In the hallowed, gin-stained halls of Westminster, a new pantomime is unfolding. The question on every smug face in the Square Mile is this: who will be Britain’s next chancellor? The City of London, that teeming hive of pinstriped avarice, is demanding stability. Stability, they claim, as if they’ve ever known the meaning of the word. These are the same people who gave us the 2008 financial crisis, the same people who treat regulation like a mild suggestion from a distant aunt. But now, with the EU lurking like a jilted lover across the Channel, they want a steady hand at the tiller. How quaint.
The race is on. Candidates are circling like moths around a particularly lucrative flame. There’s the usual suspects: the slick-haired investment banker types who speak in percentages, the career politicians who have never met a tax haven they didn’t like, and the occasional wild card who promises to ‘shake things up’ before being absorbed into the system’s grey maw. The City wants a chancellor who will soothe the jangling nerves of international capital, who will whisper sweet nothings about low corporate taxes and light-touch regulation. Meanwhile, the EU glares across the water, sharpening its regulatory knives, waiting for the UK to stumble.
Let’s not pretend this is about the national interest. This is about keeping the champagne flowing in Canary Wharf. The stability they crave is the stability of a rigged game, where the house always wins. They want a chancellor who will smile benignly while the gap between rich and poor widens to a chasm, who will pat the heads of the bankers and tell them everything is fine. But the EU is a formidable rival, a bloated bureaucracy with a penchant for revenge. They’ve already shown they can throw a tantrum over fishing rights. Imagine the hissy fit if the UK dares to cut a corporate tax rate too aggressively.
So here we are, caught in the crossfire of a spat between two egomaniacal blocs, while the rest of us pay the bills. The next chancellor will be a person of immense power and minuscule imagination, a technocrat who believes that spreadsheets are a substitute for a soul. They will speak of ‘fiscal responsibility’ and ‘economic growth’ as if these concepts are carved into stone tablets, rather than cobbled together by men in suits who haven’t seen a factory floor since the Industrial Revolution.
One candidate, rumoured to be a former hedge fund manager, has already promised to ‘unleash British ambition’. Translated from corporatese, this means ‘make the rich richer and hope the rest don’t notice’. Another, a career politician with the charisma of a damp sponge, pledges to ‘balance the books’. Because, of course, the national accounts are a book that can be balanced, rather than a political choice about who gets what.
The City demands stability because instability is bad for business. But what about the instability of a zero-hours contract? What about the instability of rising rents and stagnant wages? Those don’t make the headlines, do they? No, the headlines are reserved for the grand drama of the EU rivalry, a soap opera that distracts from the real issue: that the people who make the decisions in this country are terrified of the people who hold the actual money.
So, mark my words, the next chancellor will be a safe pair of hands. They’ll be a reassuring presence on the telly, a steady hand on the economic tiller. They’ll steer the ship of state straight into the waiting arms of the City, while the EU fumes and the rest of us cling to the rigging, hoping for a lifeboat. But don’t worry, the gin will flow freely at the announcement. It always does.
