Pro-lockdown MPs can’t deny the huge costs of their actions
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The Radio 4 Any Questions audience gasped when I said that everyone who had voted for lockdown had responsibility for the economic situation we are now in. But as far as I am concerned, that is a fact, not a controversial opinion. You cannot understand our current economic circumstances without recognising the legacy lockdown left behind.
When MPs were voting for lockdowns and repeated restrictions for the best part of two years, what did they expect the consequences to be? Whether or not they thought lockdowns were an understandable response to the virus, did MPs voting for the restrictions believe they would lead to a rosier economic picture? Did they think all the money that was going to support individuals and businesses would never have to be repaid? Really?
Every MP who backed the restrictions should have known there would be consequences. And if they didn’t, they weren’t doing their jobs properly. As we have seen at the Covid Inquiry, Rishi Sunak wanted a much more open debate about the trade-offs. As chancellor, he was clear that the support was going to have to be paid for at some point, that it wasn’t free.
The lockdowns had two big economic consequences. The first was the massive financial cost – £400 billion – which has led to taxes having to be higher than any Conservative would want. The second is that, when we finally came out of lockdown, there was a huge surge in demand that inevitably led to steep increases in the price of goods and energy, fuelling damaging inflation. This is a phenomenon we have seen the world over, with high energy and food prices being exacerbated by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
For Labour – who, don’t forget, wanted deeper and longer lockdowns – to pretend that they would have avoided these issues had they been in government is utter tosh, and they know it. They are treating the voters – just as they did after the Brexit referendum – as thickos who wouldn’t know any better.
Sunak and the Tories are the only party taking responsibility and getting the economy and country back on track, post-pandemic. It was never going to be easy. Anyone who says otherwise is deluding themselves. Labour still seems to think you can spend your way out of debt, and tax your way to economic growth.
Sunak – after consulting with the late, great Nigel Lawson – always said the first priority was to get inflation down, and then cut taxes. Inflation has now been reduced from 11 to 4 per cent and is forecast to fall further. True to his word, the Prime Minister has now embarked on a tax-cutting agenda, starting with January’s National Insurance cut, with hopefully more to follow.
The economy has turned a corner since the start of 2024 and we are on the right track again. Wages are growing faster than prices and consumer confidence is at a two-year high. But everyone – apart from Labour – knows in their hearts that locking down the country was a huge financial and economic shock that would have long-lasting implications. If Labour and their BBC audience cheerleaders don’t understand that, presumably they would be proposing regular lockdowns of the economy.
Whatever your view on the merits of the lockdowns, it cannot be in any way contentious to explain the harsh economic and financial implications that inevitably flowed from them. In fact, it is a statement of the blindingly obvious. And the only party with a track record of being able to get the country’s finances back on track is the Conservative Party and it is the Conservative Party who can be trusted to do it again.
Esther McVey is a Cabinet Office minister
