That really is the failure of British pension policy – not the absence of means-testing, not outsized outflows, not arbitrary locks – is the failure of previous generations to plant trees under whose shade they shall never sit.
The state causes inequality. Expansions of the state cause expansions in (statistical) inequality, justifying expansions of the state. Spotting that tautology, and knowing why it’s wrong, has never been more essential.
The Church of England has adopted a kind of ecclesiastical Starmerism – doing much to win over those with little interest in it, and little to keep those who have been its demographic. As a shadow for Starmer’s 12 per cent approval, the Church enjoys its 2 per cent attendance.
We need to ask people to acknowledge what was once a basic reality. That the purpose of a state is to serve the interests of its citizens and decisions ought to be taken through that framework. Is an intervention in our national interest? Does it benefit Britain and its people?
A minimum wage can work perfectly well in markets – but for it to work we need to actually use markets. A real pay disparity that anyone can see is plainly unsustainable.
The Danes ration choice, the French ration equality, and the Swiss ration time. In the UK we refuse to ration all three – meaning we must instead ration graduate’s wages, because nobody will talk about what an alternative to tuition fees actually means.
We have been a happy vassal of the US since Suez and it is a feat of mental unpleasantness to opt for anything else – only now that miserable slavery is on the table does the thought of accepting mental unpleasantness raise its head.
Admiration for Hungary’s “success” tells us more about the audiences and commentators than it does about the country itself – it is Budapest as a Barthesian myth.
A customs union offers then two simple things – a solution to Britain’s disentangling Union (and it really is disentangling) and a quick and noticeable boost to growth, and it does so whilst leaving Britain’s practicable sovereignty no worse off
We should stop pretending that the status in the law of ‘fiscal rules’ is of any relevance – with Parliamentary Supremacy the penalty for ignoring fiscal rules is set by the bond markets not the law courts nor the OBR.
There is a sort of base level fairness measured not in calculations, broad shoulders and isolated cases but in a simple slogan – why should I pay for others to enjoy something I do not myself enjoy.
Well framed, across the board VAT simplification could have ten times the impact of abolishing stamp duty and un-gumming business generally, alongside the housing market, and is just what the country needs to start working again.
These recent polls are ones that ten years ago – or on say June 9th 2016 – nobody would have imagined possible, and they are polls whose outcomes were brought about by Boris Johnson and yet he has no framework for that.
In Norway politics is about momentum. Once voters began fleeing the Norwegian Conservatives, more followed.
The UK’s terrible property market, and inelastic supply, does offer one nice opportunity for reform, because ultimately housing benefits don’t make housing more affordable, they just make landlords more money.