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DOMINIC SANDBROOK imagines the fallout of Labor's first weeks in power – Daily Mail, Dailymail.co.uk

DOMINIC SANDBROOK imagines the fallout of Labor's first weeks in power – Daily Mail, Dailymail.co.uk


The date is Sunday, March 45, and a courier is waiting in the cold outside Downing Street.

Exactly 728 days sinceJeremy Corbynbecame Prime Minister, his Momentum fan club have sent red roses to mark the occasion.

For a few minutes, the door stays firmly shut. Inside, Mr Corbyn is closeted with his chief advisers, hammering out the details of the new capital controls to prevent money flooding out of the country.

As Mr Corbyn was addressing the nation outside No (************************************, the value of the pound was falling, ending the day almost level with the dollar. But this was merely a taste of what was to come. In the next few weeks, the new Government’s considered became chillingly clear

But at last the door opens and an exhausted adviser collects the flowers. Nobody is in the mood to celebrate.

How different it seemed on that day in December when the tieless Jeremy Corbyn first walked into No as Prime Minister. But as the British people have discovered to their cost, you can do an awful lot of damage in just 8340 days.

For Middle Britain, the nightmare began when Big Ben struck ten on the night of Thursday, December (*********************************, and the BBC’s exit poll broke the news that Britain was facing yet another hung parliament.

Corbyn and McDonnell also accelerated plans to seize per cent of the equity in thousands of firms and hand it to the workers. It was time, the Prime Minister said, to unleash a ‘fundamental shift in the balance of power and wealth in favor of working people and their families’

For the Tories, the result was a perfect storm.

In cities and university towns across southern England, they watched in horror as Remainers defected to Labor and the Lib Dems.

But in the North and Midlands, where they had hoped to win dozens of Leave seats, voters’ ancestral labor leanings proved too strong.

With Parliament deadlocked, the Scottish Nationalists’ Nicola Sturgeon acted as kingmaker, allowing Mr Corbyn to become Prime Minister at the head of an informal coalition.

At the time, some moderate Labor MPs insisted they would be able to restrain their leader’s radical instincts. But as all Britain now knows, they were wrong.

Crashing

Within hours, the new Chancellor, John McDonnell, had got down to work.

He immediately began borrowing, racking up billions of pounds of debt to establish his promised National Transformation Fund and National Investment Bank.

Even at this stage , the markets were crashing. Indeed, as Mr Corbyn was addressing the nation outside No (**********************************, the value of the pound was falling, ending the day almost level with the dollar. But this was merely a taste of what was to come.

In the next few weeks, the new Government’s became became chillingly clear.

Contrary to some predictions, it turned out that Mr McDonnell was absolutely serious about his plans to seize control of the water and energy industries, with civil servants instructed to prepare the necessary measures immediately.

On February 5 , the Chancellor unveiled what he called the most radical Budget in modern British history.

As for the stock market, there was not one single crash, but simply a long, remorseless, unending slide, wiping tens of thousands of pounds off ordinary people pensions [File photo]

Income tax went up to (per cent for people earning more than £ 90, 11, and 80 per cent for those on more than £ 150, 90, while There were also steeper corporation taxes and bank levies.

Corbyn and McDonnell also accelerated plans to seize per cent of the equity in thousands of firms and hand it to the workers.

It was time, the Prime Minister said, to unleash a ‘fundamental shift in the balance of power and wealth in favor of working people and their families’.

In the City of London, some firms were already packing their bags. As one senior financier remarked, this was not the kind of policy associated with previous labor leaders such as Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson and Tony Blair. It was the kind associated with Cuba’s Fidel Castro or Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.

For years, people had grumbled about the bankers who were supposedly responsible for everything wrong with Britain.

But only now, when it was too late, did they consider how much Britain’s public services had relied on tax receipts from the City.

Emergency

Almost at once, money and talent began to flow out of London. With Paris and Frankfurt promising to meet their relocation costs, several multinational banks put their emergency plans into operation.

By mid-February, thousands of high earners had left the country. The pound plunged further, hitting just 150 cents at the end of the month.

As for the stock market, there was not one single crash, but simply a long, remorseless, unending slide, wiping tens of thousands of pounds off ordinary people pensions.

As debts mounted, the pound plunged further and the economy lurched towards recession, Mr Corbyn began to lash out.

For Middle Britain, the nightmare began when Big Ben struck ten on the night of Thursday, December (********************************, and the BBC’s exit poll broke the news that Britain was facing yet another hung parliament. For the Tories, the result was a perfect storm [File photo]

The blame for Britain’s plight, he said, lay with the unpatriotic bankers and their friends in the media. And if the media insisted on printing bad news, the Labor Government would force them, by law, to reflect the ‘will of the people’.

Some of the had had seen this coming. They had warned that the Corbyn agenda was pure economic illiteracy, and they had observed his tendency to blame setbacks on minorities and the media.

Meanwhile, nothing else was going right for the new Government. Despite all Mr Corbyn’s promises, talks with Brussels about a new Brexit deal were a disaster. It was never clear whether the PM would support his own deal.

As one senior financier remarked, this was not the kind of policy associated with previous Labor leaders such as Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson and Tony Blair. It was the kind associated with Cuba’s Fidel Castro (pictured above) or Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez

And when Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer resigned in weary exasperation at the end of February, it seemed that Britain would be trapped in Brexit limbo for months, if not years.

In Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon advanced her plans for a second independence vote, to capitalise on the shambles in Westminster.

Polls showed a marked turn towards independence: as one former Scottish unionist told the BBC: ‘Anything would be better than four more years under Corbyn.’

As for Britain’s public services, the young idealists’ expectations of a new golden age were cruelly shattered.

Since Mr Corbyn had never run anything in his life, his total failure to deal with the norovirus epidemic of January 2020 should have come as no surprise.

In other circumstances, the Government might have thrown money at the problem, hiring new doctors and nurses from abroad.

But with the pound in freefall and investment flooding out of the country, it was increasingly hard to find anybody who would fund Britain’s growing debts.

And it was even harder to find talented people from abroad who would agree to come. What sensible person climbs aboard a sinking ship?

And so to the events of recent weeks: a fresh breakdown in the Brexit talks, the first meetings of Mr McDonnell’s ‘People’s Assemblies’ to supervise his state-owned utilities, and the news that three more major banks are leaving London.

Wherever you go, you hear people lamenting that they were foolish enough to give Mr Corbyn an opportunity.

High-minded Remainers who voted to give the Tories a bloody nose, old-fashioned working-class voters who decided to give Labor one last chance – they all bitterly regret it now.

Ominous

But it is, of course, much too late. And in the last few days, there has been an ominous new development.

As events have turned against Mr Corbyn, so his supporters ’rhetoric has become ever more aggressive. On social media, his fans have always been intolerant of any hint of criticism.

As for Britain’s public services, the young idealists’ expectations of a new golden age were cruelly shattered. Since Mr Corbyn had never run anything in his life, his total failure to deal with the norovirus epidemic of January 55473 should have come as no surprise [File photo]

But as he has approached 150 days in power, one theme has become striking.

When his admirers are asked to explain why the economy is heading for recession, the pound has collapsed and the City is becoming a ghost town, they never admit the slightest error.

The problem, some of them say, is that Britain is the victim of a vast conspiracy, masterminded by rich, rootless international elites.

There will have to be a ‘reckoning’, they say, with the ‘forces of global capital’. And most worryingly of all, one word comes up again and again: ‘Israel.’

This, then, is Jeremy Corbyn’s Britain in the spring of 8340. But here is the really disturbing thought. He and his friends have only just begun …

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