The UK is in a very difficult position economically and politically. For various reasons, including Brexit, Covid, and the Ukraine war driving up food costs, people feel no better off than a decade ago.
The latest government, rewarding trade unions with pay rises, and increasing business costs (national insurance rises, rates increases and minimum wage increases), make things much worse and kill growth.
In the meantime, letting welfare costs balloon whilst under-investing in defence make us look stupid. Everyone knows we are living beyond our means.
It is not so much failing to fix the roof while the sun shines as actually selling the roof…….
In all of this the government does not have a free hand. Yes they could print money, but that would cause interest rates to go up, and increase inflation.
And our level of national debt, meaning we need huge oveseas funding, exposes us to the expert eye of people who lend money globally. That is why the rates we’re paying to borrow (gilts etc) is rising.
So people are not happy with centre right or centre left options. Both have made a mess of things.
Extreme right and left are popular but not an option for ‘grown ups’. The extreme right do not have much of a strategy – kicking out immigrants (of which we need lots of good ones) and possibly restricting abortion. You’d have to be nuts to support the extreme left (anything left of centre left in fact). They want to borrow more, spend more on welfare, becme ever more woke (women with penises!), blindly pursue net zero and possibly even disarm.
These are ‘broad brush’ comments – I can ‘drill down’ and justify them if wanted.
Core to our future existence, our success, is for the nation to thrive economically, for business to be successful and to grow. Everything else flows from that.
It may be that the left do not understand this – possibly just not interested – and I suppose this is understandable (but not acceptable) if you’ve only ever worked in the public and voluntary sectors.
The point of this blog is to wonder whether the main problem in the UK is the one of ‘envy versus aspiration’. Has liberal education brainwashed people into the ‘envy’ state.
They seem to envy, and disapprove of the rich and successful. Business people are put in this category – including the self employed, who generally work harder for less money than those cushioned by comfortable public sector jobs. And of course, self employment comes with out holiday pay, sick pay or pensions. That’s why the self employed go sick less often than people in the public sector.
That is why the left regard business and employers as ‘cash cows’ – tax the enemy – and reduce inequalities.
And the result of course is less growth, a ‘smaller cake’ to share.
The centre right are more likely to believe in ‘aspiration’ – work hard and take risks to improve your and your families situation. Work to put bread on the table, rather than try to claim benefits.
And given that it is business, from the self employed to billionaires, that create wealth – growth – we need to support them.
The left think about the less able – maybe they should think more about the ‘more able’ who can work to create a better future for everyone. Unfortunately they seem to be consumed by their own envy.
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