Were he to go ahead with his plan, Mr Sunak would be peddling the snake oil of trickle-down economics. Cutting the pay of public-sector workers next year will reduce demand in the economy just when one would expect a government to be boosting it to escape from a Covid-induced recession. Mr Sunak can argue that during the pandemic public-sector workers were secure in their jobs while their private-sector counterparts faced job cuts and reduced incomes. Yet since 2010, public-sector pay has fallen behind the cost of living as the intentional result of government policy. Mr Sunak is the latest Tory thinker to deploy metaphors to affect a wider understanding.

Source: The Guardian November 23, 2020 18:56 UTC