The Treasury Under Siege

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BBC Radio 4 - The Treasury Under Siege

How Whitehall's most powerful department found itself at the heart of a political storm.

Mark Damazer explores how Whitehall's most powerful department came under attack and dramatically reasserted its authority.

The Treasury has been under siege.  Attacks on Whitehall’s most powerful and prestigious department escalated during the Tory leadership campaign of the summer, when the former prime minister Liz Truss and her supporters blamed 'Treasury orthodoxy' for holding the UK back, suppressing  growth and productivity.  

The Truss team attacks spectacularly backfired after the collapse of their ill-fated mini budget and all the convulsions which followed, but criticism of the Treasury has echoed through the ages.  Sceptics say the 800-year-old institution, which sets economic policy and controls the UK's finances, is too powerful, too obsessed with bean-counting, too cautious, too short-termist and arrogant. There have been several attempts to reduce its influence – but the Treasury has fended them off . 

Mark Damazer, a former controller of Radio 4 and BBC News executive,  talks to insiders who have been at the heart of the Treasury to ask why it attracts so much criticism and what constitutes the orthodoxy that the critics want to challenge.  Do wily civil servants use their influence to dilute the political will of elected politicians ?  What lies behind the institution’s mystique ? 

And, following the extraordinary unravelling of the Truss and Kwarteng premiership, we explore how 'Treasury orthodoxy' is striking back. 

Guests include former Chancellor George Osborne, ex ministers Michael Gove and Justine Greening, Treasury historian and former Labour minister Ed Balls and two men with experience at the top of the civil service, Gus O’Donnell and Nick Macpherson.

Producer: Leala Padmanabhan

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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