That is a great, and thoroughly realistic, summary of The UK'a current state of affairs.
Shame 'planning' did not get a mention.
Which political party has the policies to reverse our fortunes?
AND more impirtantly which political party has the courage to do so?
I have always admired John Redwood's take on our situation, BUT even with all the realism he presents ..... why didn't The Conservatives tackle these issues when they had the majority to do so? Mike Fisher
This is a very good summary by John Redwood of the reasons for the poor productivity of the UK economy. However he has missed one factor which is the choice made by both Labour and Conservative governments to import poorly educated low skilled people as an alternative to investment in plant, machinery, automation and AI.
This is what 14 years of a progressive CINO government delivered culminating in the disastrous Boris wave. I also attach blame to the often engineering illiterate captains of industry e.g. the CBI who chose to use cheap labour to deliver short term profits rather than invest to deliver medium to long term productivity and hence wealth.
This is a very fine piece of analysis in my view, but then I would think that, because I'm here. Members of this forum, I expect, believe that the UK "can't go on like this", but what about the wider public, the electorate that guesses we are equivalent in per capita income to around the seventh richest US state, not the fifty-first: that knows energy prices are high, but not high relative to other countries or as the result of deliberate policy: that believes the solution is either that the government must do more, including taxing the rich, or that immigration is the source of all our woes: that somewhere among the procession of prime ministers, there must be a messiah?
The grand solutions have to be implemented by politics, and here's the rub: the Left cannot see the government's knee on the economy's neck, and the Right risk the Jean-Claude Juncker trap: “We all know what to do, but we don’t know how to get re-elected once we have done it.”
Declaring that we are in crisis and that tough measures are essential will require one hell of a lot of political courage and one hell of an act of salesmanship - one can hear the cries of "austerity" already - and from a low basis of trust. Do we first have to become Argentina (and will Argentine return to being Argentina)?
That is a great, and thoroughly realistic, summary of The UK'a current state of affairs.
Shame 'planning' did not get a mention.
Which political party has the policies to reverse our fortunes?
AND more impirtantly which political party has the courage to do so?
I have always admired John Redwood's take on our situation, BUT even with all the realism he presents ..... why didn't The Conservatives tackle these issues when they had the majority to do so? Mike Fisher
This is a very good summary by John Redwood of the reasons for the poor productivity of the UK economy. However he has missed one factor which is the choice made by both Labour and Conservative governments to import poorly educated low skilled people as an alternative to investment in plant, machinery, automation and AI.
This is what 14 years of a progressive CINO government delivered culminating in the disastrous Boris wave. I also attach blame to the often engineering illiterate captains of industry e.g. the CBI who chose to use cheap labour to deliver short term profits rather than invest to deliver medium to long term productivity and hence wealth.
This is a very fine piece of analysis in my view, but then I would think that, because I'm here. Members of this forum, I expect, believe that the UK "can't go on like this", but what about the wider public, the electorate that guesses we are equivalent in per capita income to around the seventh richest US state, not the fifty-first: that knows energy prices are high, but not high relative to other countries or as the result of deliberate policy: that believes the solution is either that the government must do more, including taxing the rich, or that immigration is the source of all our woes: that somewhere among the procession of prime ministers, there must be a messiah?
The grand solutions have to be implemented by politics, and here's the rub: the Left cannot see the government's knee on the economy's neck, and the Right risk the Jean-Claude Juncker trap: “We all know what to do, but we don’t know how to get re-elected once we have done it.”
Declaring that we are in crisis and that tough measures are essential will require one hell of a lot of political courage and one hell of an act of salesmanship - one can hear the cries of "austerity" already - and from a low basis of trust. Do we first have to become Argentina (and will Argentine return to being Argentina)?