LAST month one reader was so concerned with the depth of my blue funk with the lack of accountability in our public sector they appealed to me to write an uplifting piece on the virtues of public service to encourage better quality candidates to stand in next year’s election. Perhaps I’ll tackle that another time. But today I promised to return to this column’s core topics of international economics and sustainability, and I also promised to be a bit more upbeat in my tone.
I think. Let’s face it, being upbeat is tough. Just ask Sir Keir Starmer.
His strategy of highlighting the UK’s problems and pinning them on the Tories has been so effective that now he has to backtrack, promising no return to austerity in the autumn budget. Now the risk is that this could be seen as an admission that the Tories didn’t leave things as bad as Labour claimed. I’m sure some editor at GB News is toying with that narrative.
‘And with all the recent public sector pay deals it’s getting quite hard to pin the blame for the £22bn budget ‘blackhole’ on the Tories. It’s improbably ironic that Starmer’s £22bn. hole mirrors in size the £16m.
revenue shortfall announced by Deputy Trott at the start of the month. Proportionally, both represent about 2% of total public revenues. I kid ye not.
Perhaps Sir Kier and Deputy Trott took the opportunity to joke about the irony during the Labour Party conference this week, where Lyndon led a (quite large if you ask me) delegation to c.