Trussonomics, like cakeism, is a morally bankrupt policy

Liz Truss’s idea would crash economy, writes Sean O’Grady

I must admit that part of me, the journalistic part, can’t wait for Liz Truss to become prime minister. As we hacks always say, she makes for good copy. As we also say nowadays, she’s good for traffi. It’s a rather childish, shameful thing because millions of lives will be made worse through her disastrous policies, so the better, more honourable part of me hopes she won’t get anywhere near power. But I may as well be honest and declare the vested interest.

To put things at their simplest: Liz Truss’s ideas will crash the economy. Trussonomics, as we might soon learn to call it, will impoverish the country. She will cut taxes, recklessly, just as inflation is rising. It will have dire consequences, the precise extent and nature of which are diffiult to predict. In a worstcase scenario, with rising borrowing, debts and a sterling crisis, we might have to go begging to the IMF, because that’s what an outsized national debt in a world of high interest rates can mean.

And if she’s really as Eurosceptic as she makes out, and she’s serious about the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill and unilaterally breaking the EU-UK free-trade agreement, we’ll also have a trade war with our largest export market and source of supply for trade and industry. “Disaster” doesn’t come close.