Forget armchair generals and backseat drivers, if you want the distilled essence of “Ooch, I wouldn’t have done it like that” just look at how journalists treat politicians. As a class, we love to opine on everything our Westminster representatives are doing wrong, but could we really do any better?
So, if the opportunity arises to walk a mile in their shoes (preferably Theresa May’s iconic leopard-print kitten heels), it would be remiss of me not to take it. And I absolutely devoured Can You Run the Economy? by the financial reporter Joe Mayes, a choose-your-own-adventure-game book for policy wonks that puts the reader in charge of the Treasury.
My mission was simple: appointed as the new chancellor (party undefined) with a positive favourability rating and a £20bn budget surplus, could I last the year until the next election without either crashing the economy or losing my job? Along the way, I had to face all manner of dilemmas – whether to bail out a failing tech giant, sign a trade deal, give in to union demands or woo the City, not to mention how to balance the upcoming Budget – with the helpful but invariably contradictory insights of my political and economic advisers.
It’s a nice little interactive experiment, and a much more enjoyable way to spend an afternoon than despairing over the UK’s sclerotic growth figures and stubbornly high inflation. The insights from those who know what it’s like actually to do the job – including Jeremy Hunt, Kwasi Kwarteng and Rachel Reeves – are also fascinating. “It’s very important as chancellor not to pay too much attention to what the tabloids write about short-term decisions,” insists Norman Lamont (1990-93). Contrast that with the advice of Philip Hammond (2016-19): “You can do an explicit deal with the tabloids. You ask: what do you want to give me a good headline on the day after Budget Day?”
In my year as chancellor, I wasn’t offered the chance to reform planning rules to make it easier to be build reservoirs and railways and millions of new homes. But where I could, I tried to make decisions with an eye on the future, rather than chasing positive headlines. I didn’t choose, for example, to spend £6bn reinstating the triple-lock, which the book assumes has been dropped by the previous chancellor for being too expensive and poorly targeted as a universal benefit, despite the urging of one particular tabloid. Nor did I bow to pressure from another paper to continue the fuel duty freeze, which is essentially a £5bn subsidy for motorists. The money would be better spent, I thought, investing in public transport and renewable energy and upskilling the workforce – that would benefit everyone.
It’s not too much of spoiler to note that these were not popular decisions. While I managed to avoid crashing the economy (just), my long-term thinking was not rewarded by the public and I ended up booted out by voters as my party lost the election. Ouch. At least I can take solace in the fact I’m not alone. Mayes told me that “in a bid to mirror reality, the task is deliberately difficult, so it’s a big hats off if you’re able to lead your party to electoral victory”. He said he “wanted to show just how tricky some of the trade-offs are and how hard it is for the chancellor to balance popularity with economic prudence”, adding ,“You might even finish the book feeling a little more sympathy for Rachel Reeves!”
Sympathy may be going a bit far, but context matters. I might play again and see if prioritising immediate favourability à la Philip Hammond works out any better – a luxury denied to the ministers tasked with making these decisions for real. It’s hardly news that politicians have a bias towards the short term (they want to be re-elected, after all), nor that we in the media exacerbate this impulse. But if we want to live in a country that is on a sustainable footing, we need governments that are able to think more than four years ahead. And that won’t happen if we inevitably punish them for trying.
[Further reading: Has Donald Trump become woke?]
Content from our partners
Related
This article appears in the 01 Oct 2025 issue of the New Statesman, Life and Fate
Join the debate
Subscribe here to comment