The sluggish noughties

According to John Redwood "In the noughties the UK economy grew at only 1.7% per annum on average, well below the post war consensus view of a trend rate of growth of 2.5% ... more slowly overall during the noughties than .... in either the eighties or the nineties."

Was slow growth just a consequence of having that chump, Gordon Brown, at the helm? 

Or was slow growth also caused by something more profound?  Perhaps sluggish growth is also the cumulative impact of all that over regulation and high taxation?  Endless directives and compliance dictates? 

If you're governed by an alphabet soup of quangos - HSE, FSA, OFCOM et al - the cost of all those officials telling you what you can and cannot do eventually weighs you down.

Freeing our economy to grow again means doing more than just ousting Gordon Brown ....  

Posted on 2 January 2010 by Douglas Carswell

Comments

However I don't see Cameron as having the backbone needed to stand up to either the Civil Service unions or the SW1 mandarins in order to make the changes needed. Unfortunately in 5 years time I suspect the burden of EU laws and other red tape, the quangocracy plus the endemic overmanning all across the public sector will be largely unchanged. The UK will still be the sick man of the G20 - or not even included in it!!

Posted on 2 January 2010 16:57 by JohnRS

I cannot think of one Quango to save - not one. Any work presently done by Quangos that really is needed can be done by government or private enterprise.

Posted on 2 January 2010 17:16 by Nick

Two centuries and more ago Adam Smith pointed out that growth is not difficult to attain: small government, low tax, light regulation, and the natural desire of people to do well for themselves and their families will take care of the rest. Ironic, isn't it, that it was Mr Brown, the Great Interferer, who put Adam Smith's head on the £20 notes.

Posted on 2 January 2010 17:30 by eeyore

This was the first decade we've had a national minimum wage right? Wasn't one of the warnings made that it would retard economic growth?

Posted on 2 January 2010 17:53 by Mark M

I too have doubts as to whether Cameron will have the tenacity to stand up to the Civil Service Mandarins and Unions. And as for quangos, most are totally unnecessary, any others should be returned to the Civil Service, where Ministers should be accountable to Parliament for their actions and the staff counted as part of the Civil Service numbers.

Posted on 2 January 2010 20:54 by English Pensioner

Nick, what about the British Potato Council? I don't know where I'd be without the sterling work from these lovely chaps.

Posted on 2 January 2010 23:18 by chefdave

Nick is quite right. We need a bonfire of the quangos- starting with the HSE

Posted on 3 January 2010 12:05 by eddyh

Recall Quangos exist as cut-outs, allowing the government to disavow responsibility. (No Postmaster General in the Cabinet, Royal Mail is not a political problem.) Now Dave is not going to want to give that advantage away!

Posted on 3 January 2010 12:31 by Cardinal Richelieu's mole

When I want to get a fresh perspective on American politics, I visit the debates in Britain. If you focus on principles, then the arguments are the same. Are we really a "collective" in which individualism must be sacrificed for the good of "society". Or is "society" simply an idea, masking the reality that we are all individuals...that we have a natural right to live our lives, for better or worse...and that the only moral way to help others is to do so voluntarily with private charity.

Posted on 3 January 2010 15:02 by scott upton

Perhaps another reason for the quangos leading to sluggish growth is that the people, i.e. the voter, causes them to be brought into being to safe guard all the privileges they have collected, note I do not earned, over the years. Thus Charitable groups hold big sticks over councils to 'force' them to up expenditure on the so called elderly, of which I at the grand old age of 61 am one. We collect alloawnces for travel, fuel, swimming, meals, haircuts, local bus travel, and more. Any moves to change these privileges lead to uproar. So, in part I would suggest the Western and UK malaise is due to people wanting too much for too little effort.

Posted on 4 January 2010 22:07 by R Whitehand

What our media & sadly opposition politicians have never h=made an issue of is that world growth in that period had risen to a 5% average, with China & India at 10%. During Budget debates when Brown was Chancellor he was allowed to get away with saying that his 2.5% was better than France, Germany etc. I agree with Douglas that it is regulation that has been the deadening factor, explaining why the EU has been the world's slowest growing region. One bit of good news is that cutting edge technology (Moore's law in computing & similar efects elsewhere) mean that the 5% average is easily technically maintainable. Another good bit is that David Cameron's weekend statements, while themselves fairly anodyne, concentrated on cutting regulation. I wish he were more assertive about the problems we face & need to cut government but the soft soap is certainly compatible with a pro-growth through economic freedom strategy.

Posted on 5 January 2010 11:26 by Neil Craig

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