – people could take it or leave it – borrowers could switch to interest-only mortgages for six months or extend the amount of time they had to repay the loan.
Great. In hock well into retirement. Not sure how the pension is going to pay off the mortgage but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. But the best news came last. You’d have 12 months from the first missed payment to being repossessed. So plenty of time to accumulate lots of cardboard boxes for your new starter home on the streets.
Labour’s Rachel Reeves was in imperious form by way of reply. The shadow chancellor knows that Hunt knows that she knows she is three times as economically sharp as him.
How come the new charter wasn’t mandatory? And why were mortgage payments £2,000 more than in France and £1,000 more than in Ireland and Belgium? How come the so-called global factors didn’t extend to some of our closest European neighbours? Could it be that the problem lies with a Tory government that has been in power for 13 years?
“Um.” Hunt didn’t really have an answer. There was no real plan. Neither was there reassurance. Just more years of debt in a home that belonged mainly to the bank. Still. We had been told to hold our nerve. So that was something.
Next up, we had James Cleverly making a statement on the attempted coup in Russia over the weekend. Though because he, David Lammy and all other MPs from both sides of the house knew no more than had appeared in most newspaper analyses, everyone basically agreed on everything. Prighozin was bad. Putin was bad. It would be inappropriate to speculate. And we were right to continue to offer our unequivocal support to Ukraine.
It was all very cosy. Self-congratulatory even. Though the self-importance was briefly interrupted by Liz Truss, who was making just her second appearance in the Commons since her disastrous 49 days as prime minister.
Not that she shows any sign of the trauma and shame of her downfall. Either she’s had plenty of therapy or she remains entirely dissociated. The latter, I’d guess.
But Liz has clearly decided that Ukraine is her legacy and that this is her meal ticket to further well-paid public speaking events. Though many of us would pay for her not to speak.
She was adamant that Ukraine should instantly be made a member of Nato. Even if that provoked a war between Russia and the west. Cleverly wasn’t convinced. He may be dim but he isn’t that dim. Nato was something for later. In the meantime, we should all just hold our nerve. It must be contagious.
