Thoughts on Tony Blair's sins of omission, what he gets wrong on Europe, the end of the eurozone holiday from reality, what Kazakhstan can teach Europe on AI, and the case for Ferrari's new EV
I criticise Blair for his belief that 50% of the age group should go to “uni”. It had the effect of cementing the bias towards academic qualifications at the expense of vocational. If we had upgraded the learning of technical skills and downgraded the status of a degree we would now have fewer graduates doing sub-graduate level jobs and many more of the skills that are in short supply.
I'm so glad you raised this, Tony. I had intended to put a reference to this in the post. As I see it, to the extent that Blair had an economic plan, it was to invest part of that depreciation dividend in delivering his university target, in other words investing in human capital rather than physical capital. It strikes me that both sides of that calculation have blown up. It has proved impossible to "level up" much of the old industrial heartlands without infrastructure, and the university expansion has resulted in a generation with useless degrees and huge debts that will never be paid back. And now, thanks in part to Brexit, the universities themselves are going bust...
There is an irony in that Blair's opening of the UK labour market to Eastern Europeans c.2003 contributed, almost certainly, to the popular vote to leave the EU. The vacancies filled by the large influx of Poles and others were not, in the main, those requiring university education.
That's a great point, Jack. It's another example of the way in which the UK economy by 2016 had been entirely modelled around membership of the single market. Now we have too many graduates and not enough trades people for a national market of 65 million instead of 450 million...
The 50% target also had unintended consequences. Suddenly, job recruiters made having a degree a necessity, not because it was an actual requirement but because it made it easy to filter job applicants. It created yet another societal division, made worse by the reduction in vocational training and the curtailing of the ability to demonstrate and develop leadership or managerial skills in the course of employment in spite of not having academic aptitude. Capability is an aptitude not necessarily coincident with academic proficiency, and no doubt many capable people now find themselves excluded from careers (for example nursing or policing) that were once open to them, and our society is the poorer for it. Revitalising practical full and part time vocational education and craft skills training for those without degrees, investing in genuine apprenticeships which are not simply cheap labour, and creating job opportunities and career paths via these routes should be our next educational priority.
I agree. I think one of the big disappointments of the recruitment market over the last couple of decades is the failure of employers to open up new school leaver entry streams, as used to exist when only a small minority went to university. As far as I can see, the further education market has remained pretty stubbornly resistant to innovation, other than in the invention of ever more esoteric courses, often designed to lure high-paying one-year masters students from the global south...
I agree. I've always maintained that sheer intellectual ability is only half a job. Dedication, team working, organisational and managerial skills, presentational ability etc. are just as important. Of coiurse, lack of intellect will be a constraint but not necessarily a bar.
I love the clear eyed analysis of both Thatcher and Labour’s failures. It’s hard to see how Blair is anything more than a hired mouthpiece for the Ellison family, scraping and doing their bidding for more tech cash. He is on Trump’s Bored of Peace! You make clear that Britain needs a hard nosed strategy to deal with its own problems and raids from the exterior. PS: I hope, at least, there was clean drinking water in the Lake District.
Thanks Jake. Sadly, I see Blair these days as increasingly symptomatic of the global trend towards oligarchification that I wrote about last week. I suspect a younger Blair would have shown more interest in who has power and how to ensure it is wielded fairly, rather than simply getting as close as possible to whoever has it, as his essay suggests and his own behaviour attests. PS. the water in Coniston Water seemed clean enough, but depressingly and predictably, the water companies have been flushing sewage into Lake Windermere, much to the horror of locals...
He got on the oligarchic payroll a long time ago. I have stories to tell. I was joking about the water. That’s unbelievable. It’s as if the water companies are purposefully desecrating Britain. How did it come to this? For those of us who grew up in Britain, went to British schools, and have long family traditions, it’s all hard to process. Perhaps a Simon Nixon book could answer the question. No one is more qualified.
I think pretty much everyone, inlcuding the tech bros, has realised this year that we do need some guardrails around AI deployment to protect against possible harms. I would rather those guardrails were put in place by legislators, rather than left to the whim of the US president, as seems to be the plan in America...
