The traditional tale that has our situation licked
I’m not normally one for Bank of England pronouncements. Frankly, I couldn’t tell a countercyclical capital buffer from a Dyson.
But this week’s mention of “Chicken Licken economics” saw my ears prick higher than a beanstalk. At last, a return to traditional messaging we can all get behind.
Chicken Licken, you will remember, was a doomster, a feathery gloomster who wasn’t ultimately proven right by the polls and the macroeconomic forecast, but was led down a hole and eaten by a fox. Ha! Natural justice at its best.
The Giant Turnip? That would be us attempting to wrench free of Europe. The Hare and the Tortoise? Oops. Our early-doors, “worldbeating” testing system springs to mind – but, on the plus side, hubris looks a lot cuter with long furry ears.
The metaphors are endless. They are also more easily assimilated and indeed far more
comforting than facts.
The Little Red Hen, who got no help as she grafted away, planting the corn and growing the corn, harvesting, grinding and baking the corn? That would be our very own unsung Rishi Sunak, quietly getting on
with things – until he emerges with his loaf and every lazy so-and-so clamours for a slice. Oh, and forget crazy talk of money trees: it’s a Magic Porridge Pot we need, quantitatively easing hot torrents orren of liquidity on to our streets. Although what we do with it is up to us. In these cautionary tales, jeopardy looms large. But so, too, does morality; when bargains are made an and broken, the consequences co can be more terrible ter than could ever be ant anticipated.
The T frightening thrill of the these children’s tales is that som sometimes they end well, and som sometimes they do not. Real life gives g them an added frisso frisson of terror.
Pie Pied Piper Gavin Williamson led ou our teenagers off to unive university this year, but will he ever r return them? Do Emperor Boris Boris’s sober new clothes actually t exist?
Has this Government got the nous to erect a solid test and trace infrastructure that Covid-19 won’t be able to huff, puff and blow down this winter?
And, above all, the single burning question is this: when will we all be able to live happily ever after?