Want a sense of the national mood? Watch Gogglebox

It is always worth seeking out other voices, even when – perhaps especially when – there seems almost total agreement about the reasons and who is to blame, writes Mary Dejevsky

What, I wonder, would the Gogglebox crowd have thought if they had received the mini-Budget ‘unspun’ (Channel 4)

American diplomats posted to London have been advised to watch Channel 4‘s Gogglebox to glimpse the “real” Britain. It is a good call. Gogglebox, if you haven’t watched it, is a television show that follows a diverse selection of households... watching television. Across geography, age, and class, their pithy comments and often savage humour offer a window into what might pass for the national soul.

I would suggest, though, that it is not just foreign diplomats who should be prescribed regular doses of Gogglebox. The chattering classes of the metropolis could do with some of the same treatment, too. They might also – if they can’t bear to leave the capital – try tuning in to late-night commercial radio phone-ins, or even to the occasional snatch of GB News or TalkTV. It is always worth seeking out other voices, even when – perhaps especially when – as with this country’s latest political meltdown, there seems almost total agreement about the reasons and who is to blame.

I hold no candle for the outgoing prime minister. She had no democratic mandate beyond her party’s labyrinthine leadership contest. She was not the first choice of her party’s MPs, and the country at large had no say in her elevation to No 10. Add the circumstances of her election – the messy removal of Boris Johnson and the public alarm about the cost of living – and her lamentable communications skills, and she was never going to have an easy ride.

And yes, as she admitted far too late, she made mistakes. She had been unwise (to say the least) to appoint a cabinet limited to supporters, and even more unwise to rush into announcing an economic programme that so comprehensively broke not only with her predecessor’s policies, but many of those contained in the party’s manifesto. A statement modestly labelled a “fiscal event”, turned out to be the biggest tax-cutting Budget for half a century – and presented in far less propitious economic circumstances.

Why did she or her chancellor not stick to spelling out the emergency energy package in a way that, say, the Gogglebox crew (and I, come to think of it) could understand? At least then they might have provided some reassurance and won some credit. Instead, she and Kwasi Kwarteng achieved the very opposite: fear and loathing from all sides, including the markets.

This is, at least in her own eyes, what doomed Truss as prime minister. In her resignation statement, she said that she had “set out a vision for a low-tax, high-growth economy” but that “given the situation” she could not deliver it.

But did nothing, I wonder, strike you about the reaction that consigned her and Kwarteng’s “mini-Budget” to the shredder? Even though – as she rightly said – it represented the programme on which she had been elected party leader? Something certainly struck me, and it was the near-unanimous condemnation of that Budget. Not by the British public or even Tory party members – they hardly got a look in – but by the dismal verdict of international markets, and an almost instant consensus of London-based experts and commentators. These too were soon joined by the International Monetary Fund (no less), and even by US president Joe Biden.

Now the easy explanation for such unanimity is that the Truss-Kwarteng programme was so poorly thought out, so irresponsible in its reliance on running up more debt, that this was the only possible (and correct) response. The whole thing had to be junked, and rather than hoping she could get away with jettisoning first her chancellor and then the policies, Truss should have called it a day right then.

But should she, really? She was not wrong to say she had a mandate for what she was doing, even if her leadership rival had correctly forecast what could happen. And who should determine economic policy in a democracy? The country’s elected representatives, or the international markets? When Truss blamed an “anti-growth coalition” of experts, think tanks and others, was she not at least partly right?

I won’t play the sexism card here – though I would not rule out an element of “silly woman thinks she knows better” in all this. But what cannot be contested is that Truss had a near-universal consensus – of the metropolitan elite, at least – ranged against her growth plan. And while such a consensus may be right, it may also be wrong.

The revered Office for Budget Responsibility, that Truss-Kwarteng were so pilloried for not citing, has made mistakes. So – as it admitted most recently last month – has the Office for National Statistics, which wrongly called a downturn between April and June.

Let me add a few more elements. How far was the Treasury piqued that Truss-Kwarteng had removed its top civil servant as almost their first act on entering government? How far were certain think tanks, popular with the media, upset that their warnings were not being heeded? Must “fairness” (as these think tanks and some academic economists define it) be a principle of economic policy, whatever the complexion of the government?

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Within minutes, the mini-Budget had been dubbed a “Budget for the rich”, on the basis of a cut in the higher tax rate that would affect relatively few people and cost the Exchequer a fraction of most of the other measures, including the promised one per cent cut for all. Yes, it was insensitive – and foolish – with the country facing a “cost of living crisis”, but should it have dominated the expert and media coverage in the way it did?

What, I wonder, would the Gogglebox crowd have thought, if they had received the mini-Budget “unspun”? Might they perhaps have applauded the proposed one per cent cut in income tax? Would they have joined the ensuing chorus for an inflation-proofed up-rating of benefits, if they were in line for a pay rise of between 5 per cent and nothing at all?

And what would they have thought about the cries of anguish from those liable to pay more on a mortgage of several hundred thousand pounds? Or about the Bank of England’s heroic exploits to “save” the Direct Benefit pensions of the privileged, after watching the Direct Contribution funds of the many haemorrhage through the year?

All these distortions, I suspect, stem at least in part from an awkward reality: that those shaping the nation’s opinion, including political opinion, on such matters, are still disproportionately people of a particular age and class. They are likely to be highly educated professionals in mid-career with nice houses in London or the home counties, a couple of children, enormous mortgages and secure pensions, who can afford to vaunt their social conscience on others’ behalf.

There are other think tanks, other experts, and other points of view out there, but they are fewer and further between, may be less media-friendly, and, well, they are not really “one of us”, are they? So how reliable can they be?

Among developed democracies, the UK is almost unique in the dominance of the capital in so many spheres. Even France devolves more power to its regions. In those countries with a proportional electoral system, minority parties have a platform that they lack in the UK, while in the US, a politicised civil service at the top levels means that senior officials can be moved without fuss.

Introducing such changes here, however, would be almost impossible without a serious restructuring of the state. In the meantime, when an apparent consensus sets out to demolish a government programme, it might be worth asking who they are and who they represent. Their interests, and yours, might not be the same. Watch Gogglebox for hints.