As The Guardian noted yesterday:
Kemi Badenoch has said the UK is getting poorer and people should be honest that it is failing to compete with the rest of the world.
In a speech billed as the Conservative leader confronting the party's mistakes in government, Badenoch failed to offer a specific apology but said that the party had offered policy without a plan, including on Brexit and net zero.
As they, and every other commentator, then seemed to note, she continued without actually giving any indication as to what her new plan might be. At best, she might be said to be in search of one that does not look too much like something written by Mark Littlewood, formerly of the Institute for Economic Affairs, for Liz Truss. And when I say ‘too much', I mean not copied and pasted from Truss and her acolytes, with whom Badenoch appears to have a remarkable affinity.
The irrelevance of the Tories in current political debate is proved almost daily by Badenoch. It is as if her sole purpose is to make the stupidity of Reform look plausible. Both are crashing around, happy (as all on the far-right are) to trash anything that has gone before them, except those parts that would be so lunatic if replicated in the modern economy that they cling to them in the hope that they might just be the solution to the problems that little-Englanders pretend exist, when they are anything but that. Reform's promotion of the gold standard is a good example of that.
Why mention this speech in that case? There is only one good reason, and that is to note that, in effect ((although I am not sure she would acknowledge this), Badenoch apologised for neoliberalism. She did not, after all, apologise just for Tory failure, although that was obviously implied, which will have done nothing for her popularity in her Party. She apologised for successive failures. It was the ideology of neoliberalism that she apologised for because it was that ideology that had failed. As she put it, because she dumbed this down:
We are a great country, but we've lost our way.
The truth is that Britain is failing to compete in a world that is changing.
And it is not working for its citizens, certainly not the way it used to.
Let's leave the greatness out of it. And let's not worry about competition, because that suggests she has not really moved on as yet. Let's just look at that third line. She says the ideology that her party, and all the other mainstream parties have followed, has failed.
And she's right. I am not convinced she knows why.
I am also quite sure she does not know what to do about it. If she did, she would not have said this:
So, we need change.
Change that actually sorts out our problems.
Change that we should have done more of.
Change that Keir Starmer is clearly not bringing.
Change has to be just about the most meaningless word in politics. From what? To what? How? To benefit who? At cost to who else? To deliver what goal? And why was that chosen over other options? All of those questions demand to be answered when change is promoted by any politician. Those questioins were not, of course, answered by Badenoch unless her implied suggestion that going back to the 1950s and its social attitudes is the answer you are seeking, which is about as close as she got, and which was as delusional as anything said by her Tory predecessors, or Reform.
But let's still stop for a moment. There has been an acknowledgement that neoliberalism has failed. It is the first step to replacing it.
There is one thing I can guarantee, though, and that is that Badenoch is not part of any solution to any known problem. She will be long gone before the solutions to the problems we have are put into place, and I very much doubt her party will work out what those solutions are. But at least the acknowledgement of failure can be banked. Now, we need to build those ideas that replace neoliberalism.
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Is this a clumsy attempt to copy from Trump’s playbook?
Acknowledge and sympathise with the undoubted pain people are feeling without being specific about any solution.
Then once in office implement changes that make things worse.
For example Trump attacked the American health care system without telling anyone he was going to make it much worse.
His supporters didn’t know Obamacare was the ACA they relied on. In the same way the Tories and Reform will bemoan the state of public services while planning to eliminate them.
Our soporific press will never challenge them on it and Labour’s policies are much the same.
What is astonishing is that Labour and conservative have both failed for the same reason; they both follow closely the rules of neoliberalism; and they both have effectively the same fiscal rules to prove it. This means that they are , in power effectively the same neoliberal Single Transferable Party; and both can now see they keep failing; and not just failing the British people, but failing badly.
But they never challenge the fiscal rules, or the precepts of neoliberalism. They just go on, endlessly repeating the same mistakes, and driving Britain into the ground.
