Mark Andrews: Trussonomics for beginners, while Channel 4 breaks new ground
Trussonomics in practice. New Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng announces energy price cap and a piddling tax cut, putting a small amount of money back into our pockets.
This spooks the markets, causing mortgage rates to rocket. I've just had to shell out £10,000 to keep my mortgage under control, which puts a few quid off energy bills and tax into perspective.
And having done all that, Kwarteng is now gone, and word is the remaining tax cuts will also be cancelled. Liz takes with one hand, and takes with the other.
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Miss Truss may see herself as the heir to Margaret Thatcher, a 'disruptor' who cut taxes to stimulate growth, but there is one crucial difference.
Mrs Thatcher cut taxes to create jobs at a time of high unemployment, which contrary to popular myth, was caused by the postwar baby boom (academics forecast three million unemployed as early as 1977).
Miss Truss, on the other hand, decided to "go for growth" at a time when unemployment was at a record low. Creating jobs we have no-one to do, solving a problem that didn't exist. And chances are, if we have a labour shortage, inflation will soar and the unions will be emboldened to exploit the situation.
In little more than a month, Liz has turned a stable economy which survived the Covid battering into one riven by chaos and uncertainty. That makes her some 'disruptor'.
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This sounds like a tasteful idea for a television programme, doesn't it?
Buy paintings by Adolf Hitler and Rolf Harris, and then invite a studio audience to vote on whether host Jimmy Carr should destroy them with a flame-thrower.
Yes, that Jimmy Carr, who made a rather offensive joke about the Holocaust recently.
An unnamed spokesman for Channel 4 said: "Jimmy Carr Destroys Art is a thoughtful and nuanced exploration of the limits of free expression in art."
Yep, and I suppose Naked Attraction is an insightful study of human psychology.
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With breathtaking chutzpah, Channel 4's director of programming Ian Katz says the series is an example of the 'difficult and expensive' type of programme Channel 4 would be unable to make if it were privatised.
So you'll be glad to hear Mr Katz has committed to continuing with these 'difficult and expensive' programmes, and will mark the channel's 40th birthday next month by screening Too Large To Love – a documentary about men with abnormally large penises.
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Meanwhile, the Just Stop Oil loons have voiced their moderate and sensible arguments by throwing soup at Van Gogh's sunflowers. I didn't realise it was those sort of oils they wanted to stop.
