Economic freedom - 11-7-25

What are the two countries that spring to mind when you think of rebellion and freedom?

Well, number one would have to be the United States of America, and its famous Boston Tea Party. The rebellion started as a protest against taxes and about restrictions to trade. The English  - the oppressors – favoured taxes and restrictions to trade. The locals – the Americans – firmly believed that lower taxes and free trade would help their “colony” grow. In the event, they had to de-colonise themselves to achieve what they wanted, and none the worse for that.

Probably less well known is Argentina’s War of Independence. That, too, started as a protest over free trade and high taxes. The Spanish – the oppressors here – favoured both but the locals  - the Argentinians – didn’t. And so it proved to be a starting point for a vibrant new country and economy.  Mind you, the Spanish were having a lot of trouble from their pesky colonies at the time which quite a few of Argentina’s neighbours going the same way.

In a strange way, colonial powers operated rather like socialism. They, too, effectively nationalised the means of production, generally in a fairly haphazard way, and to no visible gains of productivity or efficiency – quite the contrary. But whereas in the good old days, socialism was high minded and believed that centralisation and state ownership was the answer (whatever the question) unfortunately today this high moral attitude is lacking. Those who today call themselves “Labour” or “Socialist” appear  to be generally at least as well off as many of the elite (whoever they are). And perversely these new-fangled socialists  appear to hate everything around them, even the fact that they have done well out of the status quo. Economics? To them it’s irrelevant.

You probably haven’t noticed but there is a bill going through Parliament called

“The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill” Now never mind that the three parts of the United Kingdom who have devolution ( Scotland Wales and North Ireland) are essentially basket cases. To take just one measure, Scotland, which before devolution ranked quite well for schools and Scholastic attainment, has slowly but surely fallen down the ratings. There are many others but, as ever, Governments feel the “something must be done.” Never mind that everything is going along just fine. And in Scotland’s case of course anything the English do HAS to be opposed and the policy be directly opposite. To get independence, instead of shouting about it, the SNP only needed to be moderately competent. They couldn’t even manage that. In essence all three devolved countries have gleefully turned higher spending into progressively worse services.

But back to the English Devolution Bill. I won’t bore you with the detail, but I will draw your attention to one of the clauses (Schedule 27). This gives local authorities the power to make a list of “Community Assets.” Once on that list it can ONLY be sold to a “preferred community buyer.” Now I’m pretty sure this will be a lawyer’s dream Bill, because for a start what is a Community Asset? As defined at the moment it’s any building or land that has given access to “the Community.”  Might that include stately homes (Blenheim springs to mind) And might a preferred community buyer be the Councillor’s mate? Or someone who just happened to wine and dine the relevant committee? Heaven Forfend! Who knows, but for sure the Bill is doing its best to nationalise land a la Lenin’s Soviet Union.

And do you think that’s going to promote growth? No its not. In fact it will do the exact opposite because no one in their right mind will want to touch any building unless it has a clean bill of health from this insanity. And how do you get that? Well you could take the relevant Quango to court, with all the costs involved. Or you could walk away and move to America. In case you don’t know, UK Quangos cost nearly £10 billion a year and their (very nearly) entire purpose is to put a spanner in the works. Russia, Iran or China doesn’t have to do anything to conquer the UK. We are doing our very best to do it ourselves. To add insult to injury, the “Net Zero” crusade is already driving businesses and householders into penury and bankruptcy.

To take one more example, how is Labour  - which used to be the working man’s party – doing in terms of looking after the workers?. Perhaps that should be ordinary working people. Anyway, The Heritage Foundation’s Economic Freedom Index has fallen over the last couple of decades (so not all Labour’s fault) and is down from 81% to 63% - with a significant drop in the last year. As Professor Shackleton, the author of the report, has pointed out, ever little add-on of “workers rights” costs money – and governments, because they are economically illiterate, think these costs fall on “big business.” It is, of course, arrant nonsense because workers end up with smaller pay rises and hence operates like a stealth tax. Longer term the loss to workers is massive. It’s just another example of freedom being withdrawn and the State telling workers what’s best for them. 

As I’ve already said we are running on vapour. In terms of the looming “Autumn statement” – better known as Rachel’s destruction of the remaining earning potential of the UK – we’ve already passed the point of no return.

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