Reeves is trying to make one month’s 0.1% growth look like success. Badenoch? three months, a year ago as proof conservative Government worked. It is comically absurd. Britain’s economy has flatlined for years, with periods of high inflation at the same time. This means Britain is effectively shrinking, and we are being left behind to grub around trying to live off the scraps of mobile international finance’s casual spare capital. We are living in the world’s first post-industrial scrapheap; and the world knows it, and sends us its scrap..
You wish to know what de-growth looks like? This is what it looks like. It is what we are living in. And we have no idea how to manage it, or escape the mess: because all we have is fscal rules that are destroying us.
Much to agree with
Thank you and well said, John.
John S: “We are being left behind to grub around trying to live off the scraps of mobile international finance’s casual spare capital.”
On the commute to the City yesterday, I heard that the black horse is ramping up in the US and Asia, expanding a little bit in the EU and will soon make a thousand or so redundant here.
I doubt much spare capital will come here. This big and latest bet on the City will come to nothing.
It has just been announced that the coming into force of the latest wave of UK bank capital and liquidity rules has been postponed to 2027, so that UK regulators can see what happens in the US. These rules are a reaction to 2008.
John S: “We are living in the world’s first post-industrial scrapheap; and the world knows it, and sends us its scrap.” The Foreign Office has a team, led by a dear friend, to attract firms to list in London. Even African techs are reluctant. Some are raising money by selling to Mauritian oligarchs.
It’s over. No amount of grandstanding, such as in Ukraine yesterday, can hide that.
Agreed
The question now is, what can we do?
We are what’s left
It’s out job to sort out our own fate.
Except if we were really experiencing “degrowth” we’d have people in charge thinking about the situation & making the required changes.
Degrowth is more than the absence of growth: it’s having a plan to manage the transition to a different sort of economic strategy.
Instead, we have neoliberal puppets.
Disgraceful.
“degrowth” is what it is; in this case, precipitous decline, submerged in the only surfeit we have – fluff, guff verbiage and dud politicians, all acting grossly beyond their capacities to fix or, it seems, even understand the problem. But doing what Britain has always done best: bluff. Unfortunately for us, the world is older, wiser and no longer takes our word for granted Why should they – we don’t either, for good reason. We are in decline, and plans are nowadays not even written on paper; the easier to delete, replace, forget: or claim never existed. The Waspi women learned that one only the other day.
“This is what de-growth looks like”. Well yes but only if the powers that be are happy to do nothing. I can think of a dozen things that could turn the good ship UK around – all doable, all with business cases (in broad terms).
The UK (England) has been at similar cross roads in the past – 17th century – absolutism or not (in that case – not). This time: oligarchy and neolibtardism – or not. It is quite within the capacity for the Uk to select “not” & carve its own path – done it before, could do it again. Just requires political spine & recognition of how things could be funded.
But we’re out of stock of politicians with them.
I read an article recently about why we won’t colonise Mars. The start point was because Mars has no magnetosphere and hence can’t retain an atmosphere, nor repel cosmic rays, which means that any inhabitants would simultaneously freeze to death whilst their blood boiled in their veins. The rest of the article pointed out the many other ways in which colonising Mars is simply impossible. But the fantasy persists in the minds of the four horsemen of the apocalypse (Musk et al), whose plans include “terraforming” Mars (they’re understandably scant on the details since noone knows how to do this).
What it points out is how material reality places limits on fantasy, that, whatever we imagine is not actually possible. This is the case with growth. We’re already way beyond anything “sustainable”, the fantasy is grinding against reality and the degradation is all around us. Growth has to stop, so the other option is redistribution. This means some people giving up the fantasy that they’re somehow worth so much more than others. It also means giving up the fantasy that an economy that exists in the world, using matter and energy from the world, can be made in such a way as to have no impact upon the world, so-called green growth. This is true also of renewable energy sources, which require materials whose extraction and use causes damage and pollution and which occupy space and have an energy footprint. If there is to be an end to neoliberalism (one can only hope), that would also include growth. However, the left are in many ways as attached to growth as the neoliberals, and will speak in support of growth. Material reality, though, doesn’t care about politics, or fantasies of endless growth. It just responds according to its properties, like forest die-back, ocean dead-zones, species extinction and so on.
