To ‘kickstart economic growth’ is the first (‘number one’) of Labour’s five ‘missions’ to rebuild Britain. That is what the manifesto announced last year. The mission is not just economic growth, but kickstarting it.
On 29 January, Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said in a speech that she was ‘going further and faster to kickstart economic growth’. I can see that she might be going further, but it is not easy to see what ‘faster’ means here, although it is true that, since economic growth has slowed down since the election in July, there is more opportunity for going faster. I suppose the word kickstart was chosen because it sounds energetic and is associated with motorcycles, leathers, speed, even Easy Rider, though not necessarily the East German motorbike tour by Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbott in 1979. If I have understood my husband’s explanation correctly, a kickstart is to a motorcycle what a starter-handle is to a car. Most motorcycles have automatic starters now. A danger from kickstarting, as from a starting-handle, is kickback from the motor causing sudden reverse rotation. Perhaps we are experiencing kickback from the motor of the British economy.
To be fair, if that is desirable, the Conservatives launched their own Kickstart Scheme in 2020, during the Covid outbreak, to provide ‘funding to employers to create jobs for 16- to 24-year-olds on Universal Credit’.
I know that politicians do not write their own speeches, but they should realise the lameness of the metaphors put on their lips. It’s no better over at the Home Office, where Yvette Cooper recently said: ‘AI is now putting the online child abuse on steroids.’
Last month the Treasury issued a press release with the heading: ‘Chancellor unveils plan to turbocharge investment across the UK.’ This doesn’t sound terribly green, though my husband tells me that it can reduce emissions. It must, though, refer to internal combustion engines. In a world of electric power, perhaps the Chancellor should be galvanising investment.
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