FIXING THE MIX

Abstract

We are entering the end game for this Parliament and so it is now time to focus on the policy horizon. In the run-up to the next election, the government’s pieces will be moved by our fourth Prime Minister since the announcement of the advisory referendum on EU membership in February 2016. The rapidity in turnover of political leadership tells us starkly that there are deep problems with our economic and social performance, relative to expectations and to that of our main trading partners. The overriding narrative is of a kingdom of nations that have taken a huge step backwards in international standing and in the fulfilment of domestic objectives. At this historic moment with the accession of Charles III, we are not this time faced with post-war reconstruction, industrial decline, the need to deregulate or the need to hitch our colours to the rise of the City. It is more a problem of how to bring the country and devolved nations together and aim for economic and social progress for all. That implies both broadening our regional focus and narrowing our gambit to what institutions and policies the UK needs as a small open economy in order to deal with a global economic situation we must take as given and no longer made in our image. No new IMF or World Bank would, for example, offer the UK a seat at the top table, which was certainly the natural order in the first half of the twentieth century.