Good and bad politics: the Budget against a backdrop of Greek chaos

George Osborne’s Budget was good politics: not so much in terms of tactical point-scoring, though there was plenty, but in terms of striving for big objectives of fiscal rectitude and wider prosperity by incentivising sensible economic behaviour and discouraging casual reliance on the state: ‘a country that backs those that work hard and do the right thing’, in David Cameron’s phrase. Some of it will provoke rage, some of it will swiftly unravel, but it was a real attempt to steer the UK in a positive direction. How sad that it had to be presented against the backdrop of the Greek crisis, which is the most howling concatenation of bad politics so far this century.

Hang on, you say: at least the Greeks tried to do the right thing by resorting to a referendum rather than violence, and voting for a temporarily chaotic outcome that may — if it forces them out of the euro — be their best hope for long-term recovery. But what carried them to this was the very worst kind of politics: in Athens, dishonest accounting, excessive borrowing and spending, minimal tax collection, outright corruption and latterly, Trotskyite fantasy; in Brussels and Frankfurt, mismanagement of a currency that was ill-designed in the first place; in Berlin, relentless pursuit of German interest at the expense of weaker partners. It’s a tragedy for Greece and an earth-tremor for Europe, including the UK: a reminder that good politics at home can be undermined at any moment by bad politics abroad.

Besieged BP

‘A realistic outcome which provides… certainty for all parties’ was how chief executive Bob Dudley described BP’s $18.7 billion final settlement with US authorities for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion. What a sorry episode this has been, at a total cost to BP of $53 billion.