DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Jittery Tories risk fuelling market misery

DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Jittery Tories risk fuelling market misery

Global markets are in turmoil, the strengthening dollar is hitting all currencies, inflation is rampant everywhere and the era of historically low borrowing is ending.

These are indeed anxiety-inducing days, but Britain is not uniquely engulfed in this mayhem. The entire world is suffering the shockwaves from the Covid lockdown and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Why, then, has the International Monetary Fund singled out the UK – a G7 economy, hardly an emerging market – for a humiliating rebuke over its response to the crisis?

The truth is, the organisation detests Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s bold low-tax, pro-growth mini-Budget, because it challenges every grinding liberal economic orthodoxy that it and its fellow travellers have preached for over a decade.

The Chancellor’s (pictured) biggest intervention by far, the £150billion energy bills freeze, will reduce inflation

The package, it warns, risks fuelling inflation. Yet the Chancellor’s biggest intervention by far, the £150billion energy bills freeze, will reduce inflation. Compared to this bailout, his tax cuts and changes – even if unfunded – are a drop in the ocean.

The IMF also claims the measures will increase inequality – apparently by benefiting high earners. But isn’t it supposed to be making economic judgments – not unsolicited and overtly political ones?

And anyway, Britain is far less unequal than many countries – including the US.

The fact is, the UK’s tax burden is at the highest since the 1940s. If Mr Kwarteng is to succeed in jolting the sclerotic economy back to life, it simply has to come down.

Of course, IMF forecasts have been wrong for years. That didn’t stop the Government’s enemies – advocates of the failed economic consensus, Remainers refighting the Brexit battles of 2016 and a hysterical anti-Tory media – seizing on the criticism.

The truth is, the organisation detests Liz Truss (pictured) and Kwasi Kwarteng’s bold low-tax, pro-growth mini-Budget, because it challenges every grinding liberal economic orthodoxy that it and its fellow travellers have preached for over a decade

For days, the Bank of England’s response has been confused and sluggish. But with the markets rattled again, it deserves applause for swiftly buying government debt to stop soaring interest rates collapsing pension funds and hitting mortgages.

Ministers insist the tax-cutting budget will not be torn up. But the Prime Minister and Mr Kwarteng are not easing jitters by going missing while the crisis rages. And waiting weeks to spell out how they will balance the books has needlessly caused more carnage.

Some Tory MPs are so twitchy that they have intimated the PM and Chancellor should quit – less than a month in post.

But that would be suicidal. With Labour streets ahead in the polls, the Tories are drinking in the last chance saloon.

Changing the leader is not an option. The project was never going to yield overnight results, so they have got to get behind it. Voters will never forgive internecine warfare when they face financial misery.

Historic breakthrough

Few families are lucky enough to escape the scourge of Alzheimer’s disease. And the fact the illness is so widespread is worsened by the reality that there is no cure.

But for the first time, scientists have successfully developed and trialled a drug which slows memory decline in patients.

Charities have jubilantly hailed the exciting breakthrough as a ‘historic moment’. And it gives hope for millions tragically caged by this cruel disease.

A painful problem

After a Daily Mail tip-off, the Ministry of Justice found the contraband smartphone that David Norris, one of Stephen Lawrence’s killers, was using in prison.

After a Daily Mail tip-off, the Ministry of Justice found the contraband smartphone that David Norris, one of Stephen Lawrence’s (pictured) killers, was using in prison

An X-ray discovered the device concealed in his body. While painful for the murderer, it was also uncomfortable for the authorities.

Despite millions being spent on preventative measures, thousands of mobile phones still end up behind bars, allowing gangsters to run their criminal empires. The Justice Secretary must order an immediate review into this scandal.

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