Everyone talks about inflation, government debt, economic growth and productivity. Politicians obsess about deficits. Economists argue about interest rates. Businesses complain about uncertainty.
But what if Britain's biggest problem is none of these things?
What if the real crisis is fear?
In this video, I explore how fear of failure, fear of mistakes, fear of judgment, and fear of uncertainty have become embedded in British society. I argue that this culture of fear now shapes how governments govern, how businesses invest, how schools educate, how politicians communicate and how individuals live their lives.
Drawing on the remarkable story told in Dear England and Gareth Southgate's transformation of the England football team, I suggest that success comes not from eliminating uncertainty but from learning how to live with it. Southgate's insight was simple: people cannot perform at their best when they are frightened of failure. Once players stopped fearing mistakes, they started playing the football they were capable of producing.
I also examine how neoliberal thinking has encouraged a culture obsessed with perfection, optimisation and control, and how that culture generates anxiety, conformity and political paralysis. When people are taught that every failure is a personal fault, risk-taking declines, creativity suffers, and innovation becomes much harder to achieve.
This video also explores why the opposite of fear is not courage, as many people assume, but curiosity. Fear closes down possibilities. Curiosity opens them up. Fear demands certainty. Curiosity accepts uncertainty. Fear narrows horizons. Curiosity expands them.
I argue that Britain's education system, political culture and economic institutions increasingly rely on fear as a mechanism of control, creating a society that is less resilient, less creative and less capable than it could be.
The alternative is curiosity, playfulness, resilience and coherence. These are not abstract ideals. They are the foundations of successful teams, successful organisations and successful societies.
If Britain is to thrive again, we need to stop being frightened of imperfection and start embracing uncertainty. We need less fear and more curiosity. We need less control and more coherence. And above all, we need to remember that freedom from fear may be one of the most important political goals of all.
If you enjoy this video, please like, subscribe and share. Your support helps this channel continue to challenge conventional thinking on economics, politics and the future of society.
This is the audio version:
The Debate Ammunition for this video is available here.
This is the transcript:
Fear is destroying Britain.
I know people talk about the threat from inflation, from debt and from a lack of growth, but the biggest economic problem in Britain right now is fear. Fear of failure, fear of mistakes, fear of being judged, fear of getting the next word wrong, in my case right now, and this is not a minor psychological problem; it is a systemic condition. It shapes how governments literally govern, how businesses invest, how people live, and it is doing enormous damage.
Why do I say this? Well, I watched Dear England, the television programme, this weekend, it's the first of a series, and I think you should be watching it as well, even if you don't like football, because it's not really about football at all. I was a great fan of this programme when it was a play at the National Theatre, and it's just as good on television.
Dear England is a play about why we fail and how we can overcome that.
Gareth Southgate inherited a team, an English football team, in 2016 that could not win because it was frightened of losing. England had world-class players; nobody doubted that. The problem was not talent. The problem was his players feared failure, feared mistakes, and feared being blamed more than they thought they could gain from playing and having fun.
The fear made winning much less likely. What Gareth Southgate understood is that fear and performance are totally incompatible with each other, and that is why I am saying that fear is the threat to the British economy right now. This is important because it is a theme that runs throughout 21st-century life.
Neoliberalism has built a culture of fear by promising us that perfection is available to all. It does, in fact, say this is the goal of economic life. We want to maximise everything. Every career, every life choice, every investment could be optimised, neoliberalism says, but the implication of that is brutal.
If you fail, it is your own fault. That is what neoliberals say, and that is not accidental. This is how those who win from this system justify the exploitation that they impose upon everybody else and the gains that they take at cost to everybody else, who they say have chosen to fail through their own fault. This is how Neoliberalism passes the blame for exploitation onto those who suffer as a result of it.
The result is a culture of chronic anxiety. People become frightened of risk, of error and of appearing inadequate. And that's because when perfection is the benchmark, ordinary life becomes a source of shame.
People stop exploring possibilities and avoid making mistakes. They become trapped by fear of how they might be judged, and this, of course, is one of the characteristics of the whole social media world.
Monty Don expressed this incredibly well at the Chelsea Flower Show last week, in a comment I saw him make on BBC television. “Nothing and no one,” he said, “that appears perfect is interesting.” What interests us are flaws, unexpected growth, vulnerability, and surprise. What interests us is evidence that something is genuinely alive, and that only comes from our vulnerabilities and from our mistakes.
Uncertainty is not the enemy, then; it is the condition of life for all of us. Neoliberalism assumes uncertainty can be eliminated with enough control and expertise; that is a fantasy. We do not know what tomorrow will bring. None of us can ever do that. Life is lived amidst absolute uncertainty, and any philosophy that denies this is lying. The question is not how to eliminate that uncertainty. It is how to live well with it.
