THE speed with which the Tories have managed to embed in people’s minds the notion that more austerity is an inevitability is way beyond dispiriting.

Of course, it has seemed for many years that austerity has never been far from the minds of the Conservatives. Indeed, it appears to be very much a proclivity for them.

However, seemingly tellingly, the Conservatives have in recent weeks been rushing to create the impression that austerity is not only inevitable but also necessary.

All of a sudden, it seems like 2010 again, in the most dismal of ways.

And the stage, unfortunately, seems to be well and truly set for a continuation of the bad economic policymaking from the Conservatives which has prevailed since they came to power in 2010.

It seems the financial markets crisis triggered by the “Growth Plan” mini-Budget of September 23 from former prime minister Liz Truss and erstwhile chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has set things up rather conveniently for their replacements, Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt.

Messrs Hunt and Sunak now appear set to pursue an agenda that looks to come most naturally to them. This will be very damaging but seems likely to be dressed up as responsible behaviour.

Mr Sunak has been talking about “difficult decisions”, which, when combined with the various noises that are coming out of the Treasury, looks to be another way of saying “austerity”.

And Mr Hunt was part of the David Cameron-George Osborne administration that embraced austerity so passionately and alarmingly for so many years, even as it compounded the UK’s woes.

Everything about Mr Hunt right now, as well as his track record, suggests that he thinks austerity is the answer, regardless of his smooth persona on the likes of breakfast television.

We have to bear in mind, in the context of Mr Sunak’s comments, that the decisions he is talking about are not “difficult” at all for the ruling Conservatives, in terms of any impact on them.

Rather, it is the most vulnerable in society who have been placed in excruciating difficulty by the decisions taken by the Tories on public spending in recent times.

Mr Sunak’s talk about “fairness” and “compassion” seems as hollow as former prime minister David Cameron’s jaw-dropping “all in this together” claim.

Cabinet members, as well as seemingly being unaffected by the Conservatives’ supposedly “difficult” choices, appear at best unaware of the devastating impact of their decisions. The alternative explanation is, of course, that they do not care about these consequences.

We have had Mr Sunak again this week refusing to provide any commitment to increase welfare benefits in line with inflation.

It would be difficult to overstate the effect of a failure to uprate benefits in line with inflation on struggling households.

Annual UK consumer prices index inflation was at 10.1% in September.

Given the absolutely savage welfare cuts implemented by the Conservatives from 2010, it is sadly not a surprise that the most vulnerable again look likely to pay a heavy price for the Tories’ weird and wonderful views on the economy and public finances. These welfare cuts, we must remember, amounted to many billions of pounds a year and remain in place.

However, what should be absolutely astounding, in any normal world, is that the Tories have not learned the lessons of their failed austerity drive.

The more austerity-minded Conservatives, and their supporters, seem incapable of taking into account the top line when it comes to the public finances.

If you take money away from those on the lowest incomes, who have to spend all of what they have to live, this subtracts directly from aggregate demand.

This weighs on growth and thus damages tax revenues.

So it is not the case, as some Tories bafflingly continue to believe even after all they have seen since 2010, that a cut in public spending feeds through directly to a reduction in public sector net borrowing.

Sadly, we seem to be in a vicious circle, if specific coronavirus-related support is excluded, of pressure on public finances prompting Tory austerity. This then weighs further on growth and the public finances. And what is the Tories’ answer? More austerity. And so it goes on.

Huge real-terms reductions in the pay of public sector workers have a similarly dampening effect on the economy and tax revenues, of course.

Yet somehow this simple arithmetic seems to escape the austerity-obsessed Tories and their indoctrinated followers.

In terms of just how counter-productive austerity can be, the Tories should perhaps reflect on the rise in public sector net debt from £1 trillion when they came to power in 2010 to £1.8 trillion just ahead of the coronavirus pandemic.

However, Messrs Sunak, Hunt & Co. seem unwilling or unable to grasp the lessons from the utter failure of the Cameron-Osborne austerity drive.

Mr Hunt has already made a big mistake, scrapping a two-year promise to support households with energy bills amid soaring electricity and gas prices. The energy price guarantee, put in place by Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng in September, now only lasts until the spring.

The huge uncertainty created by Mr Hunt on this score would seem likely to weigh very heavily indeed on the spending of households faced with further eye-watering hikes in energy bills, on top of those which have occurred already.

In contrast, the reinstatement of the planned rise in the main rate of UK corporation tax from 19 per cent to 25% is a good thing indeed.

The mix of measures is, of course, crucial.

Messrs Cameron and Osborne chose policies that hammered households with the least – through welfare cuts and a hike in value-added tax. At the same time, they cut the main rate of corporation tax from 28% to 19%.

There are plenty of possible ways to shore up the public finances without weighing significantly on growth.

Corporation tax could, for example, be raised back to the 28% it was at in 2010, and the rate would still be sufficiently competitive internationally.

It does look as if the windfall tax on energy companies could be extended, particularly given the huge profits being made in the North Sea by oil and gas giants. There has been speculation Mr Hunt might do this in his November 17 statement but only time will tell whether he does, and if any extension of this tax goes far enough.

Meanwhile, banks are making a lot of extra money from a surge in interest rates so they might be another source of additional tax revenue.

Furthermore, maybe the top rate of income tax could be increased to at least the 50p level from which the Tories reduced it after coming to power in 2010.

The worst thing to do at a grim economic juncture such as this is choke off growth and tax revenues, and ultimately put the public finances under greater strain, by taking money out of the pockets of those who have to spend all or most of what they have to live.

Frighteningly, however, that looks like exactly what the Tories are going to do. And not for the first time.

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