Guido hears Tory-aligned think tank Onward’s Head of Political Economy Gavin Rice has been hired by campaigning Shadow Justice Secretary Nick Timothy as his new senior adviser. Rice was previously SpAd for Boris and later policy director at the Centre for Social Justice. His main work at Onward was also with Timothy on the Future of Conservatism project which partly aimed at how to reindustrialise Britain. Parties on the right are raiding wonk world to pad out their policy platforms…
Andy Haldane, Burnham’s recent adviser on the economy who has not taken up a No10 job, told Andrew Marr on LBC:
“The market now suspects that this is a traditional tax-and-spend socialist government with better TikTok videos…
imposing windfall taxes on oil & gas or on banks or upping capital gains tax would […] repeat the mistake that Rachel made […] The Achilles heel, the fiscal Achilles heel of this government thus far has been its unwillingness and/or inability to cut public spending.”