Declinism demonstrated

 

The previous post argues that to stop the rot in the quality of our government and lives and achieve the modest competence worthy of a rich developed nation we need to ditch our arrogant delusions of exceptionalism and subject our institutions  to root and branch examination and fundamental reform.

Should there be any doubt as to the reality of our exit from the list of leading nations some figures cited by an Edinburgh GP, Gavin Francis, in a “Long Read” in last Thursday’s Guardian (24^th August) provide the dismal evidence.

In 1950 the UK was in the top six countries for life expectancy worldwide.

By 2015 the UK had slipped to 21^st.

By 2019 it had fallen to 29^th.

Francis then cites an international study of NHS finance which shows that we are paying a lot less towards health than other comparable countries  (Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the US)) and suggests that to argue that we cannot match the healthcare spends of such countries means that “the UK is now "too poor  to have a 21^st century  European standard of healthcare."

Or, I would add, too mean, or too deluded by the economic legacy of what we have come to call Thatcherism

To halt our decline we must recognise the flawed nature of that doctrine, which can be summed up as:

Low taxation

Deregulation

Privatisation

Restrictions on collective action by trade unions

These were supposed to release the energies of our entrepreneurs and the resulting prosperity would trickle down to the benefit of everyone.

 None of the assumptions are verifiable.

 Taxation levels are much higher in many of the countries now much more productive than we are.

Regulations are necessary to protect us from fraudsters, opportunists and charlatans

The private sector is not automatically more efficient, however that is defined, than the public sector.

Restrictions on TU activities have not led to harmony in the workplace.  Quite the reverse.  Significant Employee Representation on boards and where appropriate, profit sharing, are more likely to do the trick. .

Yet the Tories still think the solution is tax cuts. 

As well as a root and branch reform of our systems of government (see previous post), we also need to ditch this failed  economic dogma which has now dominated our thinking for nearly half a century, and be prepared to pay for the quality of life and society of which we are capable.

Naked Britain

 

 

 

In this article in Sunday's "Observer" (13th August 2023). . .

 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/13/uk-stop-kidding-ourselves-rich-nation-gone-bust

 . . . Will Hutton plays the role of the little boy in the Hans Anderson fairy-tale who points out that the emperor has no clothes. 

The facts Hutton enumerates come as no surprise to those of us who follow the course of Britain's economy but they give a concise picture of the UK's current economic situation which is dramatically different for that the Tories, their sycophantic think-tanks and supportive press try to paint.

Here's a summary (with any additional comments of my own in brackets). 

Unlike in previous times of economic difficulty:

·        we are no longer members of any secure trading relationship such as the Empire or the EU (and the much-vaunted promises of new post-Brexit relationships don't so far amount to much):

·        our international assets no longer exceed our liabilities (quite the reverse as a result of "selling of the family silver" to foreign holders):

·        much government debt is now short-term and debt servicing is vulnerable to short term interest fluctuations:

·        the current account deficit is enormous (about 6% of GDP I seem to remember having read somewhere):

·         we are no longer an industrial giant (thanks to Thatcherism from the politicians and short-termism from our "captains of industry"):

·         productivity is "wretched" (way behind the US, Germany and France and either the lowest or next to the lowest in the G7)

·        if we strip out the contribution of London, our GDP per head falls below that of Mississippi, the poorest state in the US.

The consequences of this economic performance, allied to the growth in inequality, have percolated down to the health and social condition of our society.  Hutton records that one in three of our children live in poverty, our five-year-olds are now the shortest in Europe, and two million people report going without food for at least one day in every month.

We are no longer the spanking-rich world leading country we like to pretend.

It is common to date this decline from the public spending “austerity” policies introduced by George Osborne in 2010 but I believe the problem goes back much further, indeed right back to the end of the Second World War.

 Jo Grimond, a junior officer in the War and leader of the Liberal Party from 1956 to 1967 puts his finger on it. In his “Memoirs” (published 1979) he writes:

 “…we came out of the war being told we had saved the world by a unique act of courage against fearful odds.  We naturally became convinced that the world must see that we were natural leaders of the West entitled by our deeds of valour and skill to rest on oars as far as work was concerned and owed a debt, indeed a living, by our neighbours. (page 99)

That delusion still exists. Indeed under Johnson it existed in spades.

The delusion had and still has two serious consequences.   We have failed to reform significantly either our methods of running the economy or the government, and we have failed to look to other countries for clues on how to do both better.  Why should we: ours are “the best in the world and  the envy of the world?”

To strop the rot and achieve, not, for goodness’ sake, world-beating leadership, but just modest competence as an advanced developed nation, we need to ditch these arrogant delusions  once and for all and subject our institution  to root and branch examination and fundamental reform.

In our system of government we need examine our electoral systems, the powers of our governments, parliament as an effective law-making body and monitor of government performance rather than  a forum for political point-scoring, serious devolution of powers - including tax raising -  to the nations, regions and local government, balancing the media and the funding of political parties.

In our economy we need to find ways of promoting long-term investment rather than short-term monetary gain from our entrepreneurs and funders, fairer taxation, measures to achieve an equitable distribution of incomes and wealth,  protect the vulnerable, change the housing market from the means to acquire a cash-cow to the provision of  somewhere to live, and in our education system promote respected and effective  method of achieving technical competence.

