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Last weekend, while Rachel Reeves traveled to China to do business for Britain, Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat He wrote Taiwan will be a better economic partner. With only 2,500 words to play in The Times, he decided not to mention the following fact. Taiwan Annual Result It is 800 billion dollars. It is Chinese. $19tn. Tugendhat, a good man, but also a pukka accent and background is not only proof of how far an empty vessel can take an empty vessel on the inert sea of ​​British public life. Many Tories want the UK to keep China at bay. There is a security issue in doing this. Why dress in economics, though? Why not just admit that growing up isn’t that important to them?
The problem with Britain is that almost everyone cites growth as a priority, and almost no one does. There is always another consideration, whether geopolitical, ecological, cultural or egalitarian. The result is the worst of both worlds: no serious steps toward economic success, but no strategic national agreement to retire to a life of low-drama stagnation. Any of these is a great choice with its own benefits and value. Britain’s take on gelatin is fudge – a subtle but unique development that has made progress desirable.
A thousand newspaper editors will tell you that Britain has no “growth strategy”. If that means policies, Britain doesn’t have anything like that and never has. What is missing is what might be called a “growth preference”: a stable view that when growth conflicts with another goal, growth must be ensured.
Let me come to the point from another angle. What was America’s growth strategy in the last two decades? By which administration was it published? Can someone send me a link? When I pose these questions to “strategy” seekers, the best answer I get is vagueness about DARPA’s role. In the end, the most successful of all economies had no plan. In addition to the shell and other advantages, it was a very strong development option. If growth is important elsewhere—tax cuts on income inequality, corporate expansion against antitrust concerns, environmental sensitivities—the American bias has been for growth, at least compared to the West European average. A culture that doesn’t protect as much as statutory paid leave can make for flexible choices that Britain can’t or won’t.
This week, Sir Keir Starmer announced plans to use artificial intelligence to boost the UK. The moment it became clear he wasn’t serious was when the AI ​​said, “I’ll make it work.” EveryoneHe said. Almost no single government reform works for everyone. His line is all but admits that if the AI ​​upsets the interest group, he will be held responsible in the cave.
If AI were to change half as much as the stimulus, this would mean public sector job losses: at the diagnostic level in healthcare, for example. Unions want economic growth. But not that much. AI also has high power requirements. Even at current levels of electricity use, the government’s goal of decarbonizing the grid by 2030 is the outer limit. The targets may have to shift to accommodate the new demand from data centers. Sensible environmentalists want progress. But not that much.
If Britain intends to attract the best AI talent, it will need to cut taxes on high income or capital gains. As Starmer approaches that idea, the Solution Foundation-style think tank puts it into tables about its impact on inequality. Given the choice of becoming a social democracy with 1.5 percent annual growth or 3 percent of the nation’s population, some people prefer the former. They want growth. But no. . .
There is another way. Britain can stop pretending to be progressive. I hated it, but there would be no shame in politicians coming to the following scholarly settlement. The strong growth rate before 2007 was skewed, not the weak one since then. While a return to that trend is possible, the necessary reform will result in out-of-work benefits and other social conflicts, which growth must avoid. After all, Britain is not America. It’s France: a “poor rich country” with its disproportionately large capital city and its talent for stemming from multiple cracks in the paper. Suitable? No, but what model? Economic success has not stopped the United States from having the worst politics in the free world.
Or Britain could continue as it is. The Tories want growth, but that doesn’t mean building things up, aligning with Europe or being too exposed to China. Labor wants growth, but not if it accommodates unions, or “leaves people behind” or the nonsense of some NGO press releases. So which growth policy is left? A finance minister has asked her colleagues to suggest red tape to be cut. It’s hard to even talk about firing Reeves. Yes, she chose to learn the obvious the hard way: referring to spending as an “investment” is not fooling the right investors; This “austerity” is not a problem in a country that has not had a budget surplus since the millennium. But Britain doesn’t have a Reeves problem. Britain has a problem. Deep down, we are happy with 1.5 percent annual growth rather than courage.
