I’ve been working on a piece about how the UK consistently breaks the pricing mechanism across its economy, from healthcare, land use, immigration, energy, and so on. It was getting far too long, so the current plan is to release them whenever I finish each section – currently getting through the Attlee government’s NHS and land usage.
In the meantime I found the below quite interesting:
https://unherd.com/2026/04/is-it-too-late-to-reindustrialise
- A great piece by Rian Chad Whitton on a very pressing issue at the moment, given the UK has so thoroughly deindustrialised arguably more than any other major power. Ed Conway at Sky has been very diligent in tracking how the UK cannot produce salt in this country, can barely produce steel, and has lost more refineries, making us ever more vulnerable to global disruption
- Whitton reminds us how fast the deindustrialisation has been in the UK within living memory, and while some of it was partially understandable due to the rise of China (see my foreign policy piece on how we mishandled that relationship), the majority has been self-inflicted. From net zero, to unfavourable investment regimes towards capital stock, and a disproportionately open market vs others, we have hurt our ability to have a strong industrial base.
- Naturally of course rebuilding one will be very difficult, unless we are willing to go back on the above tenants – not likely in the current climate, despite all the positive talk over reindustrialisation. As Whitton highlights, by doing this we will also hurt our consumers, given the higher cost of goods made here vs globally, which won’t make this super popular in a cost of living crisis.
- However, in my mind there is no alternative to this. We need a strong industrial base for our economy and crucially for our defence. We forget that before WWII started we had an unbelievable domestic industrial might that could swiftly translate into war power. Though the wars of tomorrow will be different, the need for industrial capacity won’t be.
https://www.viewfromcullingworth.com/p/having-half-of-new-homes-as-social
- This piece by Simon Cooke was prompted by the Green Party policy on housing, which, to put it politely, is deluded. As Joe Hill at Re:State has argued, it’s another example of the ‘Everythingism’ that permeates British policy. Homes are not just safe places for people to live in, they must be socially just, environmentally just, beautiful, and so on. Partially as a result of this, nothing gets built.
- Cooke does a good job demonstrating that social housing isn’t the panacea for England’s housing troubles – it’s relaxing planning restrictions, and allowing those who own the land to decide for themselves if they want to build on it.
- This will be part of my upcoming piece on Britain and pricing, as this was set in motion primarily by the Attlee government, which took a suspicious view to say the least about the profit incentive. We treat land and development as areas to be controlled by the state through arcane means, and get annoyed that young families and professionals are continually priced out. Until we rectify this, the housing issue will never be fixed.
- I found this really interesting about African cultures, in particular Ghanaian, approach to funerals, given I know absolutely nothing about this subject.
- The key points are kinship and status. It’s not simply enough to bury a relative, it has to be an event. Costs inevitably skyrocket, with Oks suggesting a modest funeral costs $ 5,000 USD, while the average annual income is around $ 2,300. Not a good way to go about building family wealth.
- But the other key point is kinship. It’s not a case of just ignoring these social needs – you must meet these obligations or lose access to everything. A very different worldview from our traditional Western view.
- This is part of the reason why Oks thinks Africa isn’t primed for growth in the same way that Asia was, but he does note that technology, and its ability to anonymise, may be helpful. Let’s hope so.
