Thread by @Gilesyb

Re-reading Osborne's macro speech 2009, still astonished how badly the growth theory has dated …ervative-speeches.sayit.mysociety.org/speech/601526

Basically: fear of government debt is what holds down animal spirits. The certainty of lower rates what drives consumer spending.

Imagine if Sunak took the same approach now.

"What is your plan for increasing aggregate demand?"

"I think that "credible fiscal consolidation plan will have a positive impact through greater certainty and confidence about the future"".
Ending furlough boosts confidence?!?

&don't come back with "but rates are low now, we can take risks". WE THOUGHT THEY WERE LOW IN 2009. Osborne did too - but "The luxury of waiting for monetary conditions to tighten before embarking on fiscal tightening may not be one that we are afforded"

There were still reasonable arguments for starting on fiscal consolidation in 2010. A deficit of 11%; still potent monetary policy; that spending was at a high water mark; but I though 50:50 tax and spend, measures like that socialist Ken Clarke in 1993-7.

I also think "We need a program of supply side reform that is no less urgent or radical than the reforms of the 1980s and 1990s" dates badly - AFAIK, there as nothing LIKE the 1980s plans to put forward.

What - the Red Tape Challenge? Even more entrepreneurial tax reliefs?

The best part of the speech was the setting up of the OBR, and the the criticisms of the previous financial regulatory architecture. But the descent from Lawson 84 is quite something, on the whole.