London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 18, 2025

The UK is at a perilous tipping point. But what is Truss planning to do about it?

The UK is at a perilous tipping point. But what is Truss planning to do about it?

Each day brings more news about a spiralling catastrophe – the economy is crying out for major government intervention
The gigantic scale of the oncoming economic shock becomes clearer by the hour. Click – and there’s Goldman Sachs predicting a 22% inflation rise next year. Click again and Bloomberg reports UK energy companies will make £170bn in excess profits over the next two years. If interest rates do hit 4%, banks too will roll in unearned mortgage money, plus shedloads from money loaned to the government. Fine profits will be made from national misery.

Each day dawning reveals how everything, everywhere, is at a perilous tipping point. Martin Lewis warns that lives will be lost from cold and hunger, amplified by Sir Michael Marmot’s warning yesterday of children in grave peril. Lewis is not “catastrophising”, he says: “This is a catastrophe, plain and simple unaffordable.” If only he were to be the new chancellor … carry on with your own Jack Monroe-and-Marcus Rashford dream team.

But next week we face the appointment of a leader with nothing to say that acknowledges the enormity of the calamity ahead, whose defining policy of tax cuts is the perverse opposite of what’s required. In the great crunch of 2008, Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling staved off imminent calamity with policies that had been unimaginable to them only a day earlier: nationalising banks, bailouts and a quantitative easing bonanza. Is anyone confident that Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng will plan on anything like the scale required?

Rishi Sunak pitching to Tory party members in leafy Hertfordshire this week faced not one question – not a single one – concerning the cost of living crisis. From this twilight zone of unreality emerges a leader unfit to grapple with the worst crisis of our lifetime, with a typical 10% fall in disposable income predicted by 2024, according to the Resolution Foundation, which would be worse than during the 1970s oil shock, the worst in a century.

New perils come daily. Corner shops and pubs will close. Libraries and museums can’t be warm hubs for cold people as they shut to save fuel bills. Schools, hospitals, nurseries and colleges can’t pay. Credit card borrowing will soar, and food banks are already running out of food.

Of course people will strike wherever they have unions to organise them: already their demands fall well behind the latest predicted inflation figures. Their immediate employers can’t pay from government-restricted budgets: only government can pay out. “Restraint” is demanded by the Bank of England governor with nothing said about the 39% rise for FTSE 100 CEOs this year, as reported by the High Pay Centre. The wonder is not that unions are “militant” (they’re not) but that they have been so acquiescent over the last austerity decade of falling real wages. Why? It takes exceptional outrage for union members to vote to strike, suffering lost pay with an uncertain outcome. This time the pay cuts are too shocking to tolerate.

Facing this unthinkable catastrophe, the only solutions are things once deemed politically unthinkable. The idea that a £30bn tax cut is the answer defies reason, especially when biased to benefit the best off. Why would cutting corporation tax lead to “growth” when company investment was absent even in better times? When six companies alone made £16bn excess profit during the pandemic, what’s needed is walloping windfalls on profiteers, as Labour urges.

This is a wartime emergency, with the west resolute against Putin’s invasions. In a war paid for by Ukrainians with their lives, we are obliged to pay with our money. But whose? Everyone’s, but the most ought to come from those with the broadest shoulders. In wartime, money is conscripted in the form of war bonds, in a solidarity tax and in property taxes, since that’s where most wealth resides. Public services must survive, public servants can’t pay the price and nor can collapsing small businesses. Massive, Covid-era-style support is a necessity for social survival. The very minimum immediate action requires universal free school meals to stop any child starving, and an instant, inflation-matching rise in already puny universal credit. But far more than that for many more households is essential if we are to prevent Marmot’s worst predictions.

Rowan Williams is among more than 500 clerics proposing a 1% wealth tax on those with £2m or more. Prof Arun Advani of Warwick University says a one-off 1% raid, to be paid over five years, would raise £80bn. Invest that in renewables and insulation to head for energy near-self-sufficiency, so that the country can protect against future energy shocks.

Liz Truss, writing an ineffable stream of balderdash in the Sun yesterday, pledged as “a freedom-loving, tax-cutting Conservative” to “lead the British people through the economic storm with my clear and truly Conservative plan” with “bold action such as tax cuts, decisive reforms and slashing senseless red tape”. How far she strays from voters is hinted at in the Sun’s own oddly zig-zag leader, which warned her: “Tax cuts and growth are vital as a direction of travel for her Tories – but they won’t stop the poorest freezing in December.” And it tells her not to “protect Shell and BP’s billions out of misguided ideology”.

But in her final hustings this week, she pledged no windfalls, no new taxes, no energy rationing (and maybe no speed limits either). No one alive has witnessed an economic cataclysm such as this – and that’s her unthinkable response.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
French Debt Downgrade Piles Pressure on Macron’s New Prime Minister
US and UK Near Tech, Nuclear and Whisky Deals Ahead of Trump Trip
One in Three Europeans Now Uses TikTok, According to the Chinese Tech Giant
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
NATO Deploys ‘Eastern Sentry’ After Russian Drones Violate Polish Airspace
Anesthesiologist Left Operation Mid-Surgery to Have Sex with Nurse
Tens of Thousands of Young Chinese Get Up Every Morning and Go to Work Where They Do Nothing
×