Jeremy's Blog 19th August 2022: More Precarious People
This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 18th August 2022
International comparisons are difficult but a stark figure is that the UK’s GDP per person at $47,000 (including London) is less than 49 of the 50 US states; only Mississippi ($42,000) is poorer. Unless we answer our problem with improved productivity, in agriculture as much as in the rest of the economy, we shall be a poor rich country with expectations of lifestyles and public services, from health to defence, that cannot be afforded. Avoiding that is a critical political task, needing to lead people beyond complacency and entitlement. Observation and experience is, though, that the change has to be accepted and wanted.
The in-tray for the Prime Minister on September 6th is not only large, immediate and demanding but has so far been little addressed in the campaign. It requires both the measures that will be effective, short and longer term, and the language and analysis to explain to our nation the extent of what needs to be done. Combining a sense of direction with well-told principles (more than detailed pledges) with the will and competence to deliver can gain the social assent needed for success in hard times. In various ways, we have seen this in 1940, 1945, 1979, 2010 and now in Ukraine; it is part of governing in a democracy.
However, many with few resources now feel precarious and see the Government’s financial management of the pandemic as a natural precedent. That febrile sense is now spreading with the pressure of global energy prices, adding to the strains on more families and businesses. Power cuts might compound them, never mind the unknown next shock. This mood has the potential to challenge property rights and free markets (with the economic risk in that). The increasing number of the precarious, with the downward social mobility of some graduates, drives the legislative tide for residential lettings, such that the Conservative Government’s manifesto policy is to repeal s.21 and so the shortholds that have revived this sector. The language is of the more insecure “renter” than the “tenant”.
That tide is, though, a symptom of the failure to build houses for our people; society has found that too challenging. We will need to manage more change than that if we are to thrive; the comfort of accepting decline may seem easier but risks its own ferment. Not acting is a decision. We knew in the 2010s that we were not providing for our future energy. New reservoirs and wind farms have been too controversial with solar farms becoming so, even if they leave more land for food production than bio-energy does. By contrast, New Zealand’s new Climate Change Action Plan broaches the question of re-locating threatened settlements.
With the post-War era now long behind us and the fall of the Berlin Wall a generation ago, the facts and consequences of advancing climate change, contested commodity markets, international instability and other risks show that bad things can happen in the West unless we act to avert them or build the resilience to handle them. That requires work, not magic. The warning is that a precarious society with cost pressures, an aging population, the scale of the need to mitigate and adapt to climate change but no growth may have a very fraught public life. Answering our problems and delivering growth will equally test comfort zones but change can be made a positive transition.