I’m beginning to conclude that this must be in fact why the UK, is so ‘unproductive’.
It is not because the workers are so lazy as our ‘Britannia Unchained’ if not actually decidedly ‘Unhinged’ government would tell us, but it suggests to me that it is simply because we do not properly invest in the state.
All major European countries have a bigger state sector than the UK (something which is quite unaccountably disapproved of in the UK and the US), but in fact a properly functioning state sector gets things done.
Hmm.
I find it difficult to conclude other than productivity would actually be much improved by the state ridding itself of its private contracting…
And that’s why I suggest Neoliberalism is at the core of the UK’s productivity problem…
Can we test this hypothesis? Yes We Can!
The US has smaller govt. The US is more productive.
The theory’s bollocks then.
We had a smaller state sector in the past and we were responsible for the industrial revolution
Well, now he’s a full-on communist.
Wonder what he’ll be next week.
LMFAO – out state institutions are the very definition of unproductive. The simple matter of not giving a shit about the money wasted leads to unproductive use of resources. More of this would apparently increase UK productivity – that man truly is a total fuckwit.
“a properly functioning state sector gets things done.”
Thank you, Mr. Tautology. “If everything worked properly, it would all be fine”. Give that man an award.
The original post he’s referring to is here – in deference to Tim;s policy of minimizing the fat bastard’s exposure I have done the honourable thing and not enabled a direct link
https://www.t*xresearch.org.uk/Blog/2022/07/17/tories-want-to-cut-public-services-and-create-a-lot-more-really-shit-jobs/
The vast majority of state sector jobs have high value added for society. There are the classics, like nurses, teachers, police officers (by and large), and rubbish collectors. The less obvious include the essential health and safety officials and tax inspectors
The last time one of my children (then 6) went into hospital he and my wife waited 8 hours to be seen having been moved between hospitals three times. If that’s ‘high value add’ then let’s hope we don’t have to live with ‘low value add’. As for the police, I think no police force has a burglary clear up rate of more than 10% while ‘Non Hate Crime Incidents’ number more than 40,000 (you need an FOI request to get that last number) Even before we take into account the DVLA’s post COVID performance or obvious nonsense like the ECHR. UKIP estimates in 2010 post the Brown administration were that 2 million non jobs could be got rid of across the public sector with no noticeable impact to the public. The so-called ‘Bonfire of the inanities’. I’d presume that number is at least the same now.
They could sell gambling, that is always destructive of well-being. Or fast food, that virtually guarantees ill health. They might instead create advertising, 95% of which has the sole intention of making us unhappy with what we’ve got.
So he’d move gambling to the underground, as they do in the Far East? I’m guessing it’s provide more employment for the police. Not sure he’d like the loss of tax revenue. Not only does he want your savings, he’s now going to tell you what you should eat or limit your access to certain foods? Regarding advertising, he has yet to respond to the question, asked more than a decade ago as to whether under the Courageous state, the state would be subject to an advertising ban? I await a response – A relative of mine (the same one that bought me Murphy’s books as an Xmas present) also bought me a book dedicated to posters from the ‘Curajus state’ in the real world – North Korea (Although they have been described by Murphy as ‘neoliberal’ so perhaps they aren;t all bad) – perhaps he has a sideline in thinking he or his acolytes might compete with them in producing glorious state advertising….
Alternatively, these new employees could prospect for more fossil fuels which if burnt would likely end the chances of continuing human life on earth. Or they could develop means of oppression to be used by dictators to control their populations.
Both the oil and gas industries and arms industries pay a lot of tax. I know you think the state can just print money to finance your schemes but in the real world things are different. Additionally, isn’t he in favour of the Ukrainian resistance? Going to be mighty tough to arm them without armament manufacturers.
More mundanely, they could sell tax abuse designed to undermine the revenues of democratically elected governments. Or they could do audits very badly, as seems to be the current pattern.
It’s outrageous that those suffering under the abuse of governments in the likes of India or Mexico should be able to shield themselves from the depradations of corrupt regimes. As for Audit, a man who paid someone else to take his accountancy qualifications and is memorialized in hundreds of captured web images as having complete ignorance of accounting, finance and banking is now the leading authority on audit?
But, worse, without the people in government to check that businesses are complying with required standards then there will literally be more shit jobs, and vastly more metaphorically shit ones.
