Basically we combine the worst bits of left and right without the good bits (i.e. our right wing party fails to encourage business and investment and promote order and efficiency, while our left wing party fails to invest in useful state capacity and pull those at the bottom out of poverty)
We have lived through a long period where the right wing politicians had time to attempt their strategy and have demonstrated how visionless they are. The rejection of the interests of business were palpable with Johnson and Truss. Will the UK electorate give the left wing party enough time to deliver theirs which, superficially, appears to follow the line of thinking that Rory espouses?
Didn't Nick Clegg block the development of a nuclear power station because it would be finished until the mid 2020s? If he hadn't been so short sighted it would be almost completed by now!
@@dandare1001 Not really. Nick Clegg literally said there's no point building a new power station in the 2010s because it won't go into operation until the 2020s. The very definition of short term thinking.
What's the Half-Life of spent nuclear fuel? Once it's spent you have to take care of it for 25,000 years. Who will pay for that and where will we store it safely? Also it piles up so where are you going to store all of the new spent fuel going forward.
@@cat_glove Firstly - between 1,000-10,000 year nuclear waste's radioactivity diminishes to that of the original ore. We know how to store it safely, and the vast majority of it is recyclable - the waste itself is easy to store. We've known this since the 1970s. There are plenty of resources available online about the myths regarding nuclear power.
“Our incapacity to build is just an embarrassment” - absolutely spot on. Imagine if the Victorians came back now and witnessed the state of UK infrastructure. They would laugh at us.
That's because any public works are seized upon by greedy unions and equally greedy construction firms, who double and triple the cost of everything with needless bureaucracy and planned overruns.
Hundreds or maybe thousands of people died in numerous accidents both during construction and after. Navvies lived on subsistence wages in shanty towns in the Peak District to build the canals and railways. Yes arguably mechanisation will alleviate much of this, but have some perspective
Rory is one the most authentic, astute and adroit commentators on all things economic and social cohesion I’ve seen in a very long time. I love him 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Yeah, he's amazing. Imagine telling Brits if you're not wealthy to move to the suburbs, sort you'll have to tolerate non Whites and plenty of noise. Haha, he's a typical free market traitor.
@@edbop as a mature student in his forties studying an undergraduate program in chemistry I would have to disagree with you that all parts of all universities are a joke.
Our Universities are great (Lecturer, here). It's too easy to single out the odd course, but they generally add huge value to the economy and attract students from all over the world
@@bobhob35 if you want to nitpick - our universities are becoming jokes due to individual departments accomodating ridiculous subjects or censoring existing ones, i believe the term "anglo-saxon" has been removed from courses at Cambridge to "de-colonise the curriculum" whatever that means 🤷
Rory makes sense. He understands complexity. His reference to magic is his man on the street way of talking complexity. As in Complex Systems. Economists, lawyers and Politicians think in reductionist terms. Worse still, consulting firms hate complexity as they can’t scales cookie cutter solutions and rip the taxpayer off. Worse, they attempt quash the idea of complexity.
I’m British living in Chile and whilst this country has its issues - I can’t put into words how much it’s changed my life living in a country where if someone or something needs to get something done - they by and large, get it done. I can’t remember the last time I filled out a form or had to be on hold during a telephone call.
On the individual level, you can have that in the UK as-well it's just a case of having the contacts, lol but i suppose things are less formal in Chile, less regulations, less costs associated with those regulations that are passed onto the consumer. E.g if you need a car fixed in the UK or a plumber or your heating looked at holy shit, prepare to be frustrated and mugged off
I am retired, but if I was 21 years old I would learn Spanish and apply to move to Chile. A beautiful country which I visited many times on shipping business. But my business visits turned into a wonderful experience due to the courtesy of the people and the beauty of the countryside. High rises are blighting Santiago (as almost everywhere else in the world) but when I visited there many of the urban areas were also very pleasant.
