Voices: Jeremy Hunt’s big speech on the economy: what he said – and what he really meant

What Jeremy Hunt said: Digital technology has transformed nearly every aspect of our economic lives. How do I know that? Because I asked ChatGPT to craft the opening lines of this speech.

What he really meant: I am a robot hologram, a Max Headroom powered by algorithms scraping any old rubbish off the internet.

What he said: Who needs politicians when you’ve got AI?

What he meant: No, it is a serious question.

What he said: Like other countries, the UK has been dealing with economic headwinds…

What he meant: Our record is terrible, but everything is almost as bad in other countries, so it’s really not our fault.

What he said: … caused by a decade of black swan events.

What he meant: A black swan ate my homework. By an amazing coincidence, a black swan ate my homework last week as well. And the week before that. There is something about me that black swans don’t like.

What he said: My party understands better than others the importance of low taxes, creating incentives and fostering the animal spirits that spur economic growth.

What he meant:The Conservatives have put up taxes and discouraged enterprise, but we have always pretended more strenuously than the Labour Party that we don’t want to. And we enjoy quoting that Liberal, John Maynard Keynes, whose “animal spirits” phrase made him sound like a tiger in the bedroom.

What he said: But another Conservative insight is that risk taking by individuals and businesses can only happen when governments provide economic and financial stability, so the best tax cut right now is a cut in inflation.

What he meant: To Conservative MPs agitating for tax cuts, I say, “What planet are you on, and were you on it when Liz Truss tried to do unfunded tax cuts and then had to draft me in – her AI-generated ideological opposite – to clear up the mess?”

What he said: The prime minister talked about halving inflation as one of his five key priorities, and doing so is the only way to restore industrial harmony.

What he meant: I am not going to give the nurses more money. Computer says no. Computer says nurses will simmer down when the inflation numbers fall later this year, as they are bound to do.

What he said: We want to be one of the most prosperous countries in Europe.

What he meant: Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova and Albania are countries in Europe.

What he said: Just this month, columnists from both left and right have talked about an existential crisis, Britain teetering on the edge, and that all we can hope for is that things don’t get worse.

What he meant: We have reached rock bottom. I hope things don’t get worse. Staying the same would be fine actually.

What he said: Declinism about Britain is just wrong; it’s always been wrong in the past and it’s wrong today.

What he meant: The country did well under the last Labour government, but since 2010 declinism has been wrong because there hasn’t been enough of it. Who could have predicted that real wages wouldn’t have risen at all over the past 13 years?

What he said: Some of the gloom is based on statistics that don’t reflect the whole picture.

What he meant: I am about to read out selective statistics that purport to show that things aren’t as bad as everyone knows they are.

What he said: An economy that contracted 20 per cent in a pandemic still has nearly the lowest unemployment for half a century.

What he meant: Rishi Sunak borrowed a ton of money we couldn’t afford to keep people in work. So there is that.

What he said: Confidence in the future starts with honesty about the present.

What he meant: The British economy is in a terrible state, but we can talk our way out of it.

What he said: Our plan for growth is necessitated, energised and made possible by Brexit.

What he meant: When I say “honesty about the present”, I mean that Brexit has been a disaster, as I predicted, but now that I rather surprisingly find myself in a senior position in government I have to read out words cleverly drafted by artificial intelligence to suggest that there might be one or two good things about it.

What he said: The four Es are enterprise, employment, education and everywhere.

What he meant: The fifth E is the European Union, but I’ve mentioned Brexit once and I think I got away with it.

What he said: Our ambition should be to have nothing less than the most competitive tax regime of any major country. That means restraint on spending.

What he meant: No, you can’t have Scandinavian standards of welfare and public services.

What he said: In case anyone is in any doubt about who will actually deliver that restraint to make a low-tax economy possible, I gently point out that in the three weeks since Labour promised no big government cheque book, they’ve made £45bn of unfunded spending commitments.

What he meant: If you want better public services, vote Labour.

What he said: We should heed the words of Thomas Edison, who said: “I haven’t failed 10,000 times; I’ve successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.”

What he meant: That will be our slogan on posters at the next election. Isaac Levido, our campaign supremo, and the advertising people in dark glasses thought it a terrific idea when I suggested it. “You ought to come to our campaign planning meetings more often, Jeremy,” they said.

What he said: We are at 76 per cent employment levels, higher than Canada, the US, France or Italy. But the pandemic has exposed weaknesses in our model. Total employment is nearly 300,000 people lower than pre-pandemic, with around one-fifth of working-age adults inactive.

What he meant: We’ve been very unlucky. Vote for us.