Breakfast clubs, economics and public relations

When he was Chancellor and Ken Livingstone was a trouble-making MP for Brent East, Gordon Brown summoned the future Mayor of London to number 11 for a little chat.

“You are a talented guy,” said Brown. “What you need is a specialism to focus on.”

“I already have one,” said Ken. “Global economics.”

Brown pulled the angriest of his many angry faces and replied: “Find another one.”

Whatever you thought of Livingstone, he was one of the few politicians to genuinely take a deep interest in the economy. Everyone else just goes with the flow.

Which is why we have to put up with all these tedious stories about how Tory/Labour election promises are unfunded. This is the fault of the politicians, not the reporters. Mostly.

I want a politician with the nerve to say, look, all government spending is unfunded if you want to put it like that.

We don’t wait for money to arrive, we spend it, then recoup some of it in taxes. We will nearly always recoup less than we spend.

So we are going to run a deficit. The question is how big it will be and what we use the deficit to pay for – which is a matter of politics not economics.

And the amounts quoted as part of the “fully funded” stuff aren’t real.

For example, Labour says free breakfast clubs in all primary schools would cost £314m.The Tories claim it would actually cost £1.5bn, such a massive difference that one is tempted to think both numbers are made up.

So the question we are really grappling with is whether a deficit is worse than having tens of thousands of children who can’t concentrate at school because they are hungry. Something about which we should be embarrassed.

I asked one of the top City economists if I am right about this.

He says: “You are right in an absolutist sense. I guess the problem is we proxy quantitative rules (funded pledges, fiscal rules) for qualitative competency on how we spend it (well, or wastefully).”

That’s economist speak for “yes”. And the rules are ours, we could ditch them.

The pointy head continues: “The rules are self-imposed because they (try to) indicate virtue. But constraints to be good stewards of public funds (see Truss) are there for a reason.”

So we can’t do the right thing here, because Liz Truss, something something something. The damage she caused in 50 days remains quite astonishing, almost an achievement.

It would be brilliant if a brave politician challenged all this, rather than accepting the consensus that the government shouldn’t borrow money it can’t repay. (It can, it does, it shall.)

Maybe my politician could go to a top PR company and say, “I want to change the entire narrative around government spending. Help me do it. Your payment shall be that your children and grandchildren will be better off and happier.”

How about that, Brunswick?