If we could just remind people of supply side economics?

A basic problem outlined concerning the British economy:

Tax rises will follow UK election unless fiscal rules are ripped up, says thinktank

Unless government gets to spend lots, lots, (even, a lorra lots) more money without worrying about the debt created then the economy will never boom.

Or, government must take more of everyone’s money in tax so as to be able to spend it to create that boom.

After the general election, Niesr said a future chancellor would be faced with a choice: raise taxes to maintain the existing provision of public services or rewrite the rules so that they served the UK’s medium- and long-term needs and objectives – including raising the growth rate, levelling up the regions and greening the economy.

Not exactly and not wholly but useful as a way of thinking about it, this is to return to that Keynesian system used up into the 1970s. Government spending is the fount of all growth. It is that priming of the system, that forcing of growth through expansionary fiscal policy, which works.

If we could just remind everyone of the basic idea of supply side economics. No, that doesn’t mean just lower taxes for richer people. It means reform of the supply side of the economy. Remove the things being done which limit growth and watch growth come back.

One of those things might indeed be lower taxes on higher earners - people can indeed be subject to the substitution effect and decide to go fishing rather than work if their tax rates are, to them, “too high”. But there are many other things which also limit the growth rate of the British ecconomy. An insane planning system for example. It is not just the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and successors which neads to go - which would produce, as happened in the 1930s, a very nice little house-building led boom. But interminable public inquiries that lead to it being vastly expensive to near impossible to build or do anything - that tunnel that’s got a page of paperwork for each 2 inches of the length of the tunnel for example.

Or, the ban on fracking - everyone’s looking at Argentina right now and agreeing that if Milei allows fracking there will be a boom. There was a boom in the US as fracking spread.

Or, to nutshell supply side economics - loosen the regulatory straitjacket and marvel at the growth that appears. We should do that. Again.