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The strange case of Britain’s demise

economist.com

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Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#31

Post by nailer »

Mezzie wrote: post #6
petesergeant wrote: post #4

I feel like the article lays it out pretty well? It’s a government who’s been in power too long, whose talent base was massively thinned by a Brexit Purity witch hunt and the impossibility of delivering the Brexit fairy-tale, and who weren’t simply ejected at the last election because of Corbyn’s overwhelming unpopularity.

It's still interesting to think about given America's current gerontocracy. My last position put me in contact with a fair amount of local and state level politicians in the US and I'm very concerned about the talent bases/pipelines of the political class here. There but for the grace of God...

If you’re wondering too: gerontocracy is rule by the elderly. And that’s indeed a good description of the US right now.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#33

Post by skippyboxedhero »

klelatti wrote: post #22

I’m going to name the English language as one of the suspects. A common language with the US makes many of the political and business elite focus on the U.S. It also makes them less inclined to put the effort in to engage with Europe politically and culturally. That in turn helped to fan the flames of Euroscepticism that in turn led to Brexit. It’s no accident that the focus of trade deals post Brexit has been with E…

Most people in the UK have at least some familiarity with European languages. Many civil servants, a point mentioned in the article, studied Classics so are quite familiar with speaking multiple languages (and our diplomatic service doesn't work the same way as the US, so some civil servants come from the diplomatic service knowing 5-10 languages fluently). And in Europe, many people speak English. Proceedings at Brussels are largely conducted in English, almost everyone will understand English (they often do not speak it publicly, but are able to understand and speak it).

People who talked about Brexit were talking about East Asia and the Commonwealth countries, not the US only. I can't really think immediately of anyone with strong links to the US in the current govt (the only minister in recent memory was Liam Fox, and he hasn't been in govt for close to a decade iirc).

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#34

Post by samwillis »

The way I think it works is each government starts with a finite amount of political capital after there is a change in majority. This is expended and used up over time, slowly in a growing stable economy, much faster when there are destabilising events.

Delivering Brexit and mitigating Covid were massively destabilising events that required an enormous amount of political capital to deliver. On top of that you then have scandal after scandal which drain that political capital.

Ultimately the Conservatives are out of political capital. They can only regain it by not being in power for a period of time.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#35

Post by prof-dr-ir »

As a former inhabitant of England, I always thought that those in charge suffered from a uniquely wide 'competence gap' which I would like to define as the difference between someone's self-perceived competence and someone's actual competence. (The term is probably useful more broadly...)

Maybe it is the historically class-based society alluded to in the article, but it always stunned me how those at the top, and in particular politicians, were pushing through policies without even a modicum of consultation. See for example the 'kamikwasi' budget of last month: in which other European country would this have been done so thoughtlessly?

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#36

Post by photochemsyn »

There are several obvious culprits, here's the timeline:

1) Promoting the proxy war in Ukraine and impeding diplomatic negotiations, plus pushing for the expansion of NATO, had the result of pushing gas prices through the roof, driving record inflation (and enriching a few gas suppliers). This is the primary cause for the recent economic slump. The Neoconomist magazine is not going to address this issue, however.

2) A poorly managed Brexit. Maintaining a regulatory level playing field with Europe on issues like food safety standards would have facilitated trade. If Brexit had been better focused on pushing back against neoliberalism (halting the export of manufacturing jobs, limiting the import of cheap labor, controlling cross-border capital flows at the nation-state level) it would have worked out better. However, here's what gave impetus for the push for Brexit:

3) Privatization of national resources since Thatcher, and the resulting increase in costs for basic services. Railways, electrical suppliers, etc. were all put in the hands of wealthy interests who steadily raised rates to enrich themselves, leading to increasing poverty and the destruction of the British middle class. This growing wealth gap sparked national anger, hence support for Brexit.

Face reality: the ~40-yr neoliberal program has been an absolute disaster, and should be thrown on the scrap heap of history immediately.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#37

Post by Havoc »

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #18

Remarkable article. 2000-odd words, goes into great detail talking about politics, psycho-analyzing the Tories...it is all because they went to Eton...of course...the Brexit, the bankers...it is all so simple. A brief sentence is expended on planning, no mention about supply-side problems, the productivity crisis in govt (which is now 50% of the economy)...nothing. I will say this another way, you can measure the int…

"Economic reform" is just the latest soundbite. Half hearted acknowledgement that current tory policies have failed so by necessity the next thing being pushed must be branded as a change. Hence "reform".

I have yet to see anything of substance fly under that banner.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#38

Post by recuter » 

  Ben Page, the boss of Ipsos, a global research firm, points to what he terms the “loss of the future”, common across the West but acute in Britain. In 2008, as the financial crisis struck, only 12% of Britons thought youngsters would have a worse quality of life than their parents, Mr Page notes. Now that figure is 41%. As elsewhere, people worry about immigration and feel threatened by globalisation. All this makes Britain’s predicament seem less an inside job than part of a wider takedown of democracy.
It is remarkable, such a wordy article, could really begin and end with the above paragraph. We are in uncharted territory, new problems require new ideas but even now public discourse is entirely retrograde and focused on squabbling between two incompetent parties, personalities, scandals and self flagellation.

Like lemmings off a cliff.

I think I've never heard anybody in recent years even attempt to discuss the future of UK without simply falling back on whinging about Thatcher or Corbin or the sins of empire or god knows what. None of it relevant.

Imagine instead you are playing Civilization or Factorio, and this is day 0. Only looking forwards, how do you thrive economically in the 21st century under these current conditions with the cards you have to play?

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#39

Post by jmyeet »

The neoliberal publication fails to mention "neoliberalism" as a cause. Shocking. Probably the worst thing it says is this:

> For both to do so at once—as happened when, amid recent Tory convulsions, Labour was led by Jeremy Corbyn, a hard-left throwback—is a calamity.

Corbyn was only "hard-left" in the sense that he wasn't anti-labor. Lots of people like give lots of different reasons why Labor was eviscerated in the last election. The truth is, it was Brexit. Specifically, Corbyn refused to take any position on Brexit nor back a second referendum or otherwise espouse any kind of Remain position or policy.

So the 48% of voters who voted to Remain really had no one to vote for in that election and the Conservatives won in a landslide. What followed was a revolving door of PMs because the Tory vision was based on lies and unworkable. Northern Ireland seems like it will inevitably reunify with the Republic of Ireland (which I personally support in any case).

I've been skeptical that Scottish people would want a hard border with England if they vote for independence and to rejoin the EU but now I'm not so sure, particularly with a worsening economy and rising inflation. If in the next election the gap narrows and whichever party forming government needs the SNP to form a majority, a second referendum seems inevitable. Currently the Tories have a huge majority but that seems unlikely to survive.

London's position as the financial capital of Europe now seems under threat given Brexit. Lies about "saving the NHS" and protest votes about Polish immigration may well have killed the golden goose. Finance really was and is the beating heart of the UK economy.

The financialization of housing is a particularly big problem in the UK too.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#40

Post by _a_a_a_ »

For Boris Johnson truth was there when convenient, otherwise just lie. He lied to the british people. That's not the problem. The problem was too many people wanted to hear nice things so swallowed what he told them uncritically.

Liz Truss... say no more. But she was chosen (by a small subset of the population I agree) but she was chosen. Some people still think her damn-the-torpedoes policies were a good idea, even after the (rapid!) economic effect was evident.

Problem is the electorate, too many of whom who duck their responsibility of thinking for themselves.

Just my take anyway.

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