In that case, it's important to note that the opposite of fear is not courage, as most people think. That's not true. The opposite of fear is curiosity.
Fear closes possibilities down. Curiosity opens them up.
Fear demands certainty. Curiosity accepts uncertainty.
Fear asks what might go wrong. Curiosity asks what might be learned.
Fear narrows the horizons of our lives. Curiosity expands them.
Southgate's achievement was to build a culture of curiosity as the basis for the English football team, and not a culture of fear.
And again, think about this. He was talking about playing a game. And playfulness is what curiosity looks like in practice, and fear destroys it. Playfulness is not frivolity, nor is it childish. It is the natural expression of human creativity. It is how children learn, how artists create, how scientists discover and play permits failure and losing, and all games include the concept of loss. It's inevitable, and it's appropriate that we embrace it. We learn from our mistakes. We have to make them. If we don't, we cannot become complete human beings. And when fear takes hold, playfulness is the first thing to disappear.
A society that cannot play, cannot innovate, cannot adapt and cannot grow. Deliberately induced fear suppresses the very thing that makes us capable. And in this context, it's important to note that our education system replaces curiosity with fear, and that is now its purpose. Its aim is to produce people who can be managed and manipulated. It is built around answers you cannot question, and must not question because these apparently are facts; they are right. When, in fact, education should be built around questions you cannot answer. That is what Richard Feynman, the great physicist, understood.
Real knowledge begins with the question and not the answer, and the real answer is to struggle to deal with the question. A system designed to eliminate uncertainty produces people who are frightened of it, and frightened people are far easier to govern.
There's another element to this as well, in my opinion, and that is that the opposite of chaos is not control. It is coherence. Neoliberalism offers control, targets, audits, rankings, performance indicators, and penalties. The result is not order; it's a sense of being overwhelmed, plus fragmentation and anxiety. When control is the aim, institutions lose sight of their purpose and individuals lose sight of their lives. Control tries to impose order from outside. Coherence emerges from within the person. One is inherently fragile. The other is genuinely resilient, and that matters for success as well.
Our politics, our economics, our public services, they are all trapped by fear. Governments are frightened to govern, frightened of the headlines, the markets, the polls. They are left incapacitated by fear.
Businesses are frightened to invest, frightened of uncertainty, frightened of getting it wrong. You hear business people saying it all the time, ‘We don't like uncertainty.' That's nonsense. It's from the uncertainty that they can profit; without it, they cannot prosper.
And individuals are frightened to fail. Frightened of the judgement the system has trained them to expect.
Politicians are frightened to tell the truth, frightened of what honesty costs. Fear has become the operating system of British public life.
What curiosity and coherence would look like instead is worth spelling out.
A government, curious about what is possible, rather than paralysed by what might go wrong, tries to do what is right.
Businesses willing to invest in an uncertain future, rather than hoarding against it, innovate.
Public services built around purpose and values, rather than targets and audits, put people at their centre.
Politicians who can tell the truth about trade-offs, rather than promising a perfection they cannot deliver, are ultimately trusted. The thing that almost no politician enjoys right now.
This is not idealism. It is what functional societies actually look like.
England's players discovered this. When Gareth Southgate took charge of the squad, we saw it. Their performances were transformed. They did what they were capable of. They accepted that a missed penalty was not a moral failing. Mistakes became a part of the game rather than evidence of personal inadequacy, and they stopped being defined by fear and started becoming what they could be.
The lesson extends far beyond football. Once we stop trying to be perfect, we often perform much better, and Britain needs to learn that now. Watch the programme, but most of all, learn the lesson. We need to live without fear, however and whenever we can, and the greatest political promise of all is freedom from fear.
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Fear is part of the neoliberal play book.
“New York City, as one striking example, was forced to declare bankruptcy in
1975:[27], [28] by then it was already notorious for urban decay and all that
comes with it—crime, drugs, poverty, and empty city lots. This created a
great deal of fear and anxiety—something neoliberals saw as opportunity. As
Milton Friedman said, after three decades of development, “When the time
came, we were ready…and we could step straight in.
Source: The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism (& How It Came to Control Your Life) (2025 )
by George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison. https://amzn.eu/d/04uhJHkd
Adding: governments of all stripes (tory & LINO) have supressed the ability of citizens to dissent & increased fear (amongst citizens).
https://netpol.org/2026/03/25/how-repression-became-routine/
What is wanted is a supine population.
