Thread by @docrussjackson

"Consider #Brexit. It’s a foolish policy, to be sure, but much more than that. It was enabled by a vaguely worded referendum that was introduced by a prime minister who crossed his fingers and forbade preparation for the outcome." - Tim Harford, FT.

ft.com/content/5fae45…

#Brexit "was sold to the British people on false pretences. A member of parliament, Jo Cox, was murdered during the campaign. Three of the prime ministers leading the project — Cameron, May and Truss — voted against it, and the other, Johnson, was notoriously ambivalent."

"Ever since the (Brexit) vote, the process has been mired in vitriol, contempt and denial. One does not have to be a diehard Remainer to look at the entire decision-making process and fear that the British polity is not really up to the grown-up job of running a country."

So given the Tories' new found electoral precarity, what kind of voter are the @LibDems targeting?

That'll be the 'Time Harford' voter. Eh?

"What does the Tim Harford voter want when they look at this? First, a trivial-seeming thing: calm."

"We live in an age of outrage, sometimes justified & sometimes manufactured. But nobody ever thought more clearly because they were angry. Nor is outrage the only way to succeed at the political game. Blair to Merkel to Obama have thrived while trying to set a constructive tone."

"Truss has been trying to provoke outrage, but judging from her infamous rant about how cheese imports are a disgrace, she is not very good at it. Perhaps she will decide that calm problem-solving suits her better."

"Secondly, British institutions need buttressing rather than undermining. The Leave campaign scorned the UK Statistics Authority. Boris Johnson’s administration (if that is not an oxymoron) was at pains to define itself against parliament, the civil service & the Supreme Court."

"Truss has taken aim at the Bank of England, the Treasury and the untrammelled power of, um, the Financial Times. Meanwhile, the #NHS is never criticised, but it is being allowed to fall apart under the strain of the pandemic."

"The UK has had a Conservative prime minister for 12 years, so it is easy to see why Truss wants to suggest that the rot starts not in Downing Street but Threadneedle Street or Whitehall. Perhaps she can still blame Brussels? The voters may swallow this story, although I wonder."

"But the country would be in a much better place if institutions from the Bank of England to the Office for National Statistics were treated as essential parts of the policymaking state, rather than as seething pits of incompetence and treachery."

"A third demand from the Tim Harford faction is that facts should matter more than “vibes”. The UK has not — yet — succumbed to the delusional paranoia so widespread in the US, but all too many policy arguments take place in a fact-free environment."

"Take the #CostOfLivingCrisis. Truss’s team has attacked the Bank of England for not being tough enough on inflation. But as a matter of simple arithmetic, when wholesale gas prices rise tenfold, average price rises cannot plausibly be kept at two per cent."

"Political arguments in the UK, whether over taxes, crime, immigration or the pandemic, (often) take place without any reference to whether the numbers are big or small, rising or falling. It might seem dull & grey to request sensible policymaking. So be it. Dull & grey it is."

"For too long, British political discourse has been based on intuition, inconsistency and hand-waving bluster... but solid foundations would still be useful. Sometimes the plodding basics matter more than anything."