TARTUFFERY - A WORD FOR TODAY

Present preoccupations – finances coming out of the pandemic, Scotland’s tribulations and the flagrant political hypocrisy of the conservative party.

As to finances and the proclaimed budget, I put before you a quote from Paul Johnson, Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies:

“Mr Sunak had three challenges in this Budget – to ensure the right level of support for the economy over the next few months, to set about fixing the longer term public finances, and to deal with the longer term consequences of the pandemic, especially its unequal consequences. He has done a decent job of the first, arguably erring on the side of generosity.

He has given us a sense of where he wants to go on the second, but he still has a lot of work to do and his spending plans in particular don’t look deliverable, at least not without considerable pain.

Paul Johnson

On the third he has been silent. No money to deal with post pandemic priorities. No policies to deal with the inequalities that have opened up over the last year between rich and poor, old and young, more and less well educated. This is a big hole in the chancellor’s and the government’s policies, a hole which needs to be filled and soon if we are not to suffer a much worse hangover from this crisis than need be the case.”

As to the current Scottish rigamarole I can only point to Ruth Davidson’s arrogant self righteous calls for Ms Sturgeon’s resignation. She goes on about breaking the code and waste of public funds on litigation. What about Ms Priti Patel who was found by an independent enquiry to have breached the code and behaved as a bully, coupled with a waste of public funds, some £370,000 plus, to settle the legitimate claim for unfair dismissal of Sir Philip Rutnam, and the resignation of another public servant, Sir Alex Allan as result of the failure of the Home Secretary and Prime Minister to follow the code. I do not hear Ms Davidson crying out for the resignation of Ms Patel or the Prime Minister, or does that not matter? Is she aware of what has transpired? I note a particular silence from Just Boris and ‘Violette Elizabeth’ Patel as regards Ms Sturgeon’s future. Too embarrassed to say the least.

As well as the above, it would appear that as regards the £1bn for town funding, the first tranche of the fund is going to 45 designated areas, 39 of which are represented by Conservative MPs. That’ £866 million for conservative voters and £134 million for other voters. I appreciate that the amount for each town may be the same, but the conservatives only had 43% of those who voted which is only about 29% of the actual electorate. Note, we have a government which has been elected by barely 30% of the electorate. How democratic is that?

It is a government prepared to breach ministerial codes at will, breach international treaties in the same cavalier fashion, devote its primary assistance to its own supporters and still expects to occupy the high moral ground. If that is not hypocrisy, what is? Although, tartuffery sounds a more elegant description, but I do not imagine there will be any deus ex machina to save the day.

Again, the sun is out, it is a lovely day, I have been for a walk, a recent test for covid was negative, so what have I to complain about?