Given the toughness of the hand she had to play, Rachel Reeves was clearly determined to make the most of any good news that came her way when she faced MPs last week.
So perhaps the biggest of several theatrical flourishes was applied to the analysis by the Office for Budget Responsibility that Labour’s new approach on planning will add 0.2% to our sluggish economic growth by the end of this parliament, and 0.4% by the end of the next one.
I’ve worked on enough government budgets and economic statements to know that no matter how nicely placed the decimal point, how well ordered the tables may be, and how carefully the sums are made to add up, forecasting is a deeply inexact science.
The numbers describing what has already happened in the economy tend to be more reliable than the predictions of what may be to come. And never is that more so than when we are living through an era defined by the one thing investors and policy-makers dislike the most – instability.
So while fully appreciating why the chancellor of the exchequer wanted us to hear loud and clear the good news that the OBR is broadly convinced by Labour’s home-building plans, an awful lot can happen between now and when the habitants of the million-plus planned new homes hopefully move in.
The chancellor had barely sat down before the airwaves were filling with talk of more tough decisions on spending and tax that may yet lie down the track, not least if the Trump wrecking ball takes in the UK on its egomaniacal travels around the planet.
And so, as she settles down to finalise the spending review, and then looks ahead to the budget in the autumn, and we all get tired listening to speculation about what the tough decisions might be if growth doesn’t pick up soon, I have an idea to help. It’s called Afta.
You’ve no doubt heard of Nafta, the North American Free Trade Agreement signed in the 1990s, which tied the economies of the US, Canada and Mexico closely together… or at least did until Trump Term One replaced it with a new agreement, hailed by him as the greatest deal in history, until Trump Term Two came along and said only an idiot could have signed it. You do have to worry about his medium-term memory.
So welcome to Afta. The Association of Frictionless Trade Allies. Or, if you prefer, the Alliance of Frictionless Trade Associates. I am happy either way, so long as we can get frictionless trade back up the political and economic agenda, and in the case of Britain without having to reopen all the divisions of Brexit.
You see, very reluctantly, I have decided that no matter how loudly we call for a return to the customs union and the single market, Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer are not going to listen.
But if they can get that excited by a 0.4% growth prediction from housebuilding over two terms, how much more might the political pulse race if a plan were developed to win back some of the 4%-plus that has been stripped from the economy by Brexit, not to mention the 15% drop in trade intensity attributed to Brexit by the OBR?
The thing is that when an old order is breaking down, new architecture is bound to emerge. And given that Donald Trump’s America is such a big driver of the current disorder, and has been central to so many aspects of the world order to which we have subscribed, we have to start thinking about where we fit into the new order.
The best way to do that is to create it, just as a previous Labour government helped to do in the wake of the second world war, not least with the creation of the United Nations and Nato, both now at risk from the wrecking ball.
Amid the chaos, new alliances and new structures will develop. Afta, with Europe as its heart and its driver, but with others welcome to join, is my early contribution to the debate. Alongside the new security architecture that is developing, it could give Europe a new purpose, and the UK a leadership role in shaping it.
Delivering an after-dinner speech in Dublin, I began by asking the 500 people present to raise their hand if they had managed to get through the day without the word “Trump” passing their lips. Not one hand was raised. It’s hard, isn’t it, to avoid it?
He does so much, or more to the point he SAYS so much. It is hard to work out how much of it matters and how much is inconsequential. But it is hard not to have a view, and hard not to be surrounded by the views of others.
Earlier in the day, I had walked down a street of modern-looking buildings which, it turned out, were almost all occupied by Google, in common with many US firms using Ireland as a tax base. But with Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, recently on the rampage about what he called “Ireland’s tax scam”, and tariffs clearly now the economic weapon of choice, Ireland may be more vulnerable than most if the America First economic policies are taken to ever greater extremes which, on current form, is likely.
I was a “secret surprise speaker” at the dinner, whose organisers had asked me to announce my arrival by marching in playing the bagpipes. In the hope there were sympathetic souls from the Irish government in the audience, I did my usual plea for help getting an Irish passport, despite the disadvantage of having no Irish blood. Surely what Tony Blair’s team did to bring peace to Northern Ireland justifies a passport for all of us? The audience wildly agreed!
To round off the evening, and in support of my Irishification bid, I picked up the pipes again and played Fields of Athenry which, in my humble opinion, should be made the national anthem in time for my citizenship ceremony. If you don’t know the tune, check it out. You’ll find plenty of versions online, the best ones variously sung by supporters of Celtic, Liverpool and the Irish rugby team. Sounds great on the pipes too, even if I say so myself.
On Monday, we said farewell to Joe Haines, who was my boss when I was a political journalist at the Daily Mirror, and one of my predecessors as a press secretary to a Labour prime minister, in his case Harold Wilson. Joe had a reputation for being curt and curmudgeonly, which certainly he could be. But in both of those shared careers he was never anything but helpful and supportive to me.
In my eulogy I told the story of the time Robert Maxwell ordered me, after a horrific bombing in Northern Ireland that killed several British soldiers, to write an editorial for the Sunday Mirror urging a recall of parliament, the sacking of the-then Northern Ireland secretary, Tom King, and his replacement by a general, and the return of the death penalty.
I didn’t mind the first of these, but felt that the Daily Mirror coming out for generals in cabinet and the return of capital punishment was a step too far.
I enlisted Joe’s help in pushing back. “Leave it with me,” he said. Half an hour later, Maxwell called me. “Have it your own mealy-mouthed way,” he barked. “But I insist on recalling parliament.” Thanks, Joe.