If I look at the performance of regulators in general it has been abysmal across numerous agencies, and the rot stems back decades, certainly not unique to the current administration. The bleating from the Unions is always the same – more money. Yet those Unions (such as on the railways) which retain the industrial aspects of the 70s are almost invariably those least in touch with modernity
The answer is, of course, to reverse this. To do this we have to regulate the worst shit jobs out of existence. Everything from cracking down on gambling, tobacco and abusive advertising, to enforcing standards across the board plus making people pay tax will help start that
Not sure how many BAT or the remaining tobacco companies employ in the UK but I’d wage its not very many as almost all manufacture is done abroad. Already mentioned cracking down on gambling will simply fuel profitability for criminal gangs.
Sure, we’d end up with a bigger state sector. But that’s what most countries richer than us have. And we’d pay more tax. But actually, we’d also be earning more so let’s not be surprised about that. And if public services worked who would mind the bill? Only the small-minded.
Monaco and Switzerland have bigger state sectors? If ‘public services’ worked then who would mind the bill? Perhaps those paying it and still waiting 8 hours until 3am with a six year old in A&E while 4 nurses stand around doing apparently nothing?
I could go on but you get the drift – the opinion of someone utterly unconnected at any point with reality. Arguably more offensive than his sallying forth on Banking and Finance yesterday as this panglossian view of public services suggests someone who probably doesn’t have to deal with them, other than when he’s arguing with the police that he has a ‘right’ to drink in a pub in Downham Market despite being pubwatch banned
What, like the NHS, Border Force, Passport Office, DVLA, Social Services, Local Planning, the Fire Brigade, Met Police, Job Centre Plus, Church of England, Department of Levelling Up, Environmental Agency, HSE, Test and Trace (I’m sure I’ve missed some out).
Compared to those you love to hate: Tesco, Amazon, Ryanair, Next, ABF, Autotrader (!), Barratt dev, etc.
If criminals could just learn to be more courteous to their fellow man, there would be less crime.
V-P
You’d have been better off giving the mite a bit of calpol and getting an early night. A&E is full of worried parents (of the first born) when 99% of the time there’s nothing seriously wrong. Bt the third of fourth you even don’t bother with the calpol.
“a properly functioning state sector gets things done”
First find your properly functioning state sector.
“I find it difficult to conclude other than productivity would actually be much improved by the state ridding itself of its private contracting…”
Is this not a fallacy based on how GDP is calculated, namely that every unit of currency spent by the State on its public bodies is assumed to increase GDP by the same amount? That if you employ 1m people to sit twiddling their thumbs in the Ministry of Paperclip Supply then that entire budget is said to add to GDP regardless of nothing being done? So countries with large State sectors will always look ‘more productive’ because we only count money inputs not actual outputs?
flawed theory but what then is the optimal size of public/gov services???
france and germany both have higher productivity then us (https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn02791/ ).
The idea of ditching another 2 mill public workers as per VP comment and expecting to save taxpayers money and have a shorter wait at A&E is interesting and I look forward to the next pm giving it a shot.
@ anarchist
Any other example than France might have been convincing – even Spain.
“…but in fact a properly functioning state sector gets things done.”
No surprise to see him singing Mussolini’s praises for getting the trains running on time, and that Austrian fellow got quite a lot done too, didn’t he?
More recently, the CCP is certainly getting the Uighurs done.
a perennial misconception
Not impressed to see HMRC cultivating it – file under cvnts
There’s actually an element of truth to this, though not one Spud would appreciate. National productivity is based on GDP and the value added for most civil service activities is simply assumed to be whatever they cost. So, want to improve productivity? Employ another 100,000 diversity advisers on £50k and Bob’s your uncle*. The country will go bust**, but that’s surely a small price to pay?
* Bob may also choose to identify as a woman
** I think we may already be testing this out IRL.
“As for Audit, a man who paid someone else to take his accountancy qualifications “
Oooh, tell me more.
I admire VP’s forensic arse-ripping but I don’t have his stamina or erudition.
Forgive me, my version
Murphy = Cvnt
I believe that the USSR had a GDP of half of the US, but any visitor to the country would tell you that it was an absolute sh1thole.
I wonder where his adoration of the state, and loathing of the private sector comes from. After all, he worked in the private sector as an accountant up to 2000. Was it perhaps sheer envy of the people whose accounts and tax returns he was doing?