Yup after moving to the UK 17 years ago, after my first 6 months I was gobsmacked that they hadn't blown themselves up accidentally due to incompetence (at one of the nuclear power plants for example). And every time I have a problem and have to call customer service I want to cry because I know it will waste hours, be entirely frustrating and get nothing resolved. Also every company I've worked for in this country except one has been an incredible shit show. BT being one of the worst. I have no idea how they have lasted as long as they have in the free market except for the fact they have Openreach. This country also has to reinvent the wheel every time! Heaven forbid they see what is working elsewhere and adapt that. Don't even get me started on the rediculous house buying process.
I find these PPE 'degrees' hilarious. So, on average, you had one year of philosophy, politics, and economy each. So you hardly know anything about three areas. Brilliant. Go run the country now. Unbelievable.
1 year of the 3 then 2 years of your chosen 2 was how it was run before. Probably the same before. Regardless, you'd have thought at least a PhD would be required to run a country's economy.
I'm surprised such a degree can even exist, usually you need to study for 6 years of which at most 2 are actually focused on your degree before you get your degree.
My greatest concern is how to recover from all these economic and global troubles and stay afloat especially with the political power tussle going on in Britain.
Inflation already have a significant impact on individuals and their cost of living. As a result, it can cause negative market sentiment. It is important for individuals and businesses to find ways to navigate and potentially mitigate the effects of inflation on their finances. The current economic climate, including underperformance of financial markets due to fear of inflation, has led to a decrease in the value of my portfolio. I would appreciate any recommendations on how to potentially increase returns during this market downturn.
Stocks are pretty unstable at the moment, but if you do the right math, you should be just fine. Bloomberg and other finance media have been recording cases of folks gaining over $100k just in a matter of weeks/couple months, so I think there are a lot of wealth transfer in this downtime if you know where to look.
Such market uncertainties are the reason I don’t base my market judgements and decisions on rumours and here-says, got the best of me 2020 and had me holding worthless position in the market, I had to revamp my entire portfolio through the aid of an advisor, before I started seeing any significant results happens in my portfolio, been using the same advisor and I’ve scaled up $450k within 2 years, whether a bullish or down market, both makes for good profit, it all depends on where you’re looking.
@@williamDonaldson432 Your advisor must be really good, I hope it's okay to inquire if you're still collaborating with the same advisor and how I can get in touch with them?
The world has changed. My grandmother told me that when she got married in 1932 she gave up her job in a local shop because it would bring shame on my grandfather for not earning enough to support her. Today a woman taking a 2 year break from her career is seen as a problem. Universal Credit rules force single mothers into looking for 30 hour a week work when their youngest child is two years old. A mother not working 30 hours a week is now considered lazy. 50 years ago the concern was latch key kids whose came home from school to an empty house. The change in attitude is amazing.
I was born in the 1950s, when I had my son in 1983, I worked all through my pregnancy, only had three weeks off. I did run a business from home until he was nearly 9 months old, but had no choice to return to a full-time job to support us both. My son went to nursery full time. When I was a child, my grandmother looked after me so that my mum could do a part-time job, she was born in the 30s. Dad wasn't happy it about it but she chose to have some of her own money to spend on how she chose. She made many of our clothes too. She would go to jumble sales, buy jumpers and unpick the wool and then knit it into jumpers for her children. She would make dresses for me too. The motto being, waste not, want not. So yes the attitude changed with the throwaway society.
In the mid 1960s my (educated and intelligent) Mother said to my Father that she would like to return to work, just part-time, now that I (an only child) was in my teens. My Father's response? "I'm sorry, darling, I couldn't possibly allow that. My colleagues might think I didn't earn enough to support the family, and I would be humiliated". My Mother's response to my Father's response ? "Oh yes, I see what you mean. I hadn't thought of it that way. I shan't be able to do that, then". So, after a discussion, they decided that she would stand for election to the City Council (for which, in those days, you were not paid) which she did, successfully. And my Father supported her totally, both in her campaign for election and by cooking his own tea, and mine, on the occasions when she had to go to a meeting. She became a well-regarded City Councillor and everyone was happy with the outcome. Totally different world.
