As the post budget rumpus finally runs out of steam two closely related questions linger. What about the pound in our pockets? Where exactly is the growth coming from? While answers remain patchy and unconvincing one intriguing possibility keeps peeping from the sidelines. Maybe, just maybe, a seriously moneymaking reset of relations with the European Union. As our Political Correspondent Peter Spencer reports, it’s the Prime Minister himself who’s set the ball rolling.
He told City bigwigs in a major speech last week: ‘Wild promises were made to the British people and not fulfilled … the idea that leaving the EU was the answer to all our cares and concerns has clearly been proved wrong.’
And a couple of days later his deputy, David Lammy, piled in with an insistence that it was: ‘Self-evident that leaving the European Union badly damaged our economy.’
Indeed, pretty much every independent number cruncher reckons we’ve got between us anything from six to eight per cent less lolly to play with that we would have had if we’d stayed in Europe.
That’s something over two hundred billion smackers. Which would have come in handy.
Naturally enough the very idea of reopening the Brexit psychodrama scares the pants off the government, but they could be pushing at an open door.
A survey by the pollster YouGov earlier this year found that comfortably over half of us now reckon leaving was a dumb idea and favour going back in. That’s nearly twice as many as think the opposite.
And it seems that the pointy-heads in Downing Street have been reading those runes, judging by other little straws in the wind.
Like the easing up the cabinet ladder of a key EU-UK relations bod. And suggestions that Starmer’s top money expert is telling him to bite the bullet.
Also, word is that the formerly sceptical Chancellor is coming round to the idea too.
Of course there is the small matter of Labour having been elected on a promise not to go anywhere near the biggies in this mix, that’s to say rejoining the European single market or customs union.
But while the official line remains that nothing’s changed there it’s worth remembering a saying beloved of hacks the world over, that: ‘Nothing is ever true until it’s officially denied.’
There’s also the standard politicians’ get-out clause, that: ‘When the facts change so does the policy.’
Not that the story ends there, as another line from Starmer’s big speech stands out in huge bold type. His insistence that pulling out of the EU was an ‘utterly reckless’ template for foreign policy.
Given the ever-darkening clouds over Ukraine, European unity in the face of aggression matters more than at any time since the Second World War.
And the situation’s made much worse by Donald Trump’s upending of the world order. Basically pulling the American rug from under our collective security.
The more obvious it becomes that his fumbling attempts at ending Moscow’s bloody incursion are going nowhere, the more obvious it also becomes that he’s being played by Putin.
Professor Michael Clarke, respected academic and defence expert, is convinced that The Donald will go down in history as Russia’s ‘useful idiot’.
That term, a favourite of former Soviet leader and mass murderer Joseph Stalin, was used to describe idealists in The West who loved communism and ignored atrocities carried out in its name.
Ironically, perhaps, a line from Karl Marx springs to mind here: ‘History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.’
Except that it’s not funny. Not funny at all.
When the USSR fell to bits, we in The West breathed a collective sigh of relief and diverted loads of lolly away from the military and towards much nicer things, like health, education and welfare.
Fine while it lasted. Problem that it hasn’t. Leaving us hideously unprepared for the current crisis, without a lot to spare to put things right.
Another irony is that when Putin first made it to the top he was pro us lot. Cue one more saying that’s big in the political lexicon: ‘Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’
Whether it’s that, plausible given the preposterous personal wealth Putin’s managed to squirrel away, or simply that he’s made the mistake of believing his own propaganda, he’s a clear and present danger to us all.
And for all the huffing and puffing in European capitals we don’t have the wherewithal to blow anyone’s house down.
A scary thought, for scary times.
Which brings us right back to Starmer’s stuff about the sheer recklessness of we Brits no longer being part of the European family.
You could be forgiven for thinking otherwise, given how hard and visibly he’s trying to drum up a united front against Putin.
Fact remains though that sounding awfully cross and threatening things that we aren’t in a position to deliver isn’t really cutting it.
That problem’s made worse by ongoing but vain attempts at keeping Trump onside. He seems to be listening when anyone approaches him, but then just as quickly forgets.
It was once said, rather cruelly, of one-time Tory Prime Minister John Major, that: ‘He bears the impress of the last person who sat on him.’
Fear of the White House lashing out, often using legal levers, has given the Yankee press corps pause for thought. But the term ‘mercurial’ has become a pretty standard euphemism for Trump’s mood swings.
Not that his basically butting out of giving us a helping hand is anything particularly new.
It did take the German sinking of the Lusitania, with American citizens on board, to nudge them into signing up for World War One. And Pearl Harbour to get them into the second show.
So we shouldn’t be quite so surprised at the predicament we’re in now. The new US-led world order from the 1940s onwards has lulled us into a sense of security, which is turning out, alas, to have been false.
And next to that all too many of our trials and tribulations, like the apparent implosion of our two-party system and the ongoing cost of living crisis, do come across as rather small beer.
Still, the world’s not devoid of jolly tales taking in both the American dimension and the consumption of alcohol.
Last weekend folk working at an offie in Virginia were shocked when they arrived to find the place in a right mess. Broken bottles all over the place and large puddles of booze slopped everywhere.
A smashed ceiling tile meant the burglar had obviously got in through the roof before going on a rampage.
But what they didn’t expect was to find the suspect still on the premises. Or that the naughty person wasn’t actually a person at all, but a racoon.
They called in an expert, Samantha Martin, who took the creature to a shelter to sober up, remarking drily it was just: ‘Another day in the life of an animal control officer, I guess.’
Just another day? It was one helluva party for the thirsty thief.
Staff found the creature in the lavvy. Both on its face and off it. Sparko. Wasted. Hammered. Extremely tired and very emotional.
Watch Peter’s report at peterspencer.org
Peter Spencer has 40 years experience as a Political Correspondent in Westminster, working with London Broadcasting and Sky News. For more of his fascinating musings on the turbulent political landscape, follow him on Facebook & Twitter.