On infrastructure here in Australia the tail end of the 1995-2011 State Labor Govt in NSW focused on balancing the budget and so built nothing other than the Lane Cove tunnel after about 2005 and got smashed at the polls in 2011, the Liberal (our Tories) State Govt that replaced them then went on a road, rail, desalination plant and light rail building binge and were rewarded with 2 reelections in a state that’s usually a struggle for them
Other state Govts took notice, the Andrew’s Labor Govt elected in 2015 got rid of all the level crossings, a seemingly small thing that genuinely benefited people’s lives, built the new city loop and some major road projects and was gifted with the 2 Danslide reelections
All this infrastructure spending was attacked for its expense and the debt it caused but the voters didn’t care, they just liked the new roads and metros and desalination plants and train lines, the only political pain was in NSW where the liberals privatised the electrical poles and wires to help pay off the debt
There’s a lesson here for UK Labor, voters will reward governments that build things that improve their lives, I think they should start with pot holes and 5G black spots, not sexy, probably expensive but people will see the benefits in their daily lives and if Australia shows anything they will reward the government that delivers it with votes
Thanks for this Lee. That's a fascinating and important insight. Of course, those Australian governments were able to go about this infrastructure building binge in part because the SuperAnnuation reforms a decade or so earlier had create huge pots of domestic patient capital looking to be deployed. Meanwhile British governments totally flunked the pension reform challenge, particularly on Blair's watch (surprise!), with the result that the UK now has a severe shortage of capital for domestic investment and a huge looming crisis arising from a massive shortfall of savings...
Some day somebody will be able to explain to me why our conservative parties oppose superannuation and always look to weaken it when a Super style system is the holy grail for conservative parties elsewhere but nobody has been able to explain it to me yet
Thank you Simon - hope you managed to navigate home! Three major points stand out for me - Firstly, I barely have connection neither wifi or mobile despite changing provider and struggled to meet up via google maps in London on Thurs! I didn't realise it's a UK-wide problem! 59th!? Dire! Secondly, 'delusional cake-ism and historically illiterate' - Absolutely! Blair was always the King of Glib - rode the wave of Thatcherite privatisations and sold us further down the US alley. Who is backing his essay? Thirdly - Civilisational America means European erasure - we need a dynamic, vision-led Peter Magyar and maybe Pedro Sanchez to co-lead Europe - Spain's GDP seems ok -tourism, tech & energy? We have some good AI brains in UK which must rejoin Europe - the choice is binary, yes, but not not impossible! It needs bold harnessing and a desire to heavily invest within the EU, not the SP500 or similar!
Thanks Cristina. I find it extraordinary that we just accept this shoddy mobile and broadband coverage in Britain even though we hand out licences to these private companies with clear obligations to provide a national service... I certainly agree re European erasure. I fear the collapse of European integration will send the continent rapidly spiralling down the global league table, with goodness knows what social consequences...
So how Simon can Europe decouple itself from the US, not depend on other super powers and rebuild? Does such a properly drawn up proposal actually exist - anywhere?
Spot on about basic mobile connectivity, let alone high speed broadband. Last time I checked we couldn’t have a smart meter because there wasn’t reliable 4G coverage. There’s an awful lot to do on the basics before we fanaticise about being an AI powerhouse. On new nuclear it’s often forgotten that for all his talk of modernisation, New Labour was elected on the pledge of no new nuclear power. Took years to turn that around, and then along came the Coalition. We are no further forward than in 2010 save for suggesting that SMRs might be located near data centres, which will really address public concerns about safety . Doing simple things well is a much underrated principle of good government.
Thanks David. When one thinks about it, it's hard to recall what tough decisions "radical centrist" Blair took on the domestic economic front that have left a lasting positive legacy. What one sees with hindsight is a lot of decisions ducked due to a passive acceptance of the Thatcher settlement and assumption that as long as one took care of the golden goose in the City, the rest of the economy could look after itself...
Until the problem staring everybody in the face is addressed the UK will be looking in vain for real growth. Centralisation is holding back many regions. If we don't pass powers and properly fund the regions I can't see how we can progress.We should follow the more successful countries and implement regional parliaments. If not we will carry on as we are.
I broadly agree. The failure of Westminster governments to grapple with these challenges over several decades is inevitably fuelling centrifugal forces in Britain, as reflected in the success of the separatist parties in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. But devolution doesn't solve problems, it just transfers responsibility without necessarily transferring the means. The danger is that if Westminster parties cannot find a way forward, those centrifugal forces, fuelled by the Britain is Broken narrative, could tear the country apart...
Superb, as ever, Simon. Fascinating snapshot of Kazakhstan.
Tony Blair's essay, which I have read thanks to your link, calls to my mind George Orwell's opinion that "political language is designed... to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind".
Thanks Jack. What a superb quote and the perfect riposte to Blair's waffling about "ballast". His essay was so insubstantial one can only conclude he wrote it himself...
I'm sure that's right. The one advantage that public ownership gives is the opportunity to set social tariffs, based on ability to pay. But for the reasons discussed the other week in Very British Problems, the UK's vulnerability to vested interests almost guarantees this opportunity would be abused, as it was in the past. We've never managed to find a satisfactory solution to these governance problems in Britain.
I criticise Blair for his belief that 50% of the age group should go to “uni”. It had the effect of cementing the bias towards academic qualifications at the expense of vocational. If we had upgraded the learning of technical skills and downgraded the status of a degree we would now have fewer graduates doing sub-graduate level jobs and many more of the skills that are in short supply.
