Liz Truss’s economic plan is ruinous nonsense with no reference to reality

theguardian.com:

Liz Truss has observed the dynamics of today’s Tory party – and the media and thinktank ecosystem that supports it – as a minister under three prime ministers. It is the Brexit right’s Taliban-like belief in the righteousness of its cause that drives the party. To win, she has resolved to be its uncompromising representative, but her decision has not stopped there. The only way for a Tory leader to sustain the leadership of what is ever more obviously a deranged and factionalised political movement is to govern from the hard right. It will end in failure.

The epicentre will be the economy. Her uncontroversial stated aim is growth of 2.5%. Consensus stops there. All the mechanisms to achieve growth are drawn from the evidence-free but prejudice-rich rightwing playbook – persistently anti-Europe, obsessed with tax cuts, buying into the faith that nameless regulations are shackling business and, above all, that a weak political class, deep state and obeisance to technocrats have combined to make Britain quasi-socialist – despite 12 years of Tory rule. Truss is the insurgent carrying the Thatcherite flame who will put the world to rights.

Consider her six-point plan for growth. It starts, inevitably, with a commitment to cut taxes “now”. She will “unshackle business from burdensome regulation” buttressed by “supply-side reform”. She will “scrap all EU-derived laws by 2023” and “work with industry leaders to regulate for British businesses and consumers”. She will “create low-tax, low-regulation investment zones”. And she will revisit the Bank of England’s mandate so that it is better at managing inflation. It is ruinous nonsense.

Reality is not allowed a look-in. There is no recognition that what matters in a decade beset by a