The atmosphere in the media, finance and in politics since Liz Truss’s government had a mini-budget has, to understate somewhat, been a bit febrile. There has been wailing and gnashing of teeth all round from former Chancellors, the BBC and from the Eurobanking classes and from an International Monetary Fund whose own actions do not have the best of records.

It all looks at first glance to be a bit disastrous. It’s been a boon for a Labour Party who seem to be rising in the polls and the ‘great and the good’, or at least what passes for it, are firmly against the Truss government’s shift in fiscal policy. It all looks, at least on the surface, that it’s all going to be a disaster.

But what if the doomsters, screamers and hair self-pullers are wrong, either in whole or in part, about the Truss government’s policy shift? It’s quite possible that cutting taxes for everyone no matter what income they have could increase investment and general economic activity. People might find that they have more money in their pocket from things like the removal of the National Insurance increase. This increase in spendable money might enable them to cope better with the current material goods supply issues or energy price volatility which have been caused in large part by the previous government’s self inflicted wounds of lockdown and the slavish adherence to the Green worldview.

I have little doubt that the British economy is in trouble. The economy has been mismanaged, especially with regards to public spending, for at least twenty years and cuts need to be made to public spending as well as taxes and other burdens on the ordinary Briton be reduced in order for the economy to get better. However it’s going to be a devil of a job to sift through the public spending finance records to identify what is an absolutely essential thing to spend money on and what is merely wasteful guff. I believe that many would agree with me when I say that things such as defence, policing, border security, necessary infrastructure repair and renewal and the core functions of the healthcare system are essential things that the public who fund government spending should pay for. However there is a massive amount of bloat in the public sector which needs to be removed bloat such as Diversity, Equity and Inclusion staff along with the stuff that’s nice to have but is not essential such as expensive art for hospitals when what the hospital really needs is an extra nurse or a cleaner.

Bringing down taxes and hopefully later trimming off the bloat from our public sector might make things economically better in the medium term. But I can see that the short term might be difficult for quite a few people especially those who have taken on large mortgages with the foolish expectation that interest rates will be low forever and those at the very bottom of society whose economic situation is perennially bad no matter what economic ideology holds sway.

But if, in the medium term, by which I mean until the next General Election, Liz Truss’s government policy works and people start to see some improvement in the economy then her gamble in standing against mainstream financial opinion will be vindicated. The British economy was heading, like some giant misdirected ocean liner, for some pretty nasty rocks in any event due to the economic policies of the last twenty years. Grabbing the controls to the rudder and trying to steer the liner in the direction that you believe is away from the rocks, might be a gamble worth taking.

Another thing to consider is that a lot of the sound and fury being expended over Liz Truss’s economic policies might be coming from those who see a threat to their own nice little earners that have accrued from doing things the current way things are done economically. We might be hearing the screams of vested interests rather than those who have legitimate claim to be impartial observers of the economy. Also there are a large number of people working in the public sector in relatively cushy and non-essential positions who look at Liz Truss’s new broom and wonder if the money will still be there to keep them in the lavish manner to which they’ve become accustomed and who are also likely to be motivated to scream about this new policy.

We’ve been here before in a different time and under a different Tory Prime Minister. I can recall similar wailing and gnashing of teeth from the Establishment over Margaret Thatcher and her policies. Sometimes the critics were correct but mostly they were wrong. Britain had to become a better place to do business and continuing the policies of the previous government either wholly or in part, would never have achieved that. We would have continued to be seen as ‘the sick man of Europe’.

Now of course Liz Truss is no Margaret Thatcher and it’s unlikely that Thatcher’s policies could transplant to today as the challenges are different for Truss than they were for Thatcher. However Liz Truss, like Margaret Thatcher have recognised one key point and that is that the economy cannot continue to be managed as it is and something needs to change. The big question is will Liz Truss’s gamble pay off? We will have to wait and see. If she can make the economy better in the medium term and deal properly and effectively with festering political sores like the Channel invasion crisis, then she will not only have a legacy worth celebrating but will have also outflanked the Labour Party whose current high polling figures might be little more than the usual phantom mid term rise.

Am I worried about whether Liz Truss’s gamble will pay off? Of course I am but doing nothing or staying on the same economic and political course might just be worse than taking a gamble.