I'm so glad you raised this, Tony. I had intended to put a reference to this in the post. As I see it, to the extent that Blair had an economic plan, it was to invest part of that depreciation dividend in delivering his university target, in other words investing in human capital rather than physical capital. It strikes me that both sides of that calculation have blown up. It has proved impossible to "level up" much of the old industrial heartlands without infrastructure, and the university expansion has resulted in a generation with useless degrees and huge debts that will never be paid back. And now, thanks in part to Brexit, the universities themselves are going bust...
There is an irony in that Blair's opening of the UK labour market to Eastern Europeans c.2003 contributed, almost certainly, to the popular vote to leave the EU. The vacancies filled by the large influx of Poles and others were not, in the main, those requiring university education.
That's a great point, Jack. It's another example of the way in which the UK economy by 2016 had been entirely modelled around membership of the single market. Now we have too many graduates and not enough trades people for a national market of 65 million instead of 450 million...
The 50% target also had unintended consequences. Suddenly, job recruiters made having a degree a necessity, not because it was an actual requirement but because it made it easy to filter job applicants. It created yet another societal division, made worse by the reduction in vocational training and the curtailing of the ability to demonstrate and develop leadership or managerial skills in the course of employment in spite of not having academic aptitude. Capability is an aptitude not necessarily coincident with academic proficiency, and no doubt many capable people now find themselves excluded from careers (for example nursing or policing) that were once open to them, and our society is the poorer for it. Revitalising practical full and part time vocational education and craft skills training for those without degrees, investing in genuine apprenticeships which are not simply cheap labour, and creating job opportunities and career paths via these routes should be our next educational priority.
I agree. I think one of the big disappointments of the recruitment market over the last couple of decades is the failure of employers to open up new school leaver entry streams, as used to exist when only a small minority went to university. As far as I can see, the further education market has remained pretty stubbornly resistant to innovation, other than in the invention of ever more esoteric courses, often designed to lure high-paying one-year masters students from the global south...
I agree. I've always maintained that sheer intellectual ability is only half a job. Dedication, team working, organisational and managerial skills, presentational ability etc. are just as important. Of coiurse, lack of intellect will be a constraint but not necessarily a bar.
Germany has always been proud of its 2 tier system - academic and vocational.
Germany is an exemplar.
I love the clear eyed analysis of both Thatcher and Labour’s failures. It’s hard to see how Blair is anything more than a hired mouthpiece for the Ellison family, scraping and doing their bidding for more tech cash. He is on Trump’s Bored of Peace! You make clear that Britain needs a hard nosed strategy to deal with its own problems and raids from the exterior. PS: I hope, at least, there was clean drinking water in the Lake District.
Thanks Jake. Sadly, I see Blair these days as increasingly symptomatic of the global trend towards oligarchification that I wrote about last week. I suspect a younger Blair would have shown more interest in who has power and how to ensure it is wielded fairly, rather than simply getting as close as possible to whoever has it, as his essay suggests and his own behaviour attests. PS. the water in Coniston Water seemed clean enough, but depressingly and predictably, the water companies have been flushing sewage into Lake Windermere, much to the horror of locals...
He got on the oligarchic payroll a long time ago. I have stories to tell. I was joking about the water. That’s unbelievable. It’s as if the water companies are purposefully desecrating Britain. How did it come to this? For those of us who grew up in Britain, went to British schools, and have long family traditions, it’s all hard to process. Perhaps a Simon Nixon book could answer the question. No one is more qualified.
Don’t tempt me Jake…
I vote aye
I’m not sure a mad rush into AI is necessarily a good idea, especially if you take a hard look at the people evangelising for it.
Agreed, but Pandora's box has been opened - those who don't go with it and harness it will be left behind...which is worse!
I think pretty much everyone, inlcuding the tech bros, has realised this year that we do need some guardrails around AI deployment to protect against possible harms. I would rather those guardrails were put in place by legislators, rather than left to the whim of the US president, as seems to be the plan in America...