Isn’t it rather ironic that M***’s plan to colonise Mars depends on man-made Mars climate change, to warm and terra form the planet, partly caused by increasing CO2 levels, and that it can’t work because it ignores the science on Mars?
Perhaps we could finance a new political movement by opening an inter-planetary travel agency selling tickets to Mars. Perhaps call it “Golgafrincham Ventures”?
One part of the plan is based on proven technology – getting people OFF this planet, and we already know how to do that. Lets get going, and export some of our billionaires and their followers and raise campaign cash while removing the opposition.
Badenoch has been critical, but her answers to the problems would only make things a lot worse. Not that she has any policies yet, but she does believe that past Tory governments failed because they were not truly right wing enough.
Her answer, like Farage, is to go further to the right. The irony of their approach, less state, more privatisation, is that their core support being older people would most likely be the ones that would suffer most. They rely on public services like the NHS. They want better funded, better delivered services, not privatisation.
The lesson of the last 30–40 years is that when a public service that is a “need” is sold off to private money, it fails to deliver for people. As a policy, privatisation has failed. They cost more, often a lot more, and the service gets worse, water, Royal Mail, etc.
Public/private initiatives are typically no better.
I cannot think of a privatisation that has been a success. That is, if you define success as providing a better service, cost-effective, and looks after people’s needs. I can think of many that have been successful at making money for the people at the top, their backers, and shareholders. I mean, it is easy to make money from a “need”, that has a captive market.
I’d like to think the jury is out on this one. Privatisation has not worked and is not the answer when the service is a “need”.
But I expect that Badenoch will eventually announce her own far right agenda and policies, and it will include privatisation answers to our problems. She will be wrong.
There again, as suggested, she probably won’t be around long enough to do anything. The question then is, who will be the next Tory put up to try to sell a failed ideology?
Part of me wants to stay positive, give the benefit of the doubt and say ‘better late than never’.
But given this toxic person’s track record in politics.
To quote flavour flav – just can’t truss it.
I suppose it is worth noting what Badenoch has said.
She sounds to me as though she is genuinely discombobulated. She might have had time to reflect on a few things and maybe come to the conclusion that her and her party’s ideology does not really add up. No one can say that we have had socialism in the country this last 16 years or even before.
What Badenoch will not do is exactly what Stymied’s Labour will not do. She will not go down the road of what is necessary.
Instead, her advisors will find any ideas except the right ideas.
But the most genuine realisation yet to be made in our politics and our politicians is that our politicians have been guided and funded by the greed, short-termism and legitimised criminality of the market system.
In other words, our politicians have been used to rob wider society of its assets and wealth by the real power base in our country – the rich.
Adhering to fiscal rules is a just symptom of this deeper malaise.
I cannot seen any epiphany about this from Badenoch or 99% of our politicians and their parties.
The new has to emerge.
I’ve mentioned this on your blog quite a few times before, Richard, but I still stick to my view that one of the clearest and easiest definitions for anyone to remember of what politics is for (which is why I use to teach it to my public admin students many years ago) is Harold Lasswell’s, “Who gets what, when and how”. That’s from 1936. And while we’ve moved on with definitions of policy and politics since then – and indeed Lasswell’s definition of power – which he initially defined as something “elites” possessed but went on to refine to include other groups (though, as we now know, and can see daily, elites was spot on), I still believe that in any situation when talking about policy a politician – and particular and minister o shadow – should be able to answer all three parts of that question (although I’d favour adding “why” after “what”). If they can’t they’re already either lost or bullshitting, or both.
So, my response to Badenoch is now you’ve fessed up to the absolute mess your party have made of this country over 14 years in government, before making any more statements you should try applying Lasswell’s definition of politics to your thinking and see what you come up with.