I have lived in Japan for over 20 years. The GDP figures may not look so good, but they have nailed down what Rory refers to as ‘the experience’. The people would not accept anything less. And you can buy a house outside Tokyo/Osaka relatively easily. Focusing on economic metrics alone does not equate to a good quality of life. Entirely concur.
Yes, it doesn't tell the whole picture. Sacrificing GDP to improve family life for example would be seen as a bad thing in pure numerical terms. Rory made a good observation in that if a metric becomes a target then it loses its value as a metric, I definitely think that applies to GDP
Yep. INCREDIBLE place in many ways. And when you say "you can buy a house" people here wouldn't believe it. You can get something run down in a beautiful rural area or a nice quiet urban neighbourhood for 15k. And something modest and nice for 50k. 250k gets you a big house on a decent amount of land that would cost you over a million in the UK.
Japan has a fantastic quality of life - walkable cities, high quality transport and public services etc etc- but decades of economic stagnation has left the last 2-3 generations largely bereft of ambition or social engagement- the %s of young people who have never dated and barely leave their homes- financially supported by their parents or PT jobs - had grown exponentially- the birthrate is in steady decline and immigration is minimal - it’s an economy in a very elegant and slow death spiral
@@Daniel-rp7nb Ultimately, Japan is only somewhat worse off demographically than Europe, but the quality of life is worlds better. They didn't let in ridiculous numbers of Muslim "refugees" to form rape gangs, their infrastructure is top notch, their tax burden is lower than most of Europe, cost of living is really low given the typical wages. Life is getting harder there to some extent, but far less so than in other developed countries of late.
I moved to Spain some 35 years ago.😢 Spain at that time seemed much less efficient than Britain. But how things have changed. In my small town (population 24,000), the state has built two new secondary schools, a new courthouse, a new police station, a new motorway, a huge new industrial estate, a new swimming pool and sports centre, some 20 km of bike lanes, a new hospital, and almost everyone has 1Gb fibre optic internet. A similar British town would have received next to nothing. In addition, childcare and university for my two children was free. 😊
Lol. Depends which part of Spain, same as in UK there are vast areas of Spain Extremadura and parts of andulucia which have some of the poorest areas in Europe Plenty of areas in UK are far better than Spain
Thats probably what people mean by 'less efficient' In the UK 'efficient' means build something, then run it to 150% capacity. I remember when stansted first opened in the early 90s. It was lovely, spacious, quiet, empty. The opposite to the grim, dark, crowded corridors of Heathrow or Gatwick. But from a business POV, the stansted of 1995 was probably a disaster. Under-utilized. Now its an absolute zoo, just like every other airport in England. But probably a right money spinner for our social betters. We need to stop looking at things from a business POV & start looking at them from a quality of life one. I was at Murcia airport earlier this year. That was how I remember stansted in the early 90s. Quiet & empty. How I like it, but probably not very profitable.
