Without understanding what parts of the status quo are propped up by the mass import of people, and how, and why, any move to cut headline numbers is going to run aground on the consequences of so doing.
There is also a moral point: if someone works, they should be the main beneficiary of their labour, rather than being forced to give most of their extra earnings to the Government.
Instead of a Conservative housing policy that emphasises home ownership and architectural beauty, it will now be done the Labour way. When tower blocks start rising over the Home Counties, I hope that our remaining MPs realise their mistake.
What’s missing are the long-term reforms that would overcome resistance by the pension sector. The question is whether the Government will use the limited time remaining in the Parliament to fix these problems.
There are many things that can be done to resist the tide. The first would be for ministers to make the philosophical case for where state responsibility ends, and personal responsibility starts.
Preventing right-wingers from being discriminated against by corporate progressives is not going to be top of an incoming Labour government’s list of priorities.
It is becoming increasingly obvious that mass immigration is not the economic silver bullet the Treasury believe it is.
The expensive subsidy creates a domestic training bottleneck, whilst this country’s demand for healthcare workers is met through immigration.
Doing so would enable these powerful new AI tools to track the origins and patterns of disease, linking genes and experiences in ways very few health care systems can do. It would require establishing an ethical regime.
And this is the fundamental problem: it allows us to dodge a broader long-term industrial strategy, precisely because the short-term labour fix is so easy.
Why not conceive of the state as essentially a regulator and provider of services, dressed up in such odds and ends of holy writ as pass the smell test – one tax base under the NHS and the Equality Act?
He was the most formidable Chancellor of the Twentieth Century and a titan of the modern Conservative Party – voting for Sunak and endorsing his approach in last summer’s Tory leadership election.,
My argument is simply one of affordability (including, by the way, by dropping the triple lock) if our public finances are going to be sustainable.
“Long term, sustainable, healthy growth that pays for our NHS and schools, finds jobs for young people, and provides a safety net for older people all whilst making our country one of the most prosperous in the world.”
Pro-environment policies – and Treasury funding to make them a reality – were a consistent hallmark of his tenure as Chancellor,