Perhaps the most revealing remark in the wake of the UK government’s disastrous mini-budget was one uttered by Sir Keir Starmer. When he was asked on Radio 4’s Today programme last week about how the Bank of England should respond to the unfolding turmoil, the Labour leader swiftly shut the question down. ‘The Bank of England is rightly independent, and therefore it’s not for me to say what [it] should do’, he said.

In that short statement, Starmer demonstrated precisely what is wrong with our politics. There we were, in the midst of an economic storm, and the leader of His Majesty’s Opposition could not answer how the central bank should respond. He did not even think he should venture an opinion.

For most of our political and media class, there was nothing noteworthy about Starmer’s response. Among our elites, it is now widely believed that elected politicians should cede decision-making power to unelected technocrats – even on the most fundamental issues affecting the country. Apparently, the ‘experts’ are better placed than any mere elected representative – no matter how high-ranking – to make crucial decisions about the economy. Never mind that these technocrats and bankers might be driven by their own political and economic prejudices.

This whole approach is rooted in the pernicious assumption, central to neoliberal thought, that government can only be the problem and never the solution. And so key functions of the state, such as managing the economy and running public services, are thought to be best left to the market or to technical experts. We see this in how control of monetary policy has been handed to the ‘independent’ Bank of England. Wholesale privatisation and immersion into the EU superstate were part and parcel of this worldview, too.

[True enough, and this is particularly meant for UK readers. However, in the US, we have a similar problem in which Congress and presidents refuse to budget and create policy responsibly. That leaves the Fed holding the bag, with only monetary-policy responses within their authority. — Ed]