And why hasn’t he worked in the public sector other than his (EU funded) role at City University? Perhaps he is scared what he might found out!
Joining us old gits drinking this afternoon was the classic Lefty fat git. Marvellous brewer awful personality. In an argument about poltics and the Soviet Union he advanced the classic “it wasn’t true communism”. We three nearly choked on our pints.Lefties like him and the tuberous one aren’t going to let facts get in the way of their delusions. @Dennis “Wonder what he’ll be next week.” – he’ll be making sure his list of undesirables is up to date and mouthing the words in front of a mirror “Commissar Murphy”
@Tate Dickr – “The simple matter of not giving a shit about the money wasted leads to unproductive use of resources.”
Surprisingly enough, that’s not the most important factor. Some private enterprise wastes money just like public services. The key factor is that a private enterprise that does that will run out of money and go bust, while a public service will simply demand more tax money. This is why you can’t just subcontract public services to the private sector – without competition to weed out the inefficient contractors, they’ll simply do the same as a public body would but with less oversight.
A “properly functioning state sector” – dream on!
I have had no answer to my last four letters to HMRC; my complaint about my pension was met. after my third letter (I worked progressively higher until I got a reply) by the highish-ranking official delegating the reply to a junior official who said (with no evidence) that my pension had been calculated correctly despite it being obviously wrong; the last time I saw a NHS Consultant he wrote to my doctor saying nothing could be done (with the overtones of “why, you idiot, did you send him to me?) = because it had taken so long for me to get an appointment with my GP and even longer for him to get me an appointment with a consultant. The problem had, on an earlier occasion been fixed by an ex-NHS physiotherapist but this time I had been advised to go to the NHS in case I needed an operation which costs a mint in the private sector.
I attended a presentation by the Chairman of National Power as it prepared to be denationalised – he said that he would have the largest redundancy programme in history (I felt tempted to cite Caesar’s legions after the end of the civil war but there were more important questions to ask) – basically the CEGB employed three union members for every two jobs. Every time Mrs Thatcher privatised something she passed a decree that it should progressively reduce “real” (inflation-adjusted) prices for the next n years as it gradually eliminated the chronic inefficiencies of the public sector mindset.
. . . in deference to Tim;s policy of minimizing the fat bastard’s exposure . . .
Wha-? I doubt the festering puss tuber gets anywhere near the level of exposure elsewhere as he gets here. I fully support Tim’s freedom of ass-ociation, along with his choice of hobbies, but fears that Richard Murphy is going to significantly alter the course of human development are grossly exaggerated. Other than for a laugh, it doesn’t matter what he says. The mere fact that a leftist with potentially popular leftist views can fail miserably on YouTube is strong evidence that people at large can appreciate for themselves that he’s a pathetic, disgusting shit offering nothing but arrogant pomposity.
To give him credit, I thought the Soviet Union did say they weren’t Communist, Communism was the end aim of Socialism, Communist parties aspire to implement what moves society along the path to Communism, at which point all politics dies out.
15 weeks later, 6 weeks after getting a demand to pay large sums of money, a power of attorney, quite a simple document, has not yet been registered. What are the civil servants doing?
Philip
Under normal circumstances I’d agree but it was out of the ordinary for him – and my wife was worried but next time I will be ‘going private’ using whatever means I have left at my disposal during the Continuation of the Great Reset…
I sneeze in threes
He has no knowledge of accounting- I mean almost literally zero. Concepts like depreciation are almost the equivalent to ancient Swahili. There’s no way he could have obtained a pass grade legitimately. Moqifen has pointed out he has a twin so my theory is the twin (who is by all accounts much nicer) as an act of fraternal solidarity sat the exams for him to give him something to at least fall back on.
Anarchist
The figure was arrived at after the ‘Blair/ Brown regime’ (still pre COVID I think comfortably the worst in British history) which hired legions of Labour Party supporters into Non- jobs to try and secure a permanent majority.
It would be interesting to see the optimum number of public sector workers. I think (for example) South Korea and Japan have similar size public sectors to our own but because the workers are diligent and don’t take the piss then of course their productivity is that much higher.
