https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2024/11/15/inevitably/

Ever since Margaret Thatcher began “rolling-back the state” in the early 1980s, the size and cost of the state has grown accordingly. In large part, this is due to the fundamental flaw in liberal democracy – that politicians cannot resist the demands of voters who, in a liberal system, have no loyalty to anything but themselves. But in recent decades, the problem has been compounded by a feature of neoliberalism – that politicians have become professional gobshites with no experience of real life… they talk about “shovel-ready projects,” but you can count on one hand the number of our MPs who have the first idea which way up a shovel goes.

Thatcher, at least, did not have to battle this problem. Parliament in the early-1980s included both company owners and managers, as well as people who had worked on the factory floor. There were in those days also a good smattering of people who had seen action in the Second World War – including government ministers like Lord (Peter) Carrington and Francis Pym. In short, governments in the early-1980s knew how to get things done (even if many of us took issue with what they were doing).

Today, the lack of competence within government – elected and permanent – is partially mitigated by consultants. I say partially, because government projects that come in on time and within budget are rarer than unicorns. Despite this long track record of failure, however, every time a government or ministry sets out to cut its size and/or spending, it begins by hiring yet more expensive consultancies to tell them how (not to) do it. This is why, back in August, during the parliamentary recess, I made the somewhat cynical suggestion that:

“[Rachel Reeves’] attempt to cut back on external contractors is an acknowledgement that government has to be scaled back (I’m sufficiently cynical to imagine that our current crop of ministers and paid officials are sufficiently IQ-deficient that they will likely have to employ consultants to tell them how to stop employing consultants).”

We only had to wait eight weeks for David Goldstone to pop up as the government’s new oxymoronic “value-for-money czar,” whose role will be to advise ministers on how to stop wasting money. The first clue to the likelihood of success is that Goldstone will be paid £950-a-day (!!). And even a cursory examination of Goldstone’s CV reveals that his main qualification for the role is a long history of wasting public money on a gargantuan scale, including mismanaging the 2012 London Olympic Games, HS2, and (failing to) Restore and Renew the Houses of Parliament. There is, I suppose, a chance that he will be a poacher turned gamekeeper. But more likely, he will waste a lot of additional cash advising the government to adopt AI systems which Britain can neither build nor power.

If we were living in a growing, export-focussed economy with access to all of the energy and mineral resources we wanted, this might not be a problem. But these days Britain, to paraphrase John McCain, is a tax haven masquerading as a country – heavily dependent upon imports (and the foreign currency needed to pay for them) and with holes in the ground (and the seabed) where its resources used to be. And so, the continued expansion of – often entirely kleptocratic – government is maintained through some combination of cuts to those sectors of government which benefit the public (see, e.g., NHS dentistry or the collapsing water and sewage system) and big hikes in taxation.

Indeed, at a time when the private sector is beginning to buckle in the face of a loss of discretionary spending, additional taxes such as the hike in the tax on employment are likely to result in a Laffer effect, with more tax income lost to bankruptcy and unemployment than will be gained.

One day – probably one day soon – a collapse of the discretionary economy as too many people can no longer afford to consume, will force an end to much of the grift. The only question is whether the political class can be brought to its senses and make the necessary cuts in time, or whether they will have to be removed… most likely by a collectivist movement which will make Farage and Trump look like moderate liberals.