Writing a book with a provocative title has its risks. In This Time No Mistakes: How to Remake Britain I argue that the government must escape the serial mistakes of the past 45 years of trying to shrink the state and promote a self-organising market. The aim is unworkable in theory and practice, engendering a series of disasters ranging from monetarism to the Truss budget.
Instead, Britain must strike out anew. The project must be a high-investment, high-productivity economy. The state does not crowd out business investment: public investment crowds it in. Inequality and social division are not prices worth paying for growth; they actively impair it. The mission should be to build a “we society”, incorporating not just an income safety net but decent housing, nutrition, transport and provision of health and social care, ladders of opportunity and the creation of a purpose-driven, innovative stakeholder capitalism. An agile state would lead the charge.
Sigh.
Which are the “agile state(s)” he would have us imitate?
If an appeal to build an agile state means becoming more Singaporean, there is a case to be made for it; otherwise it’s just not worth the effort it takes deconstruct.
“… the serial mistakes of the past 45 years of trying to shrink the state and promote a self-organising market. “
I see no shrinkage only bloat.
There was a self-organising market until politicians stuck their noses in, and two wars later – a gift to the central planners – a Marxist-Socialist Labour Government, brought society and economy under State control vastly increasing its scope and scale. A condition not remedied by successive, even so-called Conservative Governments (even under Thatcher), but adopted and propagated by them.
In which circle of Hell are you subjected to Willie Hutton’s Vogon Poetry for all eternity?
I’m guessing the 69th.
Attlee. The most misguided, deluded and destructive PM in our history. Just look at the eyesore of council housing he bestowed on every town and village in the land.
Or perhaps that title should go to Blair, for opening the immigration floodgates and changing our demographics irreparably.
Which is it?
As for Hutton, it looks like he’s trying to rival Murphy.
I suppose the long term plan of people like Hutton or Toynbee or Murphy is to wear us down so much, that we lose interest in shouting “idiot” or “moron” and disproving what they say so that we let some arch-fool like Rayner or Milliband come along and make things 1000000 times worse.
The primary difference between Hutton and the Sage of Ely beyond better literacy and ability to proofread the work is that there does appear to superficially be some kind of overarching thought process beyond envy at work. However, before fisking the article in its entirety which I will try and do later I see two observations which are critical:
1 – it seems to ignore the period 1945 – 1978 -and why people were ready to give That her a chance. According to the theories of the likes of Hutton Thatcher, or someone like her should not have happened? Hence they seem to dismiss any root cause analysis of what went wrong.
2 – the book seems very similar to this effort – https://newsroom.northumbria.ac.uk/pressreleases/new-report-proposes-common-sense-policy-solutions-to-key-problems-in-british-life-3330665
Having read the latter I looked in vain for any mention at all of immigration. Nothing, a lot of complaints about ‘racism’ but nothing on the number one issue in the U.K. currently. Without that being addressed any approach is doomed
Just another middle class blowhard. His prescription ignores our three biggest issues Immigration, Net Zero and Immigration. I realize that’s technically only two issues but it’s such a big one I thought it was worth mentioning twice.
I seem to recall that Willie Hutton got a chance to put his grand schemes into practice? The results of that appear to have been censored from search engines but it didn’t go well I think.
“ it seems to ignore the period 1945 – 1978 -and why people were ready to give That her a chance. According to the theories of the likes of Hutton Thatcher, or someone like her should not have happened? Hence they seem to dismiss any root cause analysis of what went wrong.”
I think it was Roy Hattersley on the BBCs excellent UK Confidential series looking at the release of cabinet papers for around 1980 who said we (Labour) knew what needed to be done we just couldn’t bring ourselves to do it.
As Eamon Butler says on the ASI blog, Thatcher didn’t set out to bust the unions, she gave control back to the members.
‘trying to shrink the state’
Given we have record levels of spending and debt they haven’t been trying that hard..
Ah, Woolly Willy and his wondrous word wanks…
“The project must be a high-investment, high-productivity economy. ”
Lol.
How does the desire to have a ‘high productivity economy’ marry with the desire to import all the goat f*ckers of the world?
Will Hutton:
– ran the Observer 1996-98, during which time its circulation dropped by 15% and it was estimated to be losing £10m a year:
https://www.marketingweek.com/ailing-observer-must-watch-out/
– ran the Industrial Society (which he renamed the Work Foundation) 2000-08, and ran it into the ground. That was even worse than I’d realised; when he took over, they sold their training division for £23m, putting it on a strong financial footing, he not only spaffed that away in 8 years, but also bankrupted the organisation and left it with a £27m deficit on the staff pension scheme.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_Foundation#Decline
– Principal of Hertford College, Oxford from 2010 to 2020, during which time it fell in the academic league table of Oxford colleges from 5th to 27th (out of 30).
https://www.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/oxford/field/field_document/Undergraduate%20Degree%20Classifications%20from%202006%20to%202022.xlsx
Would you take his advice on how to run anything?
I’m obliged to RichardT for filling in the details I couldn’t remember. Oor Willie is just one of the myriad of people failing upwards in the public / NGO sector.
Ah… “Re-imagineering” plain old Communism. The Buzzword Bingo Manual for Managers.
Martin Near The M25 sad:
“Oor Willie is just one of the myriad of people failing upwards in the public / NGO sector”
The only thing surprising about his list is that there isn’t a straight government job as well on it, only NGO / semi-public.
“Instead, Britain must strike out anew. The project must be a high-investment, high-productivity economy. The state does not crowd out business investment: public investment crowds it in. Inequality and social division are not prices worth paying for growth; they actively impair it. The mission should be to build a “we society”, incorporating not just an income safety net but decent housing, nutrition, transport and provision of health and social care, ladders of opportunity and the creation of a purpose-driven, innovative stakeholder capitalism. An agile state would lead the charge.”
But an agile state doesn’t exist. And Willie’s “agile state” would just do the stuff Willie wants.
If you had an agile state with transport, it would privatise the railways. And not this franchise bollocks. Just sell off the lot as a single company. Let them sort our fares, services and so forth.
Ah, Hutton also is (was?) a governor of the LSE. I can’t find dates for that, but this says he was one in 2008, which was the year they gave Gaddafi‘s son a doctorate after a large donation from his father’s foundation:
https://www.tutor2u.net/economics/blog/hutton-and-wolf-at-the-lse#author-bio
But an agile state doesn’t exist.
Oh, I don’t know, Singapore’s pretty agile. But I don’t think that’s the type of state Willie had in mind.
Comments are closed.