And I’d say to Starmer, you should have done this over your last year in opposition. But, as it’s absolutely obvious you didn’t, take yourself, Reeves, your Cabinet and all the relevant civil servants off to Chequers for a long weekend and set everyone the task of answering Lasswell’s questions with reference to each of their policy domains and see what you come up with.
Me and a colleague used to do something similar with our 3rd year Public Admin students back in the day (and I tried something similar when I had some residential weekends with fast track civil servants about a decade ago) and they all managed pretty well. So it should be a doddle for people who think they’re good enough to be government ministers. I await the outcome with baited breath!
Many thanks Ivan. Great question. And I would also add the why. It is what makes politics subjective.
Great questions but they need to be set in the context of planetary boundaries and include who does what to slow and where possible repair failing life support systems, the divvy up of responsibilities, contributions and necessary skills.
@Ivan Horrocks Those would be great questions on which to base the deliberations of citizen’s assemblies.
Many years ago, I watched a TV program where ‘ordinary members of the public’ were invited to do the Treasury’s job and come up with a budget.
They did pretty well, and learned a lot.
Even though they would have been deprived of really useful tools such as MMT. Imagine how well we could do now?
If the right questions were asked.
But who sets them?
I saw a post today by an American I know citing ‘Soros’ as a subversive force. Oh, dear.
In response I replied with something I came across a few years ago. In 1997 George Soros argued that the ‘free market’ would undermine the values of an open and democratic society.
His level of culture and education contrasts with those of Musk and Zuckerberg
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1997/02/the-capitalist-threat/376773/
From the Guardian today:
‘Kemi Badenoch has been urged by a former Conservative pensions minister to clarify “what on earth she means” by suggesting the pensions triple lock could be means-tested, amid alarm within the party that she will lose support among older people.
The Conservative leader suggested she could back a major policy shift away from the universal promise introduced under her party that the state pension will rise each year by whichever is highest out of 2.5%, inflation, or earnings.
When asked during an LBC phone-in whether she would look at the triple lock, Badenoch said: “We’re going to look at means testing. Means testing is something which we don’t do properly here.”’
‘Ros Altmann, a non-affiliated peer who previously sat as a Conservative pensions minister, told Sky News on Friday that Badenoch needed to reconsider her comments. “What we urgently need is clarification of what on earth she means,” Altmann said. “What does she mean by means testing the triple lock?”
She added: “The problem we have in going down the route implied – and I don’t think she probably means it – is that every pensioner would start getting a different state pension again. Whereas the whole point of state pension reforms is that there should be a basic flat rate minimum state pension and then encourage people to top it up with private pensions.
“As soon as you introduce means testing to the state pension system, you disincentivise from bothering to save in their private pension.”’
Badenoch appears to have the inability to think before speaking.
“As soon as you introduce means testing to the state pension system, you disincentivise from bothering to save in their private pension.”
This is exactly what the Tories have already done. Sneakily because most people are not aware.
For people on close to average earnings, the workplace pension will deliver a very small pension.
BUT it will be enough to disqualify you for Pension credit.
And that is the vital key that opens up so many other benefits (free TV licence, free dental care, free TV licence).
So in the future,unless things are changed, virtually no one who has been working will qualify for Pension credit and will really really struggle.
Unbelievably callous – but I know Labour will not reverse it.
Correct
The advantages of means testing appear, according to the NAO (National Audit Office),
https://www.nao.org.uk/reports/means-testing/
to include:
-A disincentive to return to work
-Increased cost due to complexity of the admin
-Increased rates of fraud & error (key example – fraud & errors, incl overpayments of tax credits by HMRC, I saw examples of the havoc this could cause for families).
-Need for inter-departmental co-ordination eg: earnings & university fees & bursary entitlements)
No wonder her backbenchers are looking worried.
I’ve only followed this blog a few weeks, without any background in economics. Naively I keep thinking there must be computer programs to simulate the outcome of different economic regimes in an advanced economy. It would be interesting to test MMT vs neoliberalism (with and without fiscal rules) for instance.
