Polly will be happy - we're more like Sweden

As we’ve been known to point out the Nordic social democracies are rather more, under the hood, capitalist and free market than the UK is. Their system depends upon being exactly that, more viciously red in tooth and claw but with a higher tax slice off the top to ameliorate matters. Not that we recommend such a system - we prefer both the red in tooth and claw and also the lighter tax burden. But we do like to point out that the system in use is why those places work. Precisely because they are more market and capitalist the economic engine can still support that higher burden placed upon it.

As Polly Toynbee has spent decades pointing out we should be more like Sweden.

At which point, something to make us both happy:

But Peel Group, owned by shopping centre billionaire John Whittaker, said on Monday that the South Yorkshire airport was no longer financially viable. The airport’s 800 staff are now facing redundancy.

Beckie Hart, CBI director for Yorkshire & Humber, said the closure was a “serious blow” to the region.

The Labour-run South Yorkshire local authority offered to bankroll the airport until October 2023 and claimed it had teed up a potential buyer.

Peel said that it had received a letter from the mayor’s office earlier this month saying that it had a bidder waiting in the wings, but had not received any further information.

It added that it would be inappropriate to use taxpayer funds to keep the airport afloat "against the backdrop of an unviable, loss-making operating business".

Oh well, nice idea, doesn’t work, close it. Red in tooth and claw. And also most Swedish:

Olofsson has called a meeting of the three sides to discuss the situation in Trollhaettan, southwestern Sweden, on Dec. 21. But she reiterated the government's position that the state cannot takeover Saab, saying it has no place owning car companies."We don't have that knowledge or the money," she said.

"I don't think GM really knows how the wind-down is going to take place but GM has to take its responsibility," Olofsson said, adding: "The most important thing right now is to take care of the employees and the future, how to make the most of their know-how."

As Sweden did do - no one wanted Saab, it couldn’t make money, close it. Ah well, mistakes are made and the issue is how quickly to we get rid of them to then concentrate upon things that work?

Yes, let us be more like Sweden. Let us be more free market and capitalist. Close things that don’t work, liquidate the assets, redeploy them to things that might, possibly, work.

We can have that argument about the tax burden and redistribution afterwards, after we’ve created a system that hums along. After all, it’s only even possible to redistribute if there’s a surplus available, right?