On infrastructure here in Australia the tail end of the 1995-2011 State Labor Govt in NSW focused on balancing the budget and so built nothing other than the Lane Cove tunnel after about 2005 and got smashed at the polls in 2011, the Liberal (our Tories) State Govt that replaced them then went on a road, rail, desalination plant and light rail building binge and were rewarded with 2 reelections in a state that’s usually a struggle for them
Other state Govts took notice, the Andrew’s Labor Govt elected in 2015 got rid of all the level crossings, a seemingly small thing that genuinely benefited people’s lives, built the new city loop and some major road projects and was gifted with the 2 Danslide reelections
All this infrastructure spending was attacked for its expense and the debt it caused but the voters didn’t care, they just liked the new roads and metros and desalination plants and train lines, the only political pain was in NSW where the liberals privatised the electrical poles and wires to help pay off the debt
There’s a lesson here for UK Labor, voters will reward governments that build things that improve their lives, I think they should start with pot holes and 5G black spots, not sexy, probably expensive but people will see the benefits in their daily lives and if Australia shows anything they will reward the government that delivers it with votes
Thanks for this Lee. That's a fascinating and important insight. Of course, those Australian governments were able to go about this infrastructure building binge in part because the SuperAnnuation reforms a decade or so earlier had create huge pots of domestic patient capital looking to be deployed. Meanwhile British governments totally flunked the pension reform challenge, particularly on Blair's watch (surprise!), with the result that the UK now has a severe shortage of capital for domestic investment and a huge looming crisis arising from a massive shortfall of savings...
Paul Keating For the Win yet again
Some day somebody will be able to explain to me why our conservative parties oppose superannuation and always look to weaken it when a Super style system is the holy grail for conservative parties elsewhere but nobody has been able to explain it to me yet
Thank you Simon - hope you managed to navigate home! Three major points stand out for me - Firstly, I barely have connection neither wifi or mobile despite changing provider and struggled to meet up via google maps in London on Thurs! I didn't realise it's a UK-wide problem! 59th!? Dire! Secondly, 'delusional cake-ism and historically illiterate' - Absolutely! Blair was always the King of Glib - rode the wave of Thatcherite privatisations and sold us further down the US alley. Who is backing his essay? Thirdly - Civilisational America means European erasure - we need a dynamic, vision-led Peter Magyar and maybe Pedro Sanchez to co-lead Europe - Spain's GDP seems ok -tourism, tech & energy? We have some good AI brains in UK which must rejoin Europe - the choice is binary, yes, but not not impossible! It needs bold harnessing and a desire to heavily invest within the EU, not the SP500 or similar!
Thanks Cristina. I find it extraordinary that we just accept this shoddy mobile and broadband coverage in Britain even though we hand out licences to these private companies with clear obligations to provide a national service... I certainly agree re European erasure. I fear the collapse of European integration will send the continent rapidly spiralling down the global league table, with goodness knows what social consequences...
So how Simon can Europe decouple itself from the US, not depend on other super powers and rebuild? Does such a properly drawn up proposal actually exist - anywhere?
No more falling into Windermere for Sir Ed Davey, then...
Spot on about basic mobile connectivity, let alone high speed broadband. Last time I checked we couldn’t have a smart meter because there wasn’t reliable 4G coverage. There’s an awful lot to do on the basics before we fanaticise about being an AI powerhouse. On new nuclear it’s often forgotten that for all his talk of modernisation, New Labour was elected on the pledge of no new nuclear power. Took years to turn that around, and then along came the Coalition. We are no further forward than in 2010 save for suggesting that SMRs might be located near data centres, which will really address public concerns about safety . Doing simple things well is a much underrated principle of good government.
Thanks David. When one thinks about it, it's hard to recall what tough decisions "radical centrist" Blair took on the domestic economic front that have left a lasting positive legacy. What one sees with hindsight is a lot of decisions ducked due to a passive acceptance of the Thatcher settlement and assumption that as long as one took care of the golden goose in the City, the rest of the economy could look after itself...
Until the problem staring everybody in the face is addressed the UK will be looking in vain for real growth. Centralisation is holding back many regions. If we don't pass powers and properly fund the regions I can't see how we can progress.We should follow the more successful countries and implement regional parliaments. If not we will carry on as we are.
I broadly agree. The failure of Westminster governments to grapple with these challenges over several decades is inevitably fuelling centrifugal forces in Britain, as reflected in the success of the separatist parties in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. But devolution doesn't solve problems, it just transfers responsibility without necessarily transferring the means. The danger is that if Westminster parties cannot find a way forward, those centrifugal forces, fuelled by the Britain is Broken narrative, could tear the country apart...
Superb, as ever, Simon. Fascinating snapshot of Kazakhstan.
Tony Blair's essay, which I have read thanks to your link, calls to my mind George Orwell's opinion that "political language is designed... to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind".
Thanks Jack. What a superb quote and the perfect riposte to Blair's waffling about "ballast". His essay was so insubstantial one can only conclude he wrote it himself...
"Regulators, under pressure from politicians not to raise customer prices, refused to sign off on necessary capital expenditure".
That is 100% true. I suspect that there is zero chance of that changing under public ownership.
I'm sure that's right. The one advantage that public ownership gives is the opportunity to set social tariffs, based on ability to pay. But for the reasons discussed the other week in Very British Problems, the UK's vulnerability to vested interests almost guarantees this opportunity would be abused, as it was in the past. We've never managed to find a satisfactory solution to these governance problems in Britain.