What is the Economic 'Plan B' that gets talked about so much?

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Economic 'Plan A' is pretty tough going, admittedly but the best anyone seems to come up with for an alternative is some rather nebulous 'Plan B'. Has anyone actually seen 'Plan B' written down so we can take a good analytical look at it? Give it a rigorus assessment? Or is it - as I suspect - a vague way of saying 'not this, something else, but quite what, we're not sure'

Your problem ttosca is you fail to acknowledge the world in which we actually live in preferring to bleat on constantly about the socialist utopia which has failed everywhere it's been tried.

Just what do we compete on at the moment? And even you must admit that the UK must compete with other countries to attract investment, whether you like it or not, that's just simply a fact.

So what attracts companies to invest in our shores?

• Our fantastic education system? Nope, asian economies kick our butts.
• Our hard working culture? Nope, most people in developing countries will work longer and harder for less.
• Our flexible, can do attitude? Nope red tape strangles you to death
• Our low pay? Nope. Again developing countries work for a fraction of our minimum wage and for that you can expect graduates.
• Our favourable tax regime? Wait...nope. Our corporation tax is fairly high and we have a punitive 50% tax for the very decision makers we need to attract.

So what is it which attracts companies here? Frankly very little other than the fact English is our native tongue and we're conveniently half way around the world in terms of timezones. But English is also the defacto language anyway so you can get good English speakers everywhere.

So in principle it sounds good to say we should raise corporation tax and make the rich pay more and more, the reality is that it doesn't work at all. Trickle down economics may not be perfect but it's better than the alternative.

It's important to have principles yes but surely we need to be flexible on some of them to attract investment? Principles alone do not put food on the table.