The noise coming from number 10 before the Prime Minister’s visit to Northern Ireland was much more conciliatory. Apparently Boris Johnson did not admit that he had actually negotiated and signed a deal involving the NI protocol, but that would always be a step too far. There is so much reality that the convict can accept at any time. And the greater the truth, the harder it is to accept it.
But at least this time Johnson took the trouble to get someone with a working knowledge of some of the sensitivities in Northern Ireland to write the 2,000-word opinion on his behalf for the Belfast Telegraph. Usually he would just scratch something from the top of his head for about 30 minutes. This time he was aware that he had to produce something that somehow acknowledged the presence of both nationalists and unionists. Not to mention the EU.
Allowing Liz Truss to unilaterally decide to trigger Article 16 and torpedo the protocol – initiating law-breaking legislation was a new level of idiocy even for a paid member of the wankocracy – was not good in continental Europe or Ireland. So now the Convict was sure to keep things unclear. Let’s forget that he once mentioned Article 16, and we just hope that somehow a compromise can be reached. After all, as the economy collapses and inflation is projected to rise above 10% by the end of the year, now is probably not the time to start a trade war with your largest and closest trading partner.
How fucked up the UK economy soon became clear at a meeting of the Treasury Committee, where Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, deputy governor Dave Ramsden, and Michael Saunders and Jonathan Haskel, two economists, are working on monetary policy commission, testified. The chairman of the commission, Mel Stride, stirred things up, asking why the Bank of England had so hopelessly misjudged its inflation forecasts and whether it should have taken more action to raise interest rates to ease the pressure.
Bailey is a person who embodies stupidity. It is easy for someone, even his close friends and family, to stay awake. He speaks in the golden voice of a man who chews half a dozen Mogadon before leaving the house in the morning. So, to sound even slightly panicked, it is enough to set the alarm. That was it, he said. He had no control over at least 80% of the main causes of inflation. He could only relax and let rising energy prices and the war in Ukraine do the worst. He was powerless. Accept the things he can’t change.
Yes, but … Stride wasn’t happy about that at all. He needed more security. He needed to know that the Bank of England had an idea of what he was doing. Bailey looked him in the eye before answering slowly. You can collect all the retrospectives you want, but even then you can attract a few players who know nothing about street economy and probably won’t do any worse than MPC.
It wasn’t just that 80% of the economy was an illegal jungle, far from all the pathetic money levers he could try to use. Besides, he actually had no idea about the 20% he would normally have a chance to control in times of less magical thinking. There was Covid in China. He had no idea how this would develop.
And he had no idea why so many people left the workforce. It is possible that everyone had a long Covid. Or just hundreds of thousands thought that everything was so bad for the Tories that once the blockade was over, they couldn’t be angry about going back to work. Far better to stand up and take risks at home. He may die happy.
“I don’t want to panic you,” Bailey said. But he apparently did, because he went on to say that there would be a food crisis soon. Wheat prices rose by 25% in a few months. We would all starve to death. And the least we can all do is not want a salary increase. So the weakest would be first. Call it natural selection. And even more about him. Although he tried to point out that he, too, had taken a salary freeze. Somehow he would struggle with £ 575,000 a year.
Rushanara Ali of the Labor Party wondered how the MPC felt about being a scapegoat for Liam Fox and other right-wing Tories because they had done nothing more to fight inflation. Bailey shrugged. He could live with that. If the Tories really wanted to undermine the bank’s independence and allow the chancellor, they could be his guest. Although nothing Rishi Sunak has done about the cost of living crisis should give them reason to think there are any answers. The man was even more useless than he was.
The session lasted almost two hours, all in a state of negation. No one really wanted to admit how damned the economy was or that no one had any idea what to do about it. I just hope that things will return to normal at some point in the future and that some of us will be alive to see it. Don’t talk about 80%. Or 20% on this issue. Try to think of a happy place. And definitely don’t mention Brexit.
Tory MP Kevin Hollinrake tried to get Bailey to quantify the effect of Brexit. “La, la, la,” Bailey said, putting her fingers in her ears. He would not talk about Brexit. It was too hard to break away from Covid. But maybe it had some effect? Yes, no, maybe. Ramsden, the deputy director, eventually rescued Bailey from his misery. Brexit would cause a 3.75% blow to GDP in the long run. But they had said it a long time ago, and it was too painful to repeat. There was an embarrassed silence. Ramsden looked around guiltily, as if confused.
One of the greatest acts of self-harm, and even the Bank of England and the selection committee of the Treasury, can scarcely mention it. We’re really fucked.
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