Gone are the days when solidarity with Ukraine meant putting a blue and yellow flag on your social media profile and watching TikToks farmers steal happy Russian tanks. Britain does not speak harshly in war, but ours is now a wartime economy. This country has entered a new and unknown form of conflict that does not endanger the lives of British soldiers, but essentially puts our economic prosperity at the forefront. Enduring the economic storm that is hitting us now, as the war pushes the price of both oil and wheat higher and higher, is the contribution that most ordinary Britons did not realize we were going to make in the war effort. Life is already tough for millions thanks to soaring fuel and food prices, which have led to soaring inflation anyway (caused worldwide by countries recovering from the pandemic and worsened in Britain by Brexit ). But it will get harder when the weather is cold enough to turn on the central heating. This is something that Vladimir Putin undoubtedly takes into account in his calculations of how long European solidarity will last before anyone cracks and tries to push Ukraine towards a “bad peace.” The new army chief’s call for British troops to “fight” for another war in Europe should be read correctly, meanwhile, not as a sign that someone is going to grow, but as a warning to the Treasury that was planning cuts in the army would be a fake economy. For Putin, this is not just a battle for territory in Ukraine, but a means of investigating weakness within NATO, and none of Ukraine’s neighbors will be safe unless the alliance shows its willingness to defend them if necessary. . But it is unclear how all this will be paid for, with Gordon Brown arguing that planned corporate and fuel tax increases may need to be ignored to avoid higher inflation and many other pressing domestic demands on the chancellery. . Ukraine and the rising level may soon be competing, in other words, for more than just one place on Johnson’s calendar. Meanwhile, an autumn of strikes and painful negotiations over public sector wages is approaching, as cramped workers are reasonably pushing for wage increases. Giving people lectures on the need for self-control, as Treasury Secretary-General Simon Clarke did yesterday, can work if this is a very temporary blow (especially if the message is clearly addressed to higher-income earners. luxury to be noble). But what if this new form of economic warfare means living with higher fuel and food costs in the long run? Vulnerable people obviously need to be protected, as was the case with last month’s emergency package for fuel bills. But we also need to rethink everything from food security to public transportation and how we heat our homes. This means that we will not abandon the policies of pure nihilism as some Tory supporters want, but we will double them, for the sake of the planet and our own resilience in a world where the price of oil may not fall soon. The hints that Downing Street is considering emergency measures to strengthen the insulation of the house this fall, helping people use less gas, would be the kind of idea we will need. But this is the easy part. Rishi Sunak’s budget this fall is inevitably made in a time of war, something the Treasury Department has grasped. Hearing the chancellor’s questions at a meeting on the cost of living in Bishop Auckland earlier this month, I was impressed when he answered a question about the cost of gas, saying that Britain had “taken a collective decision to resist Putin”. . ; that we did not sacrifice our troops on Ukrainian soil as we once could, but instead make collective sacrifices at home. But wartime sacrifice requires public consent, which this government has not yet explicitly secured. Does he even have the moral authority to try? The last time Johnson asked the nation to do something painful for the common good, he stood on a lectern surrounded by doctors who seemed anxious and told everyone to stay home. To put it mildly, given what we now know was happening on Downing Street while the rest of us were in a lockdown, it is hard to imagine another call for a noble sacrifice to go well. But it is not Ukraine’s fault that we have a moral vacuum for a leader. If Stoltenberg is right about the crisis that has been going on for years, then it is something that Johnson’s successor will probably fight with. There is no painless form of war, no matter how cold or hot it is, no matter how far away it seems. Sooner or later, one has to level with the public about the fact that freedom has only one price.
