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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

#41

Post by klelatti »

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #33
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 Bru…

That's a fair challenge but I politely disagree.

- Brits are famously monolingual compared to the rest of Europe.

- How many senior British politicians speak a European foreign language fluently - Johnson perhaps - I can think of perhaps one or two others.

- Lots of key members of the Eurosceptic movement have deep links to the US. Hannan, Farage, Fox (he was the Brexit Trade Minister in 2019 btw so not close to decade).

- The 'Britannia Unchained' group of Kwarteng, Truss etc all looked strongly to the US.

I speak from experience in UK business and in Brussels.

It's not the only factor certainly but it's contributed.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#42

Post by epistasis »

shaftoe444 wrote: post #25
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…

> A brief sentence is expended on planning This has become my gauge of how serious someone is. Planning reform is both incredibly necessary and incredibly unpopular and if you won't talk about it you are just dancing around the edges of the problem.

This planning problem, or probably more accurately rent-seeking by those profiting by scarcity, seems endemic to English language countries for the past 50 years. At least with housing, which is the root of many problems, economically.

Edit: and I think that the inability to talk about this is highly connected to the lack of other honesty in politics, as well as the perpetual outrage machine that results in things like Brexit.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#43

Post by revertmean »

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #33
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 Bru…

Rishi Sunak - the current Prime Minister - held a US green card until October last year (when he gave it up).

Boris Johnson was born in New York.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#44

Post by hermitcrab »

mattlondon wrote: post #11
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.

The way we elect a prime minister (i.e. we don't) plays a large part here I think. Parties themselves select the leader. Johnson, Corbyn, Truss, Sunak - all voted in by relatively small numbers of people (e.g. 80k in the case of Truss IIRC), yet they are somehow the leader of the party and potentially even PM. This is where labour shat the bed I think with Corbyn - totally obvious that he would be terrible as a PM ye…

It would have been better for everyone if Corbyn had stayed a back bencher.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#45

Post by equalsione »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #5
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 a deeper problem than simply being in power for too long. They have been in power that long because the alternative offer was worse as you mention.

From the outside looking in, was the opposition worse?

On the one hand, labour seem really similar to the Tories - disunited, dogma over common sense and oddly out of touch.

Their policies _were_ opposite to Tory policies but they are trying to be an opposition so… Yes Corbin was a leftie (corduroy elbow patches and all) but he’s a leader of a left wing party. It’s like complaining that Thatcher was a bit right-wing.

It seems like the core issue is that the voters want something like Tory-lite. Blair did that and no one wants to go back to it. So this is what you’re left with

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#46

Post by blipvert »

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #33
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 Bru…

Umm, Rishi Sunak (PM, this month) moved to California to start a hedge fund, had a Green Card, and still has a mansion there …

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#47

Post by hermitcrab »

calewis wrote: post #12

It’s also the heavy manipulation of the free and social press by Murdoch, Paul Darce and state actors.

Yes, Murdoch is probably the single person with the greatest responsibility for the current mess. The sooner he shuffles off his mortal coil, the better.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#48

Post by skippyboxedhero »

Havoc wrote: post #37
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.

It isn't (the indicator for this is that Reeves is saying exactly the same thing).

It is hard to be brief but:

* Financial services - totally fucked, most of the VC funding in the UK comes from overseas investors because pension and insurance rules (that were largely adopted from Europe) mean that they have to own large amounts of govt bonds...the recent problems indicate how wise that was. Everything isn't working: retail, savings, banks, it is all not working.

* Planning - obviously...lots of countries have versions of this problem but it is becoming very problematic. Iirc, there was a recent infrastructure project that had to do a new environmental assessment (costing tens of millions) for every km of work they did...it isn't just housing, it is everything, it is all fucked.

* Healthcare - obviously...not going to say anything more but it is at the point where it is impacting the economy.

* Labour - again...do I need to say more? Look at what is happening right now.

* Education - again...do I need to say more? We have massive issues producing people with skills that employers require. There are other issues around this that relate to poor management and immigration, but schools are just bad (this is mentioned in the article to be fair but only from the perspective of too many politicians being from Eton...why can't they just...find people from journalism, who work at...the Economist say?).

* Housing - separate from just planning, there are specific rules within the housing market that cause distortions above the planning system failing to produce enough supply. For example, rent controls in Scotland...that caused a 40% drop in rental supply in two weeks, this is economic mismanagement on a grand scale.

* Local govt - needs fundamental reforms in multiple areas. Social care, planning, a lot of the new environmental rules are very dangerous (if people from outside the UK can believe it, some local councils are introducing rules which mean you will be fined if you exit your neighbourhood in a car to go to another part of the same city).

* Transport - almost everything isn't working properly. Road, rail, it is all gone. Almost all due to problems in other areas above but which will now require structural changes.

Btw, I don't know what planet you have to live on not to notice this stuff. I am in my mid-30s, every single job I have had things that impacted my ability to produce more output because of govt intervention. Every one. Once you see this stuff, you realise how bad it has become, every level of govt, every institution, it is everywhere.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#50

Post by tim333 »

tobylane wrote: post #16
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.

I don’t think overwhelming is the right word, his vote share was around Blair’s average. Now that half of Tory MPs have been cabinet members, it’s harder to demand loyalty by dangling a job for votes. Especially the ministerial roles that the public are aware of. The article seems to be avoiding the term "lame duck period". It reads an excessively selective set of opinions, and it's unclear who should be trying harde…

"Jeremy Corbyn 'most unpopular opposition leader of past 45 years', says poll"

https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/jeremy-corbyn-most...

I'm not sure it's really fair but that's kinda how the polls went.

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