[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Damien

The country is ungovernable. People don't want cuts, or tax raises, or infrastructure built near them. Something has to give eventually.

We've basically stagnated since the Global Financial Crisis. Interesting article in the FT saying it's the root of our problems. We had hoped that an economy based on the City of London would continue to keep us growing but the bubble burst in 2008 and we've not found a way to fill that gap.

Indubitably, a serious government would be devoting vast intellectual resources to the question of how to raise the growth rate. None has, including this one. A starting point, in my view, must be recognition that the Thatcher experiment failed: it did not transform the underlying performance of the economy for the better. This must now be admitted. Too much of the post-Thatcher performance was unsustainable. This was, in good part, because it was the fruit of a global credit bubble, in which the UK was a leading actor.

My hope is to devote future columns to how a new growth strategy might work. But, before that, it is crucial to recognise the political responses we have been seeing since 2010. By and large, these have fallen into two categories: charlatanism and timidity. The charlatans pretend that something simple — Brexit or huge unfunded tax cuts — will deliver. The timid have been relatively responsible. But they have been unwilling to admit the scale of the economic and political challenges they confront and then make hard choices.

Keir Starmer is not a charlatan. But he has not been prepared to take on the burden of leadership that current conditions require. I sympathise. But his timidity will not work.

https://www.ft.com/content/259dacdb-...d-1f079731e100