Liz Truss turned Britain into ‘Argentina on the Channel’, says ex-Bank of England governor Mark Carney

Published

8 months ago

September 17, 2023

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A former governor of the Bank of England has launched a scathing attack on Liz Truss – accusing her government of turning Britain into “Argentina on the Channel”.

Mark Carney also said Brexiteers such as the former Conservative leader – who became the shortest-serving prime minister in history when she resigned last year – had a “basic misunderstanding of what drives economies”.

It came as the 58-year-old Canadian delivered a speech in which he praised “progressive” policies while attacking “far-right populists”.

Mr Carney’s mention of Argentina – which has become a byword in recent years for countries suffering from repeated economic crises – appeared to be a reference to the economic turmoil that followed the mini-budget drawn up by Ms Truss and her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng last year.

Speaking at the Global Progress Action Summit in Montreal, the former Bank boss hit out at the “misguided view” that cutting taxes and government spending leads to economic growth – and accused Brexiteers of wanting to “tear down the future”.

He said: “Progressives build things that last – health care, infrastructure, schools, opportunities, sustainability and prosperity.

“Others, and there are others, have a different model. They are in the demolition business. Far-right populists see the anxiety of today as an opportunity to stoke the anger that’s necessary for their project.”

Mr Carney said populists, including Brexiteers, treated spending and tax cuts as a “Pavlovian reaction to every problem” which was “grounded in a basic misunderstanding of what drives economies.”

He added: “It meant when Brexiteers tried to create Singapore on the Thames, the Truss government instead delivered Argentina on the Channel – and that was a year ago.

“Those with little experience in the private sector – lifelong politicians masquerading as free marketeers – grossly under-value the importance of mission, of institutions, and of discipline to a strong economy.”

His comments on Truss were met with laughter – and then applause – from the audience.

Mr Carney, whose current roles include being the vice chair of Brookfield Asset Management, was replaced by Andrew Bailey as governor of the Bank in 2020 after he stayed on longer than expected due to concerns over potential Brexit disruption to the economy.

Ms Truss has repeatedly defended her time in power since leaving office. She has suggested her economic policies were not given a chance to succeed and believes they would have worked longer-term.

At an event in Westminster earlier this summer, she was overheard comparing sluggish growth in the UK to a “boiling a frog situation”, saying it hadn’t “dramatically gone away” with her exit from Downing Street, but “got worse and worse”.

Ms Truss also said in February she still believed measures such as significant tax cuts were “the right thing to do for Britain” as she doubled-down on her economic ideology.

But also accepted that one of her most controversial measures – cutting the 45p tax rate for the country’s highest earners – was “maybe a step too far”.

Politics

Bitfinex database breach ‘seems fake,’ says CTO

Published

12 hours ago

May 5, 2024

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<div>Bitfinex database breach 'seems fake,' says CTO</div>

Bitfinex CTO Paolo Ardoino explained that if the hacking group was telling the truth, they would have asked for a ransom, but he “couldn’t find any request.”

Politics

Labour taking ‘Tory crown jewel’ feels like a momentum shift

Published

14 hours ago

May 5, 2024

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Labour taking 'Tory crown jewel' feels like a momentum shift

It was a wafer-thin victory, but a huge win.

The symbolism of Labour taking the West Midlands mayor, a jewel in the Tory crown, could be felt in the room as Labour activists gathered in Birmingham to celebrate the win with their new mayor Richard Parker and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.

There are moments on election journeys when the momentum shifts – and this win felt like one of them.

“We humbly asked [the voters] to put their trust and confidence in a changed Labour Party and they did. And that is a significant piece of political history that we’ve made here today,” said Sir Keir at his victory rally.

“So the message out of these elections, the last now the last stop before we go into that general election, is that the country wants change.

“I hope the prime minister is listening and gives the opportunity to the country to vote as a whole in a general election as soon as possible.”

This win gave them the boost that was missing when they won the Blackpool South by-election on a massive 26-point swing, but then failed to pick up the hundreds of council seats they were chasing.

This win, on just 1,508 votes or 0.25 per cent of the vote, was a body blow for a Conservative party that believed they could just about cling on. Ben Houchen, the Tees Valley mayor, is now the last Tory standing.

For Labour, then a moment to bookmark.

Just as Boris Johnson’s Hartlepool by-election win in 2021 was a low point for Sir Keir – he told me this week that he considered resigning over the loss because he thought it showed he was the barrier to Labour’s recovery – this too will feel devastating not just for Andy Street but for the PM too.

Labour has beaten him in a street fight. He’s bloodied with Sir Keir now emboldened.

“This was the one result we really needed,” said one senior Labour figure. “It’s been our top focus for the past week and symbolically a very important win.”

And Labour needed the boost, because, as Professor Michael Thrasher pointed out in his Sky News’ national vote share projection calculated from the local election results, Sir Keir was not picking up the sort of vote share that Tony Blair was winning in the run-up to the 1997 Labour landslide.

His latest calculation of a 35% vote share for Labour and 26% for the Tories, put Sir Keir winning a general election but short of a majority.

What the West Midlands mayoral win did for Sir Keir was to give him a clear narrative that he is coming for the Tories and will do what he needs to take them down.

It raises inevitable questions about what is next for Rishi Sunak. The prime minister had nowhere to go today, not one win to celebrate. The worst performance in council elections in 40 years, was already pretty much as bad as it gets before the loss of Andy Street. The former Conservative mayor was magnanimous towards the prime minister, saying the loss was his alone.

But colleagues will not be so generous. One former cabinet minister said this loss was “devastating”. “We’re done and there’s no appetite to move against him,” said the senior MP. Many Tories tell me they are now resigned to defeat and believe Mr Sunak and his team needed to own it, rather than the rest of the party.

The coming days might be bumpy, the mood will be stony. But Tories tell me not much will actually change for them.

For Sir Keir, he now needs to sell not the changed Labour Party, but his vision for changing the country. The West Mids mayor’s win was dazzling, but it could have so easily gone the other way. And as Mr Sunak fights to survive, Labour still has to fight hard to win.