Will Tory spending plans fortify their new blue wall?

‘A decade of renewal’ is the latest slogan but now the election’s over the government will be judged on its results, writes James Moore

Chancellor Sajid Javid, here alongside Priti Patel, is promising a decade of renewal (AFP/Getty)

Boris Johnson’s Tories do love their slogans. “A decade of renewal,” is the one that’s being used ahead of the forthcoming budget, details of which are being judiciously trailed.

The 11 March event will focus on “levelling up”, steering resources to the north of England and other neglected regions that turned Tory and gave Johnson the majority he craved. Fortifying the new blue wall, if you will.

Chancellor Sajid Javid’s Treasury is, in the process, being reshaped, with the way projects are assessed, and investment allocated, reformed. Ditto the fiscal rules the government formerly operated under, to provide more headroom – very necessary given the way the public finances have deteriorated and look set to go on deteriorating as Brexit digs its claws into a UK economy that’s already limping.

No longer are we talking about sound public finances and austerity. Borrowing is back en vogue. It helps that it’s cheap to do, with interest rates so low. And borrowing to invest is good borrowing if the infrastructure projects you’re planning yield a return, if they stimulate the economic activity the Tories new real estate needs.

That’s the aim. But will the Tory wall be strengthened as a result?

It’s worth remembering that the EU has long sought to help deprived areas with the sort of spending the government is promising. All those projects bearing the “EU funded” stamp in the northeast, parts of Wales, and so on, they didn’t do it any favours in the referendum or in the subsequent general election.

Perhaps that’s because they failed to have a positive impact on people’s day to day lives. They didn’t feel it.

This is where the potential flaw in Johnson’s plans lies.

Governments are generally fond of big splashy projects that generate headlines and attention. Johnson’s can be expected to execute a dive deep into that pool. Witness his obsession with bridges, including the one in London that never got built.

Thing is, it isn’t necessarily big splashy projects the new Tory heartlands need. Road and rail links won’t reopen the community centre closed by the cash-strapped council, or deliver new tenants to the empty high street down which tumbleweed is blowing with even bookies closing their shops.

One of the under-reported stories of the austerity years has been the underfunding of local councils, which usually have a better idea of what’s needed than Treasury officials and Treasury ministers. They could unlock some of the renewal Javid is going to talk about when he delivers his government statement. But will they get the chance? It doesn't look like that.

Another interesting wrinkle when it comes to what’s being planned is finding people to do the work, given the promises to turn the immigration taps off.

Of course, the current tightness in the labour market could very well ease when the hard realities of Brexit sweep through the economy and throw people out of their jobs.

Need construction workers? Perhaps you can retrain the car workers who’ll be freed up by the closure of the plants made uneconomic by Britain coming out of the single market.

Perhaps you can retrain steelworkers. Tata has stated that it can’t keep funding losses at Port Talbot. Job cuts look to be on the way, and worse could follow.

Will the government’s new appetite for interventionism extend to bailing out that Port Talbot plant if it needs it?

That would require something of an earthquake. There are parts of the Tory tribe that would regard such a move as sacrilege.

But hard-line Thatcherite economics is on the way out, as the spending splurge that’s coming makes clear. Whether it will be enough to shore up the economy in the wake of the damage a hard-line Brexit is going to deliver is open to question.