A BRUISING FOR BORIS

After ‘shambolic’ speech to businesses, No10 sources voice ‘concern’ – then Brexit chief weighs in on tax cuts

‘It’s just not working’

‘I agree with the Chancellor’

A SENIOR Cabinet minister last night ramped up pressure on Boris Johnson to cut taxes, rounding off a bruising day for the Prime Minister.

In a rare public intervention on domestic policy, former Brexit negotiator Lord Frost said low taxes were ‘the formula for success as a country’.

He also said the UK must move away from EU rules so Britain can ‘step up and compete at a global level’.

It came after Mr Johnson was forced to apologise to the CBI for losing his thread for more than 20 seconds during a speech to the business lobby group’s annual conference.

He also raised eyebrows by making repeated references to the children’s cartoon character Peppa Pig.

Mr Johnson had been attempting to mend fences with big business during his CBI speech, following clashes over Brexit.

The BBC last night quoted a ‘senior Downing Street source’ that claimed the speech was ‘shambolic’ and that there was ‘a lot of concern inside the building’ about the Prime Minister.

The source added: ‘It’s just not working. Cabinet needs to wake up and demand serious changes otherwise it’ll keep getting worse. If they don’t insist, he just won’t do anything about it.’ No 10 declined to comment on the claim. But a government insider dismissed the charge as ‘total nonsense’, adding: ‘That is absolutely not the feeling in the building – it couldn’t be more wrong.’

Tory MP Peter Bone also rallied round, saying: ‘The idea that the Government is falling apart because the PM’s speech got a bit mixed up is clearly ridiculous. The BBC should focus on the issues.’

A source told the Daily Mail that the Prime Minister’s long pause, in which he shuftank: fled through the pages of his address, had occurred because he had been accidentally handed a copy of the speech in the wrong order.

But pressure later ramped up even further on Mr Johnson as his close ally Cabinet Office minister Lord Frost gave a speech to the Centre for Policy Studies. At last month’s Budget, the Prime Minister had overruled Chancellor Rishi Sunak, insisting public spending should be raised despite the poor state of the public finances.

At the time, the Chancellor set out an ambition to cut taxes by the next election.

And last night Lord Frost told the centre-Right thinkthey ‘We know what the formula for success as a country is: it’s low taxes. I agree with the Chancellor as he said in his Budget speech – our goal must be to reduce taxes. It’s about light-touch and proportionate regulation, whatever the policy objectives you’re trying to pursue. And of course free trade. ‘Increasing consumer choice while reducing consumer costs. Ensuring competition stops complacency – keeping our economy fit and responsive to innovation and progress abroad.’ Lord Frost also spoke of the importance of the UK forging it’s own path post-Brexit. He said: ‘We haven’t successfully rolled back the frontiers of the EU with Brexit, only to import the European model after all this time.

‘So we need to reform fast and those reforms are going to involve doing things differently from the EU. If we stick to EU models, but behind our own tariff wall and with a smaller market, obviously we are not going to succeed.’

Mr Johnson had told the CBI conference: ‘I have never been anything other than business’s number one fan... the true driver of growth is not government, it is the energy and dynamism and originality of the private sector.’

He said it was time for government to ‘get out of your hair’, adding that ministers should ‘make sure there is less regulation and indeed less taxation’. He then hailed the global success of Peppa Pig, telling business leaders the children’s cartoon was a great example of British creativity. Delegates were left bemused as the Prime Minister asked them to raise their hands if they had visited Peppa Pig World, in the New Forest.

Mr Johnson told the audience of business leaders in Newcastle he had visited the attraction with his wife Carrie and son Wilfred on Sunday, hailing it as ‘my kind of place’.

‘It has safe streets, discipline in schools, a heavy emphasis on new mass transit systems,’ he said. ‘Even if are a bit stereotypical about Daddy Pig.’ The PM said the hit show, which has been a huge export, showed ‘the power of UK creativity’ and entrepreneurship.

Mr Johnson’s former adviser Guto Harri said the references were an effective way of making a point about the value of the creative industries, adding: ‘It was classic Boris.’

Asked by ITV after the speech if ‘everything was OK’, the Prime Minister said: ‘I think that people got the vast majority of the points that I wanted to make and I thought it went over well.’

hIS rhetoric took some typically eccentric turns – from Lenin, through the Ten Commandments to Peppa Pig.

But despite the mockery it provoked among the Twitterati, Boris Johnson’s speech to the Confederation of British Industry yesterday carried at its heart a powerful message.

That Britain is on the brink of a spectacular post-Covid recovery. But it can be achieved only through ‘the power of UK creativity’. The State can provide the right tax and regulatory framework, but it’s the private sector that must step up to the plate.

Thanks to the vaccine miracle and massive government financial support, this country has defied the doom-mongers who predicted a slump and mass unemployment.

In fact our economy has come out of the pandemic intact and is growing faster than any other G7 nation. With hi-tech industries at which this country excels booming, the future offers infinite possibilities.

But is the CBI listening? What a contrast its director-general Tony Danker’s downbeat sermonising made with the Prime Minister’s can-do speech. Mr Danker took a sideswipe at the free market economy and Thatcherism, then asked what the Government was going to do to create better jobs, skills and training.

But isn’t that largely the role of business – of people like the CBI and its members? They have already shared in a £100billion Covid handout. What more do they want?

As Mr Johnson rightly said, governments can’t fix everything. Sometimes they have to intervene, but usually it’s best if they just get out of the way and let the free market get on with its work.

Margaret Thatcher knew that, even if Mr Danker (previously a strategist for the Guardian’s owner) doesn’t. her reforms took Britain from being the ‘sick man of europe’ to a modern, thriving economy.

Labour sneered yesterday at Mr Johnson’s use of Peppa Pig as a metaphor for UK creativity and financial acumen.

Yet his seemingly wild flight of fancy contained a serious and relevant message. Peppa Pig’s creators had an idea, believed in it and through perseverance made it a massive worldwide success.

Peppa has been exported to 180 countries, with theme parks dedicated to her in China, the US and here. From tiny beginnings, the franchise is now worth £6billion.

What better example could there be of the creative, entrepreneurial spirit Britain needs to prosper in the post-Covid world?