No Answer Andy’s £49 Billion Circus, Where the Promises Are Endless and the Answers Have Vanished.
Welcome back, dear readers, to another riotous week beneath Westminster’s Big Top of Blunders, where No Answer Andy is back in the spotlight, the Treasury jugglers are throwing billions into the air, the Cabinet contortionists are bending themselves into increasingly ridiculous positions, and the British taxpayer is once again being invited to finance the entire freak show.
Fifteen weeks into Labour’s circus, the tent is leaking, the clowns are multiplying, and Chancellor John Healey has unveiled a Budget that appears to involve spending enormous amounts of money while hoping nobody asks the rather vulgar question of where it is all coming from.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has accused Labour of creating a potential £49 billion funding hole, warning that meeting its spending ambitions will mean the equivalent of another £1,700 a year in taxes per household. The Treasury disputes the calculation of course, but let’s face it. This Labour lot can’t seen to add up on the best of days and the underlying concern is hardly imaginary. Britain faces enormous spending pressures, weak growth and a deeply uncomfortable outlook for family finances. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned of an exceptionally bleak time for household incomes.
The Treasury circus has responded with its usual breathtaking optimism. More spending, more promises, more announcements and, apparently, an inexhaustible supply of taxpayers waiting patiently outside the tent with their wallets open. The Chancellor is juggling so many billions that the national debt has practically become a circus attraction in its own right. Roll up, roll up, ladies and gentlemen, and witness the extraordinary £49 billion elephant that everybody can see but nobody in Government particularly wants to discuss!
And just when you thought the financial acrobatics could not become any more impressive, Labour has faced accusations over how it presents defence spending, with the statistics watchdog examining concerns about the figures. Labour ministers if you’re reading this… you cannot defend the United Kingdom with creative accounting, and a warship does not become more seaworthy because a Treasury clown has moved a decimal point. Please take note.
Speaking of warships, Britain’s only ice patrol vessel, HMS Protector, has been towed home with propulsion problems, while Labour ministers have yet to announce when a replacement will arrive. The Navy needs functioning ships, not another glossy brochure promising that everything will be marvellous eventually. Perhaps No Answer Andy could send a balloon animal to patrol Antarctica. It would certainly be cheaper, although its survival prospects might be somewhat limited.
Meanwhile, another £150 million has been earmarked for large asylum accommodation sites, with questions remaining about their locations and ultimate costs. The Government says the aim is to reduce reliance on expensive hotels, but taxpayers are entitled to know whether the replacement arrangements will actually save money. This is becoming Labour’s favourite magic trick, making one enormous bill disappear, only for another to materialise behind the curtain.
Then comes Brexit, that apparently irresistible attraction which Labour’s contortionists simply cannot leave alone. Burnham has reopened discussion of European free movement despite earlier assurances that Labour would not revisit the central Brexit settlement. Discussion is not the same as a formal policy change, but the spectacle is familiar. No Answer Andy promises to respect the referendum while his political acrobats perform increasingly elaborate backflips towards Brussels. At this rate, the circus will need a separate tent just to accommodate all the U-turns.
The railway ring has provided another eyebrow-raising performance. Ministers have confirmed that arrangements for paid time off for railway union representatives have no fixed spending ceiling, prompting accusations that Labour is handing its union allies a blank cheque. Paid time off remains subject to reasonableness requirements, but the absence of a predetermined cap deserves scrutiny. One can almost picture the Treasury clown handing over his cheque book, while the taxpayer stands behind him quietly weeping into a season ticket.
And what about Burnham’s much celebrated £2 bus fare? Reports suggest the policy relies on a proposed £400 million rainforest loan that has yet to be agreed. A bus fare apparently dependent on financing arrangements involving a rainforest. You really could not invent this stuff. The ringmaster produces a cheap ticket from his sleeve, the audience cheers, and somewhere in the wings a Treasury assistant is desperately searching for the money.
The Government’s artificial intelligence claims have also acquired a distinctly inflatable quality. Labour’s much trumpeted suggestion that AI could add £400 billion to Britain’s economy was based on Google-commissioned research which may not be correct if Labour keep going the way they’re going, while a later Government assessment offered a substantially lower central estimate using a different methodology. The figures are not directly comparable, but the original headline certainly made for a magnificent balloon animal. Unfortunately, when somebody examined it more closely, the £400 billion rabbit appeared to have shrunk considerably.
Over in the justice ring, Labour’s early prisoner release arrangements are facing fresh questions amid reports that police have scaled back some electronic tag enforcement activity. Prison overcrowding is a longstanding problem, but releasing offenders early while questions remain about monitoring is hardly a reassuring spectacle. The revolving door is spinning so quickly that the circus clown operating it may soon require a seatbelt.
And then there are Britain’s unpaid carers, who have been promised changes to the notorious Carer’s Allowance earnings cliff edge, the rule that can leave somebody losing an entire allowance for earning just above the threshold. A welcome reform, you might think, until you discover that implementation is not expected until 2030/31. After the next general election. Labour has announced the rabbit, unveiled the hat and invited the applause, but apparently the actual trick will not be performed for another four years.
Local government reorganisation offers another fine example of the No Answer Andy approach to public administration. Ministers have been unable to provide a consolidated figure for the costs associated with changes and delays to the council restructuring programme. The Government can announce reforms, revise timetables and reorganise entire layers of local democracy, but ask what the exercise is costing and suddenly the circus orchestra becomes remarkably loud.
And so ends Week Fifteen beneath Westminster’s Big Top of Blunders. A Budget overshadowed by disputed warnings of a £49 billion funding gap, questions over defence spending, asylum accommodation costs still requiring explanation, renewed Brexit arguments, uncertain transport funding, delayed carers’ reforms and yet another collection of Government answers apparently lost somewhere between the Treasury and the ringmaster’s dressing room.
No Answer Andy remains in the centre ring, naturally, wearing his enormous red nose and assuring everybody that Britain is heading towards a glorious future. Behind him, the Treasury jugglers are dropping billions, the Brexit contortionists are folding themselves into the shape of the European flag, the defence clown is attempting to launch a cardboard frigate, and the AI balloon modeller has inflated an enormous £400 billion economy that appears to be losing air.
The railway acrobats are swinging from a cheque book, the prison revolving door is spinning, the bus conductor is looking for a rainforest, and an exhausted unpaid carer has just been informed that the promised improvement is scheduled for a future performance.
It is a magnificent spectacle, provided you are not the one paying for it.
Fifteen weeks into the Labour circus, the promises are bigger, the bills are mounting and the ringmaster is still insisting that the best is yet to come.
The audience has just one question.
Who on earth is paying for all this?
Same circus. Bigger promises. Bigger bills.
And No Answer Andy still hasn’t found the answer… and he won’t.
READ ALL ABOUT IT: Links to this week’s top Labour circus acts below:
