The UK economy, as we have been pointing out for some time, is in a bad way. Britain is the only major country forecast by the IMF to suffer a recession this year and average real wages are expected to remain below their 2008 level until 2027. In the supposedly dismal 1970s – the decade used as a reference point for decline – average annual GDP growth was 2.6 per cent. Britain will be lucky to achieve half of that in the 2020s. The quip that the UK is becoming Italy without the sunshine is increasingly harsh on Italy.
For these economic maladies, Conservative MPs have a purported cure: tax cuts. Backbenchers, most notably the party’s Trussite continuity wing, are clamouring for Jeremy Hunt to take action in the Budget on 15 March. In response, the Chancellor and Rishi Sunak plead for more time. Not until inflation and government borrowing have been reduced, they insist, can they cut taxes. Like Maimonides, Sunak’s message is that the messiah will come “but he may tarry”.
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