Tom Tugendhat, the Tory MP for Tonbridge sometimes called a rising star, finds himself making front page news today as a ‘Brexit mutineer’. That strikes me as a novel term for a man who spent several years in the British Army fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, but such are the terms of British political debate these days, I suppose.
The MP hasn’t responded to that headline, but used a question at PMQs to talk about something else, which I think is worth a little more attention than the latest round of name-calling over Brexit. Given that Britain’s deficit is well down from crisis levels, and given that gilt auctions are oversubscribed, Mr Tugendhat asked Theresa May, is this not a good time for the government to invest more? In other words, shouldn’t the Tories be borrowing a bit more money and using it to do productive things like build houses and infrastructure?
By asking that question, Mr Tugendhat joins the ranks of Tories making similar suggestions: Sajid Javid and Nick Boles are other public advocates, while other senior folk haven’t – yet – broken cover to say this stuff openly.
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