There has certainly been a ‘blame game’ played out in the political economy over social security as though it was all a big mistake that we could never afford to do even though history and good research tells us that it was other factors that started to lead to our industrial decline (the increased financialisation of industry, the West’s backing of Israel leading to the oil shock in the 1970’s and the IMF).
So I agree, fear is the key, the fear being that what we did from post WWII was wrong when it was right and was affordable. What we did instead was increasingly hand power to the private sector – we gave private corporations the right to be seen as persons in law, we enable flows of money to circulate between nations that merely helped robbers go into countries like ours, monetize assets and then whisk them away to their private hoards, leaving states to deal with the social consequences. And we called that ‘progress’ and still do.
The problem is that we fear what is good (curiosity, caring, solving, experimenting, boldness, maintaining) and blithely accept what is bad for us everyday at the moment – from not investing to believing that innocents such as immigrants are the source of our ills.
If life is a tight rope, the state was the safety net and needs to step up; we need to reinstall the safety nets. God or nature does not make money; man does.
Money is a man-made thing essentially owned by us all through the action of democracy. We all have claims that are legitimate and have a right to be met. This to me at least is the front line of the argument going forward.
Thank you
” Everyone talks about inflation, government debt, economic growth and productivity. Politicians obsess about deficits. Economists argue about interest rates. Businesses complain about uncertainty.”<p>
Tony Blair is not uncertain this morning. He is just as certain as all other mainstream economists and politicians about paying ‘too much in welfare, spending too much, borrowing too much etc etc’. He is rather more messianic about his ‘radical centre’ position – privatising the NHS, lowering minimum wage, deregulation etc. He says the distinction between traditional Right and Left is outmoded but warns against any ‘move to the left’ as apparently Burnham is proposing.<p>
Breathless reporting because its Blair – but this ‘too much spending’ is what BBC trumpets every day – there is no ‘policy’ debate there is just propaganda. Many economists who would offer an alternative perspective for why ‘we are in this mess’ after 15 years of ‘spending restraint'<p>
Maybe it is ‘fear’ as propaganda<p>
It is fear as propaganda
Old Chinese saying which underpins their modern successes….” to cross a river you have to feel for the stones’ . It says it all and I need say no more. I came across this saying which is quoted in Isabella Weber’s excellent book “How China Avoided Shock Therapy”.
This football analogy is borne out by stats. The advantage once enjoyed by home sides has been whittled away in recent years because teams fear losing in front of hypercritical home fans. Of course, fans can still exert some positive influence, especially if their team is attacking, but lack of a home team goal can soon cause disquiet, even booing at half-time or leaving early if the game appears to be lost.
I think this impatience for success is reflective of the society Richard describes and that this fear of failure is transmitted from the terraces to the pitch adversely affecting home team performance. The same thing happens when teams face inferior opponents in cup competitions. The expectation of victory is mitigated by fear of failure and performance is affected.
There have always been shock results in football, but there does seem to be an increasing level of surprises lately. Even the TV pundits have talked about the effects of the ‘fear factor’ on players.
This is so true, Richard; I see it all the time in my work – people paralysed by fear of making mistakes with their financial affairs, fear of tomorrow, fear of ‘running out of money’, etc. A serious side-effect is that it turns people into hoarders, which is such a negative attitude. As Samuel Smiles wrote in 1859:-
“To provide for others and for our own comfort and independence in old age, is honourable, and greatly to be commended; but to hoard for mere wealth’s sake is the characteristic of the narrow-souled and the miserly. It is against the growth of this habit of inordinate saving that the wise man needs most carefully to guard himself: else, what in youth was simple economy may in old age grow into avarice, and what was a duty in one case may become a vice in the other. It is the love of money – not money itself – which is “the root of evil” – a love which narrows and contracts the soul, and closes it against generous life and action.”
There are no perfect answers despite the best attempts of financial services to persuade otherwise – hopeless cashflow modelling, perfect asset allocation programmes, blah, blah.
Thanks for writing this piece.
Thank you
Well Southgate is gone so the England team can go back to their old ways of losing in lame ways where they showed no passion for the summer tournaments.
There’s a way to avoid this and that is to have a GB&NI team. If you can get picked for that you’ll have beaten off way more competition for places. There will be fewer injuries as only one age group team will be taking players away from clubs during international breaks. Yes, there will be increased fear, but that will be the other teams afraid to play GB&NI.
What’s not to like unless you’re a right wing nationalist.
Sorry – but that will not fly.
I strongly support independence for Scotland and Wales and Irish reintegration
I am not a right wing nationalist
Identity matters, universally. There is no UK indetity. You implictlynadmit that in your comment. GB&NI is not a country.
