AS Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak battle it out to be the UK’s next Prime Minister, history tells us that tax cuts – a key battleground in the debate – are the worst way to tame inflation.
As with the First World War, a global conflict is driving up prices and the best that can be said is that at least we are not facing 25% inflation as we did in that war. While in the Second World War inflation reached a paltry 17%.
For those who favour tax cuts, recent history indicates that this could be the worst thing to do. One only has to cast an eye back to Anthony Barber, Edward Heath’s Chancellor, who faced the same spectre of stagflation as we do today. High inflation was failing to drive economic growth and Barber initiated an economic policy not so far different to that which we are witnessing being debated by the Tory leadership hopefuls today.
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Aiming for 10% economic growth over two years, in a so-called “dash for growth”, Barber cut income tax, overhauled other levies and liberalised the banking system. Government borrowing ballooned and then the bubble burst as sterling plunged in value and inflation climbed, before the Yom Kippur war triggered the oil crisis of 1973 and soaring oil prices.
While in other nations inflation fell, in the UK it rose to First World War levels, accompanied by two recessions.
Before the next Prime Minister looks to loosen the purse strings, the tales of Tory chancellors past should act as a clear wake-up call.
Alex Orr
Edinburgh
WHEN two Conservative MPs make a similar suggestion within days of one another, we can be sure that one of their right-wing think tanks, policy units or “research groups” has come up with another of their bright ideas. Recently, both Jacob Rees-Mogg and Iain Duncan-Smith have talked about creating mechanisms to “hold the Scottish Government to account.”
The Wee Ginger Dug might be quite correct to point out that it is the role of the Scottish people, not these individuals, to do this but we should not too easily dismiss this latest attack on the devolution settlement. I can already hear the refrain from the right-wing media that the UK Treasury funds the Scottish Government and so it is only right that the UK Government should be able to monitor it.
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Any mechanism, which I fully expect the incoming UK Prime Minister to create, would be a platform for relentless disparagement of anything and everything the Scottish Government does, which we already see from virtually all of the media. It would be far from a “monitoring” exercise but a politically motivated attempt to attack the Scottish Government. We need to understand that the Conservative party has given up trying to present any perceived benefits of the Union. Its only tactic now is, by any means possible, to undermine the Scottish Government and, piece by piece, the devolution settlement too.
Gavin Brown
Linlithgow
SO Sarwar has come out of hiding to tell us the “the Scottish people are sovereign and have the right to determine the best form of government for our needs.”
That is until what Scotland wants does not chime with what his London masters want.
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What a nerve – many councils were made up of a majority of SNP elected representatives but Labour did not like this so they were prepared to do dirty deals with mainly the Tories and independents (many of whom are Tory but feel they are discredited and cannot win with a Tory tag) – and all this despite BEFORE the election saying they would make no deals. So remember: vote Labour and get Tory in Scotland, or in England Tory-light.
Sarwar would make a deal with the devil himself to please his London masters – notice how quiet he is when Starmer says the opposite of what he says, for example on the single market and free movement. He has learned quickly from the Tories – just go into hiding. After all, the BBC will not seek him out.
Winifred McCartney
Paisley
IS everyone else as fed up as I am of the BritNats dragging out Gordon Brown every time they feel their Union is under threat? Why anyone in Scotland would listen to Brown is a complete mystery to me – after all, he was the one behind the infamous Vow which saw all its promises broken.
He is simply not to be trusted. As chancellor he destroyed the occupational pensions system, he sold off gold reserves when gold was at a record low and he crippled the public sector with his dodgy PFI schemes while enriching all the banker friends of New Labour.
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The man is a charlatan. He stood alongside the Tories making promises he knew couldn’t keep yet he’s at it again trying to say how he can save the Union and stop the increasing poverty which is a direct result of the Better Together campaign that he so fully supported.
Let’s be blunt, if we had ignored Brown and won our independence we would not be in the mess we now find ourselves in. It’s time for Brown to apologise for preferring to keep Scotland tied to a failing Union and then disappear for good as a footnote in history as one of the worst chancellors and prime ministers the UK has ever seen.
He was best ignored in 2014 and is nothing but an irrelevance now. If you care about your future, and that of your friends, family and neighbours – consign Brown to the dustbin of history and campaign for independence.
Cllr Kenny MacLaren
Paisley
FUNNILY enough, with the economy and Westminster ruptured the last thing we need is a truss.
Richard Easson
Dornoch
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