I first visited England (NW M25 area, mostly, but also London, of course) in the late 80s. Back when, I fell in love with it's infraestructure, specially, but not only, the tube. I was there several summers, then lapsed until mid 2000s. I found the stagnation quite upsetting and unexpected. From tube reliability, to newspaper quality to... And, quite often, stagnation would actually have been a step up. Take care
@@KimThomas-vp4vm That... lacks a bunch of nuance. "Spain" is not telling tourists to leave. A non-negligible part of the population is. Part of the reason is that mainline Spanish politicians seems to be unable to hold more than a single idea in their pretty heads. Now, tourism did, indeed, help Spain out of the mire it was. It wasn't, by a looong shot, the only factor, but it sure did help. As publicity, if nothing else. However, any monoculture is a danger. One of the reasons the 2008 crisis (and, kindof, the CoViD one) affected Spain so hard is, precisely, it's overreliance on tourism and home development. It's still dangerously so reliant. In the meanwhile, Spanish politicians have refused to build a decent coastal merchant railway on the Southern and Eastern coasts, pushed against water links to France, 5G testbeds... If it worked before don't EVER change it seems to be their motto. Don't even get distracted by new ideas. Just in case. Now, adding insult to injury, there's tourism and tourism. And that's something that both critics and defenders seem to miss. There's a difference between family tourism and having to control a bunch of teens while you scrape their friend off the walkway. *Several* places in Spain are *notorious* for that. There's a difference between a hotel and a battery of flats that price most (and I do mean 'most') of the workforce out of a home. Not a house, a simple 650 sq feet apartment. I've had friends in apartments less than 600 sq ft, 7 people. 500-ish for 5. And no reasonable prospects for a better option that allows them both a job within driving distance and beds for their families. 100 yards away, a whole building got turned into "luxury apartments". Basically, hotels. Real luxury apartments are not in that neighbourhood. So, yes, people are a tad pissed out. And some poeple will defend *all* tourism, at *all* costs, while others will attack *all* tourism. Meanwhile, the common citizen manages, somehow. But right now a 600-ish apartment rents for 100% of the median income. Take care
City of London financial elites have transferred a great deal of money from the economy to overseas trusts. This has created a number of problems for the domestic UK economy.
And Kate Andrews, the "think tanks" she used to work for, a sizeable number of MPs, our right wing media class are all part of a group who would like a whole lot more of this, they're just not saying it out loud.
@@lecaprice2572 I don’t agree. It’s quite apparent that the decision making is by lawyers and economics who don’t think on the upside, always the downside. You ever had a lawyer tell you anything other than ‘if you do this, the risk is this’. Economists run projects through their standard models, which were all developed and refined since the Industrial Revolution. If they existed before then, nothing would have happened.
Kate Andrews looked decidedly uncomfortable when Rory was describing how the UK has protected the position of pensioners to the point that working people are paying for things they are unable to ever benefit from. She was equally quiet when he argued for more flexible working. Obviously, many people work in jobs where being on-site is essential but those in office environments can be managed remotely with great effectiveness and good productivity. The benefits of reduced travel pressure and a more even spread of housing demand make absolute sense in 2024.
@@VinceLammas something to do with the demographic of people who read the spectator, neither the conservatives or Labour are willing to pull the plug on the triple lock and the planning code.
@@VinceLammas She's part of the institute of economics affairs. She's working to make that liz truss' budget (the IEAs budget) will get another chance and the idea of ignoring economists warnings works very well towards this. I guess doubling down on trickle down economics that's has plainly not worked is very much believing in magic.
@@Pr1ckst1ck yep. Her economic ideas are a joke and it's no surprise she's employed by the spectator. I literally cringed when I realised she was the host. I've seen her on TV making ridiculous arguments. If it were up to her we'd have some sort of American hellscape and no NHS.
If everyone who didn’t need to be working in person, worked from home. You could convert a HUGE number of business centres into housing very quickly and thanks to the location of most current office areas, with the exception of schools, they would have fantastic local infrastructure already place! Restaurants, shops, healthcare, banks etc.
And the welfare system has all the benefits for the welfare layabout...but very little for the productive worker. Basically, work does not pay in the UK. At all. You're taxed like hell and get very few government services -- those are saved for "refugees" and lazy chavs.
Well one of the bigest employers now is the state and the public sector is where our productivity problems are. Presumably above inflation to the PS with zero productivity gains has been a win from your perspective? As a taxpayer I am less sure.
This is true, but the hurdle for taxing asset owners need to be tempered by the value of their assets. People who save rather than spend their whole lives are becoming targets and we have to appreciate small time landlords are being pushed out of the market and we will end up with large scale institutionalised landlords. I very much agree with the South East property market issues but head north and you will find property that is massively more affordable.
