In a haze of political dishonesty almost everyone, until recently, has been living an economic lie

I have a secret to impart: this Spending Review is a farce. It’s a joke. The problem is it’s on all of us.

No this is not a Tory attack line. Though Mel Stride makes that argument well today on Conservative Home. No I lump the past Conservative party in with every other party when I say this.

Everyone, since 2008, possibly before, has been living in a political fantasy without – how shall I put it – the cajónes to tell the truth. Kemi Badenoch and Mel Stride are getting there, and have indicated they get it and if there was ever a time for brutal honesty, hard road though it is, it’s now.

The truth is, for years now, the public expectation of what Government can and should do for them long ago completely outstripped Government’s actual ability to fulfil that expectation.

Pleased read that again, because until recently it’s been the 2020’s version of the ‘truth that dare not speak its name”

It’s why, in the face of a wall of criticism about style, and substance, months ago, the Tory leader rightly identified that Government  “should do fewer things, but what it does, it should do with brilliance“.

Amen to that.

Today in the House of Commons we will see promises from a jaded, faded Chancellor to keep trying to do everything, and as we have seen for the last few months, get the opposite result.

Labour in opposition and now in Government are the ‘more or less’ gang.

If they promised more – you get less, if they promised less – you’re getting more. And here’s the kicker: they still keep trotting out the lines “we‘ve fixed the foundations of the economy, secured our borders, made our streets safe and built up our defence”

These are insane and dishonest ‘lines to take’ and there is no need for it. Tell a story, paint a vision of a work in progress, but don’t gaslight smart ordinary people who think, ‘no, that simply isn’t true, and we can see the evidence.’

But there’s a bigger issue at the heart of this fiscal circus, and again one the Tories should take note of, having been as guilty in the past.

A Spending Review, where the Treasury allocates what money it will give to departments for them to fulfil their respective briefs as set out by the Chancellor, in this case Rachel Reeves, and the Prime Minister, in this case Morgan McSweeny, is a two way process: Yvette wants more money for policing (actually support her on that) but she won’t get it. Ed says Net Zero is the most important thing since sliced carbon, and he wins, Angela gets her slice, others get cuts, and so on and so on.

The Treasury (which by the way often tuts and rather patronisingly thinks ‘oh bless the PM I’m sure he wants this but he can’t have it’ (constitutional questions should be sent to Number 10 Downing Street) offers a two way valve: money turned on due to circumstance and political will, but equally can the tap can be turned off in other areas.

So far, so ‘normal’ in our existing Whitehall system.

Odd then to hear a former Permanent Secretary of the Treasury tell the BBC PM programme in answer to the question “Is this the best way to make public policy?” say “no” and then go on to say but roughly ‘it’s the way it’s been done’ for years.

I have questions about that, for what it’s worth, but anyway that isn’t even the worst thing about this process. As I say Spending Reviews are Treasury orthodoxy: the Treasury giveth and Treasury taketh away.

OK, so how does that work in politics? Answer: it doesn’t.

Spending commitments in politics are not a two way valve they are one way. Offer a benefit here, that’s an entitlement within a year. Cut back on something that resolved a problem in the past but may have outlived its effectiveness, and it’s protests on the streets, and “how dare they” vox pops on every broadcast outlet.

No, I’m not talking about specific polices, that’s a distraction from the fundamental. If we want to talk about a two-tier system, start with the money.

I like Rishi Sunak, I didn’t always agree with him but he was a decent man who tried to recover a possibly irrecoverable political problem, and he knows he made mistakes. That’s actually also on the party too. However my biggest criticism of him was that when he basked in the furlough scheme, keeping millions still in work during a once in a generation pandemic, he wasn’t clear enough, enough of the time that “this will have to be paid for”. He said it but it came across – sotto voce. When it did have to be paid for, everyone was outraged.

Labour right now, are making big promises but they inevitably come with either more borrowing or tax rises, that’s only the real choice. However we probably don’t have to pay the biggest share. Our kids and grandkids will. What a legacy to leave them to ‘resolve’ an issue of the now.

You can gripe and moan about Kemi Badenoch all you like, and chuck in the current shadow cabinet if you must, but if they are being honest about being honest I for one applaud it. Stop promising the moon on a stick. Let other parties do that. It’s a twenty year old total canard, and we should abandon it.

Rachel Reeves can talk about a bogus £22bn black hole, suggest, now things are going better (they aren’t), she’s able to handle her own £1.25bn winter fuel black hole, after months of political pain and reform insurgency, and with no detail yet how to pay for it (and chuck in Chagos as well for good measure) and she’ll still tell you how they are building on the economic foundations she has ‘fixed’.

No. No. No. To quote the Lady.

Until we are all honest that government spending can, and should only match circumstances. That money given to resolve one thing is not then an entitlement for forever spending on that issue then we will continue to balloon on public spending, borrowing and drive ourselves into a monster debt crisis – if, frankly, we aren’t already.

Reminder Labour’s proposed cuts to Welfare, are cuts in the level of increase, not cuts.

I am cheered the Conservatives want to take time to figure out bold, credible solutions to this, even when others want to go spending crazy to, in effect, buy votes, but of course the hostage to fortune is this:

When the Conservative policies on the economy come – they’d better be damn good. Honest, credible, and growth enhancing.

Anything less will be a buy-in to a failed doctrine that has hampered this country, and economic growth for nigh on 20 years.