The sugared-almond theory of economic consequence

Let me ease you gently into a big and boring-sounding word for a small dishonesty that today corrupts the language of politics. Doubtless we shall be encountering it (though never by name) in Rachel Reeves’s looming Budget.

But we’ll start at my mother’s knee. I was five, and she was teaching me reading: an activity I viewed with displeasure. I did, however, like sugar-coated almonds – very much. So Mum undertook to give me one sugar-coated almond for every chapter I read aloud to her from my First Reading Book. It did not occur to me to quantify cost and reward or question the rate of exchange between one sugar-coated almond and one chapter read aloud, nor wonder whether I could quit my studies if we ran out of sweets. The transactionality of the deal, delivered from on high, came to me as a fact.