Covid crisis: Chancellor Rishi Sunak's economic strategy is simply not working – Christine Jardine MP

I would not have wished these past nine months on anyone, and certainly not our governments tasked with dealing with them.

Christine Jardine had hoped to congratulate Chancellor Rishi Sunak over his spending review but his blind spot to hardship left her disappointed (Picture: Getty)

However, my levels of frustration with their handling has, at times, been almost overpowering. This Wednesday was a case in point.

The build-up to the Annual Spending Review had felt heavy somehow. Important. We are faced with the biggest economic recession for 300 years. A shrinking economy with no sign of let-up. Massive levels of borrowing.

So I sat listening intently to every nuance of what the Chancellor had to say, hoping that, despite our political differences, our common desire to see the country emerge from this darkness as intact as possible would provide something to cheer.

A massive blind spot to hardship

Surely there would be something for the millions of excluded who have received nothing from this government to help them through this crisis?

Or to reassure the hard-pressed events industry, the retail trade, the people who call my office, and I’m sure every other representative in the country, every week in distress at the scale of the problems Covid-19 has brought to their door.

I really wanted to congratulate the Chancellor and the government on finding the initiative, courage and competence to give us confidence in the future.

I was disappointed.

I find it difficult to reconcile the widespread recognition of the hole that we are in, both individually and collectively, with the fact that this Chancellor and government still seem to have a massive blind spot to hardship.

Already having been dragged metaphorically kicking and screaming to the point where he agreed to extend the Job Retention Scheme and its furlough provisions until March, I should perhaps not have been surprised that Rishi was prepared to go no further.

He did not listen to the calls from my party, the Liberal Democrats, that we should carry the scheme through until June 2021 to allow businesses to plan and individuals to have some security. Nor did he heed our appeals to invest £150 billion over three years to build a green economic recovery with insulated homes, green transport, renewable energy and a green jobs guarantee. Neither did he support carers by raising the allowance by £1,000 a year or giving an extra £4bn to local authorities.

Chancellor’s hoodie stunt

But it was perhaps the double blow of the pay freeze for most of the public sector and the continued refusal to acknowledge the immense hardship being faced by those excluded that irked the most.

The day of the review I heard the story of a woman, a make-up artist, widowed with two children who has been told that because she invested the pension her husband left her nine years ago in allowing her to start her business she gets nothing from this government.

I have huge empathy with that woman who finds herself in a situation that could so easily have been mine.

And in my response on Wednesday, I asked the Chancellor to spend just a moment in the shoes of the excluded and see things from their perspective.

Perhaps I invested too much faith in the popular image being created by his press office.

In a ridiculous follow-up to his much-derided stunt as a waiter in a restaurant chain, the government released pictures of the Chancellor gazing wistfully at his notes, next to his red box. Wearing shirt, tie and hoodie.

Lovely loungewear for a not-so-lovely fashion statement designed to convey he’s one of us, and not just someone who understands the figures.

Economic shock

Here’s the thing. I don’t care how he dresses it’s that other thing that matters. As Bill Clinton would have put it: “It’s the economy, stupid”.

And ours is the worst performing of the G7 even before we take into account the implications of the end of the EU transition period with, or without a deal.

All around us we see, hear and read the evidence every day of exactly the economic impact that it is the Chancellor’s job to address.

In my city, our world-famous Edinburgh International Festival, our zoo, our Royal Highland Show and our Christmas Market have all been both victims and contributed to the economic shock.

The tourist industry alone is worth around £10.5 billion to the Scottish economy in a normal year and the Edinburgh Festival is its biggest single contributor.

Big companies and independent retailers alike are feeling the pinch.

And yet we now have a pay freeze for much of the public sector, the very people we have depended on to get us through this, which will both undermine their ability to provide for their families and suppress their ability to spend in their local economy.

Tory faith

No doubt his supporters would point to the fact that we have had billions of pounds of investment to help people get back into work, help the NHS to cope and fund local infrastructure projects. There was also billions of pounds of extra funding for the Scottish government. But however hard we wish it was working, it is not.

The Conservatives’ faith in Rishi may have brought us so far but it is not far enough.

We need to innovate ourselves out of this and that very quality was absent from Wednesday’s statement.

Much like we’ve seen with the Scottish government – the wrapping is pretty impressive, but what’s inside is a lump of coal and not the economic diamond we so desperately need.

In the narrative to his plans, the Chancellor warned us all that the economic emergency has just begun.

I hope he hasn’t just figured that out.

Christine Jardine is the Scottish Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West

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