‘Cameroon guru’ gives the game away

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

Oliver Letwin, often considered by those in the know to be a “Cameroon Guru“, gave the game away on the government’s real views on the economy yesterday – revealing that Britain faces “an immediate national crisis in the form of less growth and jobs”. That’s a revelation that blows away Tory claims that we’re on the right economic course, and suggests internal dissent within the coalition.

Speaking to the environmental audit select committee yesterday afternoon, Letwin said:

“Leading up to the recent Budget, we took the view collectively in Cabinet that we faced an immediate national crisis in the form of less growth and jobs than we needed. And we were determined collectively to try to increase that growth and those jobs. And that set in train a process which was chaired by the Chancellor and Vince Cable and myself and which almost all of our senior colleagues attended in a series of meetings going through ideas about how we could do things that would continue to meet our medium and long-term goals – including, very importantly, our carbon goals and sustainability goals – but which would induce faster growth in the early years than we otherwise might have.”

The obvious question is, if Letwin and his colleagues knew that there was a “crisis” of low growth and no jobs then why did their budget do absolutely nothing about it? Instead of steering Britain away from the rocks of high unemployment and low (or no) growth, they carried on regardless with a budget that promised much but changed little.

Labour have seized on Letwin’s rare moment of candour, with shadow chief secretary to the treasury Angela Eagle commenting last night:

“Oliver Letwin has let the cat out of the bag again. With unemployment at a 17 year high and the economy contracting at the end of last year, there is a jobs and growth crisis in Britain.”

“But it’s a crisis of George Osborne’s own making and the government still seems to be in denial. By hiking up VAT and cutting too far and too fast we’re now set for slower growth and higher unemployment in the years ahead. That doesn’t make economic sense because, as the independent Office for Budget Responsibility said last week, the government will now have to borrow £46 billion more over the coming years.”

“Recognising that there’s a problem is a good start. But there’s no point having crisis talks if you then decide to carry on regardless with a reckless plan that is hurting but isn’t working.”

Oliver Letwin – and indeed George Osborne – has a great deal of explaining to do.