It is complex – but if I take the EHRC as an example, the productivity from that is actually net negative – UNmess
Fomenting fake claims of racism and making erroneous claims about the merits of ‘diversity’ is in any way ‘productive’: to illustrate said body threatened industrial action in the 2000s and rolled it back when they realised that the only question the private sector had would be whether the Champagne and Spirits industry could cope with the demand for celebratory drinks. Even now they won’t strike because they know in a society where the sole legal discrimination is against Whites, Men, Able bodied heterosexuals they really don’t need to exist.
@John77
I worked progressively higher until I got a reply
I generally start from the top and let it work down until it reaches someone who can answer/deal with the complaint. Even if heshe would normally be inclined to disregard it, because it comes down from the top, career considerations come into play.
It would be interesting to see the optimum number of public sector workers.
NZ took an axe to its public sector some decades ago, and it has barely grown since. It’s 14% of our economy, whereas yours is more like 22%. We seem to get by.
Our education is almost all public, and our health is too, except GPs. So it could be cut substantially from that.
On the subject of laziness, I got myself stuck in a traffic jam at 3 o’clock yesterday afternoon. This because the Spanish have moved over to the half day working they do at this time of the year when many businesses & public offices close at 2:30. ie post offices. Banks close half an hour earlier. Maybe this was once justified. It’s the hottest time of the year & working can be quite unpleasant. Except nowadays virtually all workplaces here are air-conditioned. It’s now just an excuse to skive off.
Let’s set this against what’s happening to the economy here. For the second year in a row our tourist season is a non-starter. Pretty well everything that would have been full in ’19 – bars, restaurants, the sunbeds on the beach – are half empty. Since pretty well everything has fixed costs, half capacity produces far less than half income. It’s doubtful if a lot of these activities are even profitable.
Spain’s tourist industry was worth around 12% of GDP & a bit more than that in employment. But that money feeds into the wider economy. Which is rapidly becoming a basket case. Spain will soon again be holding out the begging bowl to Europe’s richer economies. Would you chip in?
interesting to see the rankings of countries by gov spend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_government_spending_as_percentage_of_GDP
maybe the nz 14% is something else?
Also healthcare spending in the us is something like 19 % of gdp. Its about 12 % in the uk.
Spend more on uk healthcare (to match US levels) and no more 8 hour queues in AE.
“Spend more on uk healthcare (to match US levels) and no more 8 hour queues in AE”
If you believe that I have a bridge you might be interested in buying.
Increased spending on the NHS results in a reduction in services not an increase. Because they spend the money on more managers & bureaucrats, thus hampering delivering front line services.
Unfortunately reducing the NHS spend what not improve services. They’d fire nurses & doctors & require more bureaucrats to do so.
The technical term for the state of NHS is totally & utterly fucked.
VP: And Japan has twice the population we do, and when there I never saw weeds growing out of the pavement, and you had to sit quietly for a long time before you’d see a bit of litter appear and then quicky vanish as a picker snatched it up.
BIS,
“Increased spending on the NHS results in a reduction in services not an increase. Because they spend the money on more managers & bureaucrats, thus hampering delivering front line services.”
I always say that software work fills the available budget. I’ve done a few small systems for some small parts of government. It often helps that they have good managers, but you can get a lot done with £100K. People come along with daft, unnecessary requirements and managers tell them to piss off and they focus on what’s necessary. Make it £5m and every bit of unnecessary nonsense gets thrown in. Half-thought through requirements are added and a programmer builds them, and then, they realise its not actually a great idea, so change it again. It doesn’t just cost money but often means it doesn’t work that well because it’s a broken, over-complicated mess.
Good point jgh
I don’t know how much is spent on street cleaning here. But I do know they wash the streets & pavements every night. And that I lived in a very busy area of London just off a commercial street full of restaurants & takeaways. Don’t suppose the swept the pavements more than once a month & that with little enthusiasm. The entire street was utterly filthy, most of the time.
@ bis
The City of London cleans its streets and lanes every night.
The rest of London has political parties dominating their councils and deciding how the ratepayers’ money should be spent..
Nut, no. Spud is right. The UK is more unproductive than it could be exactly because we do not invest properly in the State.
Investing properly would require an opportunity to *invest*.
There is no such mechanism.
If there were, it would quite quickly expose what a terrible investment prospect the State is.
surely the single reason for our poor productivity is the sheer size of the state, and the sheer number of non-jobs it creates.