That’s a whole different thread but it needs a huge redirection of public spending towards areas that will generate growth: education, infrastructure etc. A viable and coordinated industrial strategy and trade policy. Financial support for businesses in key sectors where the UK has an established knowledge base and expertise and competitive advantage (many have been squandered but a few remain). Coherent plans for food and energy security which will also generate jobs and growth and investment in technology. Education is completely broken and should be the number one national priority to fix above all else, with far fewer people going to university and far more choice of schools, far more technical education and apprenticeships leading to viable careers and specialised jobs by linking businesses much more closely with proper technical colleges as they’ve done for decades in places like Germany.
The “moron premium” being applied to the interest rate on UK debt (resulting in us paying c.£100bn per year in debt interest - far more than comparable countries with similar levels of debt in monetary terms) would go down if a viable industrial strategy and economic plan was in place, but those with any financial knowledge can clearly see that it is not, so the “moron premium” continues to be applied.
A huge redirection of public spending from the old to the young is required. Means-testing the state pension to a level where no pensioner without a very comfortable standard of living available from independent income/ assets would save the UK around £80bn per annum. Compare that to the £5bn the Government was trying to cut from disability benefits for those of working age, and this would cause no genuine financial hardship to anybody, just a lot of shouting. Not making these completely unnecessary and unaffordable welfare payments to pensioners and instead implementing a system similar to that in Australia, which the UK should have done decades ago, would mean that the above investment in productive areas of the economy that will generate growth and improved productivity is viable while ALSO simultaneously cutting taxes significantly to generate growth and business investment, and meanwhile also make it possible to remove the opt-out from individual pension saving (a similar mandatory scheme for any self-employed people who couldn’t demonstrate an independent income should be implemented alongside). The NHS model obviously needs to be abandoned. It’s totally unsustainable and has appalling outcomes for the money spent on it both in absolute terms and proportionally to GDP: there’s a very good reason that no other country is copying it. Better health outcomes can be achieved for a comparable percentage of GDP as many other countries’ healthcare systems demonstrate to be the case.
The tax system itself in the UK is a huge drag on growth which the Government can change, but chooses not to. It’s completely irrational and independent economic research (e.g. that commissioned by Hunt to establish why UK productivity is so low (!) amoungst many other similar pieces of large scale data driven research) has shown that the nonsensical tax system in the UK is an immense drag on growth and productivity and results in lower tax revenues per unit of GDP that the tax systems in many other countries despite having higher rates of tax and - much to many people’s distaste - this also result in higher requirements for immigration because it disincentives work at multiple different levels of earnings where nonsensical disincentives kick in.
Ultimately our tax system, healthcare model, pension model, education model, economic model in terms of priorities for Government spending, our lack of support for small and medium-sized businesses which make up over 50% of our productive economy, our barriers to trade deterring investment, our ongoing lack of infrastructure investment - pretty much every aspect of our economy really - are all completely unviable for the future yet are perfectly possible to reform sensibly by looking at widely available data from the systems implemented in other countries - the evidence of what works and what does not work is available, this isn’t a mystery and we don’t have to reinvent the wheel here - and emulating it. But this won’t happen because people would rather believe in unicorns and sky fairies and shout about how “it’s not fair” if anything is changed, so it is strongly predicted that living standards will continue to decline and the UK will continue to shoot itself in the foot in this manner, and the “moron premium” will continue to be applied and probably be increased further.
None of what I’ve said would, of course, fix everything, or negate the incoming impact of the technological changes which will be hugely problematic on a societal level in terms of economics for almost every country on a scale never seen before, but fixing the fundamental basics of the economy so that it is at least viable at present by taking these obvious steps would be a start.
It won’t happen though due to the short-sightedness and pandering to particularly voter groups who shout loudly, as noted earlier in our discussion. Far easier for politicians to promise the moon on a stick and then shrug and move on when they obviously can’t deliver it because they had no intention to do so in the first place. Then the bottom feeders like Kirk attract the disaffected from the broken promises and polarise things further, and things will continue to get a whole lot worse.