There have been several good articles in recent weeks on what the next UK government — or leader — could do to address Britain’s structural problems, including a recent intervention from Tony Blair. I’m not super optimistic, unfortunately, but just wanted to share some general thoughts.
So, the Labour Party. In no particular order:
- Labour under Keir Starmer never appeared to develop a coherent vision for the UK beyond the assumption that the Conservatives had exhausted themselves and that competent management alone would restore stability. We run the risk of this continuing under whichever successor emerges.
- The current frontrunners appear to be Burnham (more on him later), Streeting, Rayner, and Miliband.
- Streeting is deeply unpopular with Labour members, so his ideas are unlikely to gain much traction in the wider party. Unfortunately, to win support, it seems that he’s burnishing his leftwing credentials – unfortunate given the talking points around inequality and wealth taxes are not what we need right now.
- It’s surprising to see Rayner back in and so popular, given her tax issues (see Dan Neidle’s take on her tax situation). This aside, she’s been the strongest proponent of stronger employment rights in the Labour Party, which is a noble aim leads to a terrible outcome. This, in conjunction with the NI tax rise, has led to the UK having some of the highest youth unemployment rates in Europe. More of the same to come?
- Miliband failed around last time and is probably unlikely to want to try that again, but he does have the experience. Furthermore, he is by far the strongest frontbencher in terms of philosophy, argument, and ability to shape the civil service to his will. These are all great qualities for a cabinet minister. Unfortunately, the topic is net zero, which has left us with the highest energy bills in the developed world and increasingly insecure energy supplies, despite the decade of promises about our energy superpower. So again, not great.
Labour are the wrong party at the wrong time for the country. Really, they should have been the party to win in 2019 – the Conservatives had been in civil war since Brexit and in power for a decade. Unfortunately for Labour, they were up against Johnson, who had the Brexit appeal and a wider national appeal, and they, in turn, stuck with Corbyn, one of the most catastrophic political leaders in modern British history. In an alternative timeline, Labour may well have won in 2019 and then been removed by 2024, leaving a more conventional centre-right government facing a difficult inheritance but with greater political space to argue for structural reform.
As it stands, the Conservatives are fighting for their very survival, and I suspect Labour will join them, short of a dramatic change in leader and policy.
With that in mind, onto the links:
https://open.substack.com/pub/polemicpaine/p/uk-nationalisation-the-singapore?r=22u0c&utm_medium=ios
- Polemic Paine explores an alternative model for managing strategic infrastructure, beyond the traditional British binary of privatisation versus nationalisation.
The distinction is in separation. The state owns the assets, the state collects the dividends and long-term asset appreciation, professional management operates them, ministers establish broad direction and operational decisions remain commercial. The state acts as long-duration shareholder while operational control remains commercial.
- Just thinking aloud, this isn’t even unheard of in the UK – TfL for one is fairly close to this, as is the Crown Estate (though I admit I’m unfamiliar with its workings).
- We can also see this elsewhere in different ways – see Mexico with its airports, which can be bought by investors all over the world. The key is that they also have Master Development Plans, which mandate how much development they do and the tariff the airport operators can charge accordingly. They are allowed to make significant profits, and they are still incentivised to invest in their operations accordingly.
- We probably can’t just pick either solution up and drop it into the UK, but again, devolution could be a partial solution here. Areas like transportation certainly could be moved to cities and regions, with energy a possibility as well. Given our political fragmentation, this may be the only way for some of the UK to succeed, rather than all of us being equally poor.
- Now, turning back to Burnham in this section, while also neatly tying into the above link, we have Adam Bell examining what Burnham’s remarks may mean for our energy sector. Bell also traces the evolution of British energy policy and the incentive structures that produced the current system.
- In a nutshell, there is a chance of it being somewhat similar to the Singapore model, or perhaps the TfL model, i.e., the asset is ultimately owned by the state, which sets the objectives, but how these are achieved are down to private operators.
- Two interesting implications from this:
- Recreating a Bees-style structure would imply a Cabinet Committee overseeing the system and a single delivery body that merges NESO, Ofgem and relevant parts of DESNZ. The role of private companies in the system would be reduced to providing specific services as contracted by the delivery body, and competition would be focused on the issuing of contracts rather than consumer choice.
- And, perhaps much more significantly for Burnham’s potential future cabinet:
- such an overhaul would likely make it nearly impossible for Government to achieve its 2030 power decarbonisation targets. The level of uncertainty for investors would simply be too great. A future Prime Minister Burnham may need to choose between his Chancellor and Ed Miliband.
- I really need to write a piece on the UK’s energy policy since the 1970’s, but articles like these are great for showing how poorly the incentives around our energy policy have been structured.
https://manchestermill.co.uk/stop-looking-for-burnhamism-in-six-years-ive-never-found-it/
- Finally, quite an interesting deep dive into Burnham from the Manchester Mill,
- As a side note, local newspapers doing well in the modern age is fantastic. Manchester Mill and London Centric are two local newspapers/substacks that are filling the role of journalism in the modern age.
- Couple of obvious points here: firstly, Burnham clearly has some talent as a politician for the soundbite (or, if you’re being less cynical, the connection), but doesn’t appear to have much of a governing philosophy.
- My main concern is, where is the political talent pipeline? My hope for areas like Manchester, London, and elsewhere would be that these mayors become political centres in their own right, with different philosophies of governance and ways of approaching problems in their regions.
- We are clearly desperate for talent and good governance here in the UK – hence why we’re brutal with Starmer and his inadequate predecessor, and our desperation for the new saviour. The worry is that once again, we are elevating a figure who has the rhetorical heft but lacks the analysis to govern effectively. His recent remarks to Blair’s piece did not inspire confidence that he is prepared to be brutal in service of the UK, and to disappoint key interest groups. I hope that I’m wrong.
