The title of Allister Heath’s analysis couldn’t have been more hair-raising: “The horrifying truth behind the coming collapse of basketcase Britain”, the subtitle is in the same vein: ‘The political climate is veering hard-Left, thanks to 20 years of short-termism, cowardice and state failure’ (paywalled link). This is not mere click-bait. The text of Mr Heath’s analysis delivers what he promises. Right from the start he’s not mincing his words:

“Looming power cuts, rocketing bills, water shortages, dysfunctional public services, sky-high taxes, a failing economy: Britain’s slide into crisis, our staggering seemingly accelerating decline, is tragic yet unsurprising. We are nearing the endgame, the final denouement, of a quarter century of political, intellectual and moral failure in which most of our political class has been complicit.

Statist ideology, historical naivety, cowardice and short-termism have crippled our country. Orthodox thinking has turned out to be wrong in almost all areas that matter, from the economy to energy to planning. Politicians of both parties are to blame, but the rot started on that sunny day in May 1997 when a fresh-faced Tony Blair swept away John Major’s sleaze-addled government in a misplaced wave of optimism. For a while, many were fooled – Blairism was the original cakeism – but it marked the beginning of the end of Britain’s renaissance, our return to the technocratic consensus that first ruined us in the 1970s.” ((paywalled link)

Having set the historical background, reminding us of yon ‘fresh-faced’ Blairs’ promises which turned out to be the foundation for the dire straits our country is in – from immigration and education to the economy – Heath then traces the line to the current economic disaster we’re facing:

“It took a mere 10 years after Gordon Brown’s pledge to abolish “Tory boom and bust” for the economy to collapse in the financial crisis, never properly recovering, the Thatcherite legacy of Eurozone-beating GDP growth rates squandered. The intellectual, monetary and regulatory errors were global, but Brown doubled down on all of them.

The electorate noticed, kicking Labour out and voting for Brexit, but the politicians let them down. Nothing really changed, and we now face our second, great policy-induced crisis of the post-1997 era: energy bills of over £4,000, rocketing inflation and a nasty recession.” (paywalled link)

Next comes Mr Heath’s scathing analysis of why we are where we are:

“War and Covid are the triggers, but the underlying disaster was homemade. Imagine, just imagine, if, as Margaret Thatcher had wanted, we had built a nuclear power station a year; allowed fracking and not waged a crazed, war against domestic oil, gas and coalbefore we had built up alternative capacity; if Nimbystic rules hadn’t prevented new infrastructure; if governments had planned properly for geopolitical shocks. We would have been fine. Instead, the Tories risk being destroyed because they strayed from the ideas that saved Britain in the 1980s.

The Thatcher/Major interregnum was a unique period: Britain re-embraced capitalism. Swathes of the economy were transformed by privatisation, less and better regulation, lower taxes and globalisation. Prior to Thatcher and Major, much of industry and the utilities were a disaster of nationalised over-manning, inefficiency and stop-start irrationality. Investment – in factories, machinery, power plants or telephone cables – sat on the government’s balance sheet and would inevitably be cut when the Exchequer ran out of money. Customers were captives and complaints ignored. The railways were in calamitous decline, with fatal crashes. (paywalled link)

After acknowledging that ‘not everything went right’, Mr Heath describes what the governments after Mrs Thatcher could have done to prevent the disaster we’re facing, e.g. terminate the licences of those private companies which fail to deliver. He writes next:

“That wasn’t the route that was taken. Governments of both parties turned away from free market economics: there was a huge increase in regulation of every kind, much of it demanded by the EU, and of tax and spend. As the years went by, centralised direction became more aggressive. Finance was misregulated by Brown and George Osborne. The railways were renationalised in phases. Energy companies were told what energy to buy. GDP kept growing, partly because of much quicker immigration, but the damage from over-regulation was immense.

Faulty Bank of England targets backfired spectacularly: at first, a narrow focus on consumer prices meant a blind eye was turned to the explosion in credit and house prices. The country became addicted to cheap money, fuelling malinvestment and propping up low-productivity zombie firms. The green agenda was equally disastrous. Its creation of a Potemkin, fake consumer energy “market” replete with foreign state-owned players and fly-by-night “providers” might as well have been designed by socialists to discredit capitalism, and will cost billions in bailouts.” (paywalled link)

There’s no ‘might as well …’ about ‘green policies’, Mr Heath! Surely by now even DT columnists must have grasped that ‘greens’ are ‘watermelons’! There’s nothing wrong with the next paragraphs though:

“Successive governments post-Major succumbed to short-termism in myriad areas: no reform of the NHS, no Heathrow expansion, no new roads, no faster housebuilding (despite a massive increase in population), not enough new nuclear energy, an assumption that there would never be another war in Europe, or another financial crisis, or a pandemic, or any need to ensure security of supplies. The size and reach of the state became inversely related to its ability to deliver its core functions.

Ludwig von Mises, in his Critique of Interventionism, explains how social-democracy is an unstable middle point between capitalism and socialism. This is especially true today. All problems, even when caused by failed Left-wing policy, trigger increasingly hysterical demands for even more state action. The pressure is now on for full energy price controls, greater windfall taxes and the destructive renationalisation of the gas and electricity sector, as in France. We have a Tory government, but the political climate is veering hard-Left as a result of years of failure to push an alternative agenda.” (paywalled link)

Just so – but there’s one other ‘player’ missing in this analysis: the influence of the MSM. The short-termism Mr Heath rightly bewails is due not least by the even more short-termism created by the MSM who gleefully chase daily  a new farm animal through the Westminster village. I won’t spare you the flowery (with added ‘rah-rah’) last paragraph in support of Miz Liz:

“Liz Truss called one of her daughters Liberty, and genuinely understands and likes free markets. She is the last chance to reverse this mad dash down what Hayek called the Road to Serfdom. She needs a short-term strategy to survive the cost of living crisis, with financial help for households on below average incomes, while launching a blitz of truly radical, pro-growth reforms and bolstering the supply of energy. Ms Truss will need to be as strong and as determined as her hero Mrs Thatcher, for the ferocity of the opposition will be like nothing this country has seen since the 1984-85 miners’ strike.” (paywalled link)

So calling one’s daughter ‘Liberty’ is proof that one understands and ‘likes’ free markets? Crikey. And suddenly short-termism is ok? Blimey. Looking at this last paragraph I have the suspicion that some sub-editor mangled the original Heath in order to ‘show flag’ for La Truss.

I for one am not sure that Mr Heath really believes that Miz Liz can avert the downfall of our country – not when he apparently disregards his own excellent analysis, not when he apparently thinks she should do the things he blames for the downfall of our country in his preceding analysis. What do you think?

 

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