There is more fear in the Guardian letters section today – this time about pensions. A Prof Stephen Caddick from UCL I think says that public sector defined benefits schemes like the one I am in are essentially ‘unfunded’ – but also says other people pay for them in their taxes!! How can it be both?
But that is what this ‘professor’ says in his effort that seems to empathise with the unfairness of the inter generational issues with pension provision when in fact he is just stirring things up. Caddick seems to have a background in biology/chemistry at UCL but is now heading some sort of enterprise exercise there. He thinks pensions should reflect ‘investment performance’; he thinks that contributions into them should be much less for employers. Conclusion: Caddick has no idea where money comes from. Is he as bad a biologist as he is a pension/monetary expert? Yet there he is in his professorial glory being taken seriously by a so called left leaning newspaper. No wonder we are in such a mess.
Aren’t you in a local authority penion scheme?
That is funded.
And Caddick is talking ferom the wrong orifice
Yes I am in a LA pension fund, and pay handsomely for it – my bit. And why not? That is the deal.
Mind you, what is a deal to Neo-liberals like Caddick?
It was Ian Fleming – I think who said that during his time in Naval Intelligence in WW2 he preferred working with Officers who had a Private Income as they were more decisive – because they could afford to be.
I came across an acronym yesterday I haven’t seen before – “FOMO” – fear of missing out. In an aricle by Alan Tichmarsh.
There is also fear of being ridiculed, although that doesn’t make an acronym.
And speaking of acronyms, I’m not sure about your TIARA. Tiaras are worn by the wealthy elite.
I thought tiaras came from Claire’s Accessories
Or Temu. Claires stores have ceased trading.
🙂
This immediately reminded me of V’s Speech from “V for Vendetta”:
[…]
words will always retain their power.
Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth.
And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there?
Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression.
And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission.
How did this happen?
Who’s to blame?
Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable,
but again truth be told, if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.
I know why you did it.
I know you were afraid.
Who wouldn’t be?
War, terror, disease.
There was a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense.
Fear got the best of you, and in your panic, you turned to the now high chancellor, Adam Sutler.
He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent
[…]
In my opinion “high chancellor, Adam Sutler” could be replaced easily with “Neoliberalism”.
Sure, in the EU / UK we’re not living in a dictatorship as depicted in the movie.
But the path’s surely being paved.
Your articles often are helping a great way of offering a means to meaning of words.
If only they could reach much much more people, informing them and making them accept uncertainty so that life could be easier.
Thanks! 🙂
Thank you
Fear is destabilising the Greens, there is a tendency to fear ex Labour, with the antisemitism bogey being lobbed by Labour ghouls like Reed, which has affected Makerfield. In my local branch there is a fear of doing Politics as well as local politics, a purist tendency that being a good person wins through regardless.
Umm…Energy myths
I’m sorry to say, having spoken to a senior oil rig engineer client of ours about this, that Tim Watkins is very much on the right track. She said $200+ per barrel. On Monday we had a power outage for 90 minutes, the second in recent weeks.
I can believe that price.
In the United States, we have the normalization of sadism. Trump didn’t invent the evil in the United States, but he has fed and petted cruelty and put its agents on his lap and paid them with pardons and promises, then sicced them on every institution and individual who stands athwart his path.
A now-ex friend told me yesterday that she wants to punish the people who voted against her policy choice, and the purpose of the punishment is that it makes her feel good.
By questioning her, I am a self-righteous person who wants to tell her how to be.
A once-progressive now speaks from the MAGA brain. Sadism feels good.
I imagine the UK has some sadists who are let out of kennel by Reform and their kind.
Excellent points Richard
This goes so much wider than football or the economy. I manage a choir and one of the biggest barriers is their fear of making a mistake. As they have let perfection go their work together has grown immensely and now when something fails in the middle they all keep going – they used to collapse in a heap!
Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
You are right. This does work everywhere. I used to, but do no longer, play clarinet in a rather bad band. Keeping going was the maxim of the conductor. He said he would, so we had to. It worked, even if he sometimes had to shout a bar number to bring us back together ( never in performance, as I recall, though)
David Byrne says:
Yes, fear is part of the problem, but narrowing the focus from the myriad effects shows the problem to be the unrestrained abuse of power.
Politically, we would think fascism and authoritarianism, but such extremes do not manifest themselves in a vacuum. They need totally immoral individuals to drive them forward.
Ancient philosophers and clerics have given us knowledge; the ethics, moral virtues, the seven deadly sins all of which put the ‘meat on the bones’ of our understanding.
Specifically, in terms of fear, we should be fearful because the abusers of power today are killers. And, if you don’t believe me, just check the news headlines.
See the post just published, David