Is his plan more Bertie Wooster than rocket booster?

ON A whirlwind charm offensive to leading City power-brokers, Boris Johnson has been cajoling them with the glorious word ‘Boosterism’ to describe the principles behind his Government’s economic policies.

How typical of Johnson to use a word that vividly encapsulates his vision for a ‘turbo-charged’ Britain and which also is redolent of P.G. Wodehouse’s classic creation, Bertie Wooster. For Johnson has often been compared to Wooster, the raffish gadabout with a public school accent and who uses flamboyant language.

But make no mistake, a canny Johnson is trying to give rocket fuel to his own administration and quickly brand it in the public’s mind as an on-the-road-to-success story.

For the moment, Boris’s Boosterism refers to the list of spending commitments he has been showering on the electorate like confetti in the five days since he became prime minister.

He is desperate to boost the financial security of Britain in case of a No Deal EU exit by pumping billions into a host of projects and sectors.

The cost of all this is mind-boggling. Indeed, just one of numerous proposals under consideration, for example, is to spend £100 billion to help bridge the North/South divide.

Honed

As a student of history — ancient and modern — Johnson knows that all great governments have been identified with their own economic philosophy.

We have had Thatcherism — when Margaret Thatcher brilliantly honed the principles of ‘Monetarism’ to fit her own ideals. Thatcherism treated money supply as the main factor influencing the economy, and monetary policy as the key instrument of government decision-making.

Then there was the equally successful Reaganomics — named after U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s obsession with cutting taxes and public spending, and reducing government control of business and industry.

Their opposite is Keynesian economics, based on the ideas of British thinker John Maynard Keynes, who believed that, in a recession, an economy can be made to grow and unemployment reduced by increasing government spending and reducing interest rates.

Thankfully, so far, we have been spared Corbynomics — the policy of bankrupting a country, Venezuela-style.

The big question is whether Boris’s Boosterism will go down in history as one of these successful creeds that will be studied by future generations of economics students, or will be seen as a reflection of the PM’s lack of attention to detail and amounts to little more than wishful thinking.

Inevitably, his critics see it as closer to Woosterism. Johnson, like Bertie Wooster, is long on cheer but short on pragmatism.

At the risk of sounding more Jeeves than Wooster, the fundamental problem facing the Government is that the current risks to Britain’s prosperity are grave. Of course, Johnson would argue that spending and a mood of optimism are tools to help create confidence and success.

Slogans aside, it will be far harder for Johnson to extricate our economy from the damage of a No Deal Brexit than for Bertie Wooster to escape the clutches of a malign aunt or an engagement to Madeline Bassett.

In fact, Boosterism is not a new word. It was coined in 19th- century America. To encourage the building of railroads in dusty, lawless outposts in the Wild West, town representatives made all sorts of exaggerated claims about how they would boost the local economy beyond residents’ rosiest dreams.

Mistake

Often the hyperbole crashed, leaving investors broke and livelihoods devastated.

It’s worth remembering that Johnson’s hero and role model, Winston Churchill, was a great wartime leader but utterly wrong-headed when it came to the economy.

His personal finances were rackety and, as Chancellor in the 1920s, he put Britain back on to the gold standard — a fateful decision that had deeply damaging repercussions for the UK economy and which he later acknowledged was his biggest mistake.

Of course, we are not facing economic perils as great as then, but the stakes with Brexit are terribly high. The Tory Party has a hard-won reputation for economic competence. The risk is that Johnson, with his relentlessly upbeat promises, might squander it.

Yes, Boosterism sounds far cheerier than austerity. But over the past nine years, Chancellors Osborne and Hammond made great strides to get the nation’s books in better order.

With Johnson’s oft-repeated mantra of wanting a ‘turbocharged’ government, his strategy marks a dramatic reversal of direction. Can it succeed?

If, and I accept it is a big ‘if’ considering the way he often changes his mind, Johnson is serious about fulfilling all his Boosterism promises, he will need to raise taxes or cut public spending, both of which will be difficult for a government with a gossamer-thin Commons majority.

The only other option is to borrow more. And if Johnson proceeds to upset the nation’s balance sheet, the Tories would not be able to moralise about Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell being economic illiterates.

The fact is that the British economy has performed remarkably well since the financial crisis and the European Union referendum. If the Government achieves an orderly Brexit, this process could continue.

But warnings over No Deal are coming thick and fast. The independent Office for Budget Responsibility says it would plunge the country into recession and cause borrowing to mushroom by £30billion a year. The National Institute for Social and Economic Research says that, already, the risk of a No Deal departure may have pushed us into recession.

And if you think these are just the gloomy prognostications of discredited experts, then look at the real world.

Sterling has fallen sharply against the dollar and the euro — an indication that the foreign exchange markets are sceptical about Britain. The owners of Vauxhall have said they will pull out of the UK, with the loss of 1,000 jobs, if Brexit hits their profits.

Infectious

Having said all of that, it would be foolish entirely to discount Boris the Booster’s big idea.

Negativity certainly does act as a dead hand, quelling dynamism in the economy.

Johnson is right in his instinct that positive thinking, optimism — call it what you will — can be a hugely powerful force. Confidence is attractive and infectious. Optimism fuels the entrepreneurial spirit.

Boosterism can certainly work, providing there are sound economic underpinnings. As any businessman or woman will tell you, though, optimism must be underpinned with capital, know-how and a sound business plan.

There is a fine line between Boosterism and Woosterish — or Johnsonian — delusion.

Or to quote Wodehouse himself, in Jeeves In The Morning: ‘It was one of those cases where you approve the broad, general principle of an idea but can’t help being in a bit of a twitter at the prospect of putting it into practical effect.’