Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Cakeism is Boris Johnson’s true legacy

The party's big problem won't be fixed by a change of leadership

(Credit: Getty images)

The smirk on the faces of politicians and journalists when they talk about ‘cakeism’ shows how Boris Johnson degraded public life, and will carry on degrading it long after his overdue departure from Downing Street. The Munchkin civil war we call the Conservative leadership contest shows that ‘cakeism’ is the one part of Johnson’s legacy that will survive him. 

‘My policy on cake is pro having it and pro eating it,’ he said in 2016. Instead of laughing at Johnson and saying his desire to have it all ways was one of many reasons to ignore him, they laughed with him as if he were Billy Bunter at the tuck shop. And they’re still going along with it now.

To pick the most egregious of dozens of examples from the leadership contest, Sajid Javid, who was Secretary of State for Health until five minutes ago, promised to scrap the National Insurance rise he voted for only last year (along with nearly all the other leadership candidates, incidentally). You might say that it is outrageous that employers and workers are taxed when one in four pensioners is now a millionaire and capable of bearing larger burdens. But as Javid knows better than anyone else the tax rise is not currently being spent on social care, despite what Johnson promised. It provides emergency funding for an NHS that has a waiting list of 6.5 million, 100,000 vacancies and a tough winter ahead.

How does he propose to fund the tax cut? There is £32 billion of headroom in the public finances, Javid says. But inflation is eating that up and we have huge debts. Like every politician in a corner, he continues with airy mutterings about the deus ex machina of ‘efficiency savings’ doing the job. He then calls for public sector job cuts, when staff shortages are already hobbling the NHS and much of the rest of the public sector.

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