Britain gets the politics it deserves
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Over the past decade Britain has had six prime ministers, eight chancellors and nine home secretaries. With the Labour Party now jostling for change, the tally could soon rise.
The constant churn is an indictment of leadership in the country. Few in parliament combine policy nous, real-world experience and the ability to sell a vision and convey hard truths. The talent pool of MPs has narrowed. In recent elections, the number coming from political backgrounds has risen. Meanwhile, science, technology, engineering and commercial business experience are in short supply. For measure, political analyst Sam Freedman estimates that in the 2024 cohort of Labour parliamentarians, more have worked for the charity Save the Children than in the City.
But in a democracy, politics and policies are a reflection of the public too.
First, for a nation to prosper, it must navigate trade-offs. Britons struggle with this. For example, the desire for affordable homes and electricity juts against Nimby concerns about housing projects and grid pylons. The nation’s outdated and byzantine tax code — one of the longest in the world — discourages ambition. But as reform often involves pain for vocal parts of the electorate, it doesn’t happen.
In general, expectations of government — in a time of crisis or otherwise — have risen. But the cutbacks needed to make fiscal space for policies is often resisted. For instance, although an ageing population piles pressure on the state, many balk at the prospect of a higher retirement age. The UK’s lavish “triple lock” — which guarantees that state pension payments rise with the highest of inflation, wage increases or 2.5 per cent — appears sacrosanct.
Further, parts of the electorate think higher taxes can pay for a bigger state. But that view overlooks the deleterious impact of further raising levies on economic activity and future revenue. The country’s tax-to-GDP ratio is forecast to reach a postwar high by the end of the decade.
Next, Britons lack patience. Raising UK productivity requires funds and political bandwidth to be shifted to “supply-side” measures to boost labour, land, capital, energy and innovation. This would raise revenues and ease the need for high tax rates to meet spending demands, while improving economic resilience. But the benefits of investing in infrastructure, skills, education and research and development accrue beyond the political cycle, while the costs are frontloaded. Hence, they receive short shrift. (Labour isn’t even halfway through its term and has had to water down its planning and welfare reform efforts.)
The calibre of public discourse doesn’t help. Parts of the British media approach politics through the lens of gossip rather than policy. Debate also seems to have become dumbed down, perhaps as a function of social media. (For comparison, watch any pre-2000 episode of BBC Question Time.) Producers now farm views, prioritising binaries over nuanced discussions. This has widened the gap between voters’ economic perceptions and reality on many topics, on the left and right.
In turn, it is little surprise Britain gets cakeist and myopic leaders, who are low on reform and high on easy answers. The slow-growing indebted economy that results ensures zero-sum politics remain salient at the ballot. As this fails to remedy the country’s ills speedily enough, few leaders end up completing their term. This environment then tends to mostly draw in MPs with political backgrounds. And the cycle repeats
Right now, the frontrunners to take Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s job are pandering to party members (as did former prime minister Liz Truss by disastrously promising quick tax cuts to win over the Conservative base in 2022). Recent debate has centred around loosening the purse strings and rejoining the EU. Yet Britain’s long-term borrowing rates are already the highest in the G7, and the private sector has been sapped by years of Brexit and fiscal uncertainty.
Britain isn’t the only democracy challenged by political instability and short-termism. But the threshold for overhauling UK leaders does appear to be uniquely low.
It’s not easy to get the public to think about trade-offs or the long term, particularly when growth is lacklustre. Experience can be a lubricant. For instance, the pain of the euro area crisis in Greece and Spain forged a wider public acceptance of the need for fiscal limits and growth reforms. Without course correction, Britain does risk learning the hard way. A better path involves a cultural shift: media and financial literacy need improving while voters could do with greater exposure beyond their bubbles. This would help the public differentiate between national and individual interests.
Yes, Britain lacks good leaders. But there is some truth in the notion that every democracy gets the government it deserves.
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Food for thought
As more countries seek to emulate Australia’s move to ban under-16s from social media, this research outlines why such measures tend to fail.
Free Lunch on Sunday is edited by Harvey Nriapia
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