 It is a mammoth task. Such a programme will take at least fifteen years to implement.  A continuation of the two-party duopoly will produce the “mixture as before.”  A progressive alliance of Labour, Liberal Democrats, Greens and Nationalists might just “break the mould” (remember that one?) and  set us on the right track.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Over-centralised Britain

 The UK's division of government powers and functions between the centre and local government has for decades been recognised as a major source of our inefficiency.  Germany, where the massive powers  reserved to the Lander have long been one of the reasons for its economic pre-eminence, is seen as the example to follow.  France, despite its Napoleonic inheritance, has followed suit and devolved considerable  powers to its regional governments and town councils. 

Yet in Britain, despite the example  of the late Victorian municipalities, and their impressive gas, sewage systems, concert halls and waterworks etc.,  the flow has been and continues to be, in the opposite direction

.Examples range from the serious reduction  of local government fund-raising powers by Margaret Thatcher's "rate capping" measures in the 1980s to  the trivialities which have emerged in recent weeks.

The Liberal Democrat-led South Cambridgeshire District Council decided to let its staff operate on a four-day week.  No, said Whitehall: you can't do that. Sundry local councils have tried to make parts of their built-up environment safer and cleaner by establishing Low-Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTN's) and imposing 20mph speed limits. Rishi Sunak scents a possible electoral advantage in becoming the "motorists' friend" and is looking for ways to stop them.

And it's not just the Tories.  London's Labour mayor, Sadiq Kahn, seeks to improve London's air quality by extending the Ultra-Low Emission Zone (Ulez) from which the more polluting vehicles  are discouraged from entering by the imposition of an additional tax.  Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer hasn't the power to stop him, but urges him to "reflect."  (Starmer does appear to have the power to veto candidates for election of whom he doesn't approve, not least the current directly elected North of Tyne mayor.)

What is desperately needed is a root and branch reform of our constitution, with powers beyond national defence, foreign policy, maintenance of the currency, the rule of law, basic liberties and human rights, and redistribution of taxation income  from the richer to the poorer areas, taken away from Westminster and Whitehall and entrenched  in national parliaments, regional assemblies and local councils.  

The political climate is light years away from contemplating something on these lines at the moment.  But if Labour forms the government after the next election without the need for Liberal Democrat and/or Nationalist and/or Green support, we shall simply get the mixture as before: probably only one term of the system run skewed more kindly towards to the "have-nots" (but not if they have more than two children) followed by yet another two of the Tories with it skewed towards the haves.

Then, now, and where next?

 

From Giles Wilkes, Ashes to ashes, The New European , July 6-12, 2023.

 

“By many modern measures, the early 1980s was a rubbish time to be  a British citizen. Hooliganisms (sic) and rioting  were rife.  Teen pregnancy was high and still rising,  homophobia and racism were common.  Crime had increased all the way through the post-war period.  Everywhere reeked of tobacco and car engines spewed lead.   Deaths on the road were much higher  -  drunk diving was more prevalent  and set belts did not become compulsory until 1983.  Inner city blight was a real problem  ( a worse one I would say , than the sky high rents we suffer from today.)

Were it a question of  who enjoyed the better lives, I would never swap the 1980s for today .  I like music streaming, social liberalism and the internet, have no problem with high immigration, and really hate tobacco smoke, unemployment and casual racism “

I take issue with some of this.  The 1980s don’t seem to me to be all that long ago - I’d be more interested in contrasting today with the 50s (when we still had still had birching and hanging, same-sex relationships were illegal, children born outside wedlock were stigmatized as bastards).  And I don’t remember crime being all that much worse in the 80s.  But the contrast does warn us to be careful of thinking that the past was all that  golden..  In so many areas life is better: we have progressed, even if there is still a long way to go.

Later in the article Wilks admits that “. . .in one crucial regard I would pick the 1980s over the 2020s.  Britain was once a place  that could imagine progress and drive towards it.”  I agree.  Any trace of optimism has been replaced by cynicism.  We have lost confidence not just in our parties but also in our political system.

Further social progress in particular  is under attack by the right’s  clever use of their PR machine to describe any advance as “woke.”  This was cleverly illustrated in the “Doonsbury” strip cartoon in last Friday’s Guardian (14^th July) in which a media reporter, questioning a right-wing politician who parries all questions with “Woke!” defines  “woke”   as “being alert to discrimination and injustice.”    Does that mean, asks the cartoon, that they’re in favour of discrimination and injustice?  A good response, I think, and one we should use.

A refreshingly accurate picture of the UK’s true place in the world is given by this “blurb” which appeared in my in-box this week to advertise the New Statesman. “George Eaton, our senior editor, has interviewed David Edgerton, a historian whe key work – The Rise and Fall of the British Nation (2018) – has currency in today’s Labour Party. Britain, he argues, has little hope of being in the front rank of nations any longer, and should stop acting as though it is. The horizons of our politicians need lowering, and focusing on “a politics of modesty and a politics of improvement”. HL “We had a lot of talk not just about ‘Global Britain’ but about a ‘science superpower’, a real sense that the UK is not just a special nation by virtue of its history but that it is stuffed full of entrepreneurs. What’s happening now is a reaction to some of that; all of those promises have revealed themselves to be essentially false.” For Edgerton, the danger of a melodramatic account of British failure is that it leads to deluded dreams of British rebirth. “It is an intellectually fatal position to take. Behind declinism is an appalling top-dog-ism: if we get it right we can regain our proper place in the world. “The UK accounts for 2 per cent of global manufacturing and 2 per cent of global R&D. You’re not a science superpower if you do 2 per cent… You can’t go around claiming that in seven years’ time the UK is going to be a climate leader or a leader in green tech, it just doesn’t make sense.”  I couldn’t agree more, and Labour in this regard is almost as guilty as the Tories.  Let’s stop pretending, cut out all references to “world leading” and just aim for modest competence.