That would be hard. MMT is a description of what happens in an economy based on observed behaviours and a proven technique, which is double entry book-keeping. It does not offer a political philosophy, although whose who understand it can add their own views.
Neoliberalism is a political philosophy based on a series of fantastic assumptions that has no proven delivery.
You cannot compare things so different.
I think you are confusing economics with science. Not only is economics not science; it is not even viable social science, because it has no viable way to test its theories. Other social sciences do better; and few have a worse performance even in using statistics (read Ziliak and McCloskey, ‘The Cult of Statistical Significance’; economics has a bad record).
It long, long ago confused abstract mathematics with science. It has no experimental method. What it measures is imprecise, unstable and typically inaccurate. There is only one measure of real science; does it produce repeatable, accurate predictions? Economics does not; and cannot, because it has no viable experimental method. We know that, and it is demonstrated every single day. All economics can do is “model” (something many businesses do, day and daily, without pretending their forecasts are science, and deserve a special authoritative privilege for being ‘economists’); but the modelling it can do is loose, unreliable and it is not science. It is “forecasting”, and half the world forecasts, but doesn’t elevate the pretence that its forecasts are a special form of wisdom. It is the worst of all university disciplines, because it pretends to do tasks, which it is incapable of delivering.
The public are being misled by the supposed reliability and exaggerated wisdom, of what is actually a weak discipline of modest value.
Well said.
Thanks both for the patient replies. I’ve always thought it a great historical misstep that made economics the ruling discipline in the 18th century rather than ecology.
I was listening to a Pitchfork Economics episode (the latest one: 14 Jan 2025) where they went over how Neoliberalism came to dominate our thinking.
Gary Gerstle was promoting his book, I think. Anyway he said people who believed the ideas that were knocking about around the time of the economic crises of the early 1970s had the following;
– a strategy for gaining power
– think tanks
– links between think tanks and politicians
– a general who could command field forces (Reagan)
What are the new ideas?
Where are the anti-neoliberal think tanks?
What links exist to politicians?
Who fancies leading?
Where are the news ideas? In a few corners of the web, like here, but not only here.
Where are the anti-neoliberal think tanks? The new economics foundation may be one. Maybe. That’s it that I know of. It rarely gets any publicity.
I am working on links to politicians.
Do you want to lead? Submit a CV….
I look at Kemi and I see inexperience. She might be around longer than you think and if she finds the right chord she could very well be more successful than we’d like. She needs to reunite the party with its softer Ken Clarke element. These parties need uniting not dividing and Keira’s treatment of the left is a category error. My sense is that it’s 2015 for conservatives the electorate is fluid it has no loyalty but it does have civic memory.
Kemi as you say needs to reach for a new interpretation and response to what ails us. If she were very brave, a classic and not in anyway unconservative move, would be a policy of return to eu. In the sense of the 1950’s butskellism and later heath. The right is done in the conservatives for the time being having been decadent and selfish and now outflanked by the un corrupt but unelectable reform group.. the first fight for Conservative Party is the one with reform and the way they win that fight is from the centre right, not the right. People can see through them when they want to and when there is sensible alternatives with a small ‘c’. Centre right with public services and no austerity is where it’s at , it’s a winner. The Labour alternatives strategically are some greater form of state ownership eg water, power and rail emphasising how the new climate era requires greater state and public control not less. This largely requires some non orthodox brain at no 11 and no 10 Downing Street which we don’t have.
Is there a single Tory MP that would back KB if she promoted EU membership?
If she doesn’t have backbench support then she’s out after her 1 year of grace under 1922 rules is up.
It would take a massive programme of entryism to shift the Tory membership in that direction, and the entryism recently has been from the other end of the spectrum.
Anything is possible but…
As for the Labour party, any change needs approval from organisations like LFI, BoD, JLM, CAA, the Mail, Murdoch and Lebedev.
Then you have to consider the US tech bros, and Tr**p. They control the messaging people are exposed to.
I like your boldness, but I can hear Sir Humphrey’s voice saying. “That’s a very ‘courageous’ policy Ms Badenoch!