@@abschmit But that's been the British mental attitude since World War 2. If you have something and I don't have it, it's far better neither of us have anything; that's 'fair' in Britain. Even in the 1970s an American think tank wrote something like "An American workingman walks down the street and a Cadillac drives past. The workingman says 'One day I'll have two Cadillacs.' A British workingman walks down the street and a Rolls Royce drives past. The man says 'That man has a Rolls Royce. One day I'll bring him down to my level.'" It *is* the British attitude that that's fair.
@WilliamSmith-mx6ze I don't think the ruling classes think like the average working man.. the uk is poor because the wealthy few have stripped every ounce of profit from the land... The wealthy are fine living in the countryside and the poor suffer in the run down city areas...
@Spectator: I would love you to write a column with Rory Sutherland on "Why England is the only country in Europe that doesn't have an international airport connected directly by rail to other cities. Or why all our rail networks only lead to one city? or why the majority of all the roads go towards one city. Or why two tiers on economies in place set by the minium wage rule. These would be heavily constructive conversations to have in the UK on a practical level!
But they're both okay really, compared to most political and social commentators. The Conservative Party would be in a better place if it was led by these kind of conservatives.
I'm not a huge fan of the Stewart flavour of Rory, but his work with Give Directly is commendable. His recent ted talk is eye-opening, and well worth a watch.
Very true. It's also the absolute cascade of ideas and perspectives he generates that excites me. Whether or not they're all going to hold water doesn't really matter because there's plenty of ones that will, and even with the ones that don't, excellent plans B, C and D etc. will get generated in response.
We made money in the past, through manufacturing. We raised living standards. We out- souced manufacturing, destroying jobs and innovation. Those who control the existing assetts get rich. Those without assets get poorer.
London is an international money making machine that the rest of the populace is drip fed stimulus for there food. Thats the UK in a nutshell. Why complete the HS2 ? well they literally dont need to rest of the country, in fact they hope that the rest of the country just stop reproducing .
Those without assets will often spend their income exclusively on products which do not benefit them in long term. Like mobile phones contract, designer clothes, fast food,tattoos, luxurious holidays etc.
@@CommunityofEngineers The manufacturing that made money in the past was greatly assisted by a colonial global order that was one sided. Economic Value Added is far more Today than simply physical assets!
Absolutely everything in the UK for the past 20 years was overseen by mean accountants. Whether public projects or private businesses. Ironically and counterintuitively, mean accountants and lawyers are also the reason everything costs a fortune but is still crud, because the mean accountants and lawyers pay themselves insane amounts but pay the capable people doing the work very little.
And yet the Spectator seems to support that party most against such spending. It is no surprise that the more libertarian a society, the worse the public infrastructure.
@r1c4ard He's not asking. Saying OK at the end of a sentence is a psychological trick to make people believe what the person is saying is more a fact than a opinion.
Something the Spectator won't admit: Funny how when Britain had the most 'bureaucracy', i.e. very strong unions, nationalised industries, generous welfare, and extensive council housing, it actually did better than today's neo-liberal nightmare. Taxes on the rich were higher, inequality was low, the economy was doing extremely well, and the arts flourished. Compare that with today and you'll see why the period between 1950 and 1975 was considered a golden age of capitalism.
@@scallamander4899 the 'bureaucracy' you celebrate started well enough because it was rebuilding a war-ravaged nation, but ultimately led to the 70s...do you remember the latter 70s? I do, and it was a complete disaster.
@@stevemoore8745 It's definitely right not to romanticise the time period. I just think it's worth drawing on to counter the assumptions we have about the state and capitalism today, wouldn't you agree?
@@scallamander4899 The tax burden and thus "bureaucracy" is higher now than any other time post-war, hence our decline. We won't get economic growth and improved living standards again until the government take of GDP is greatly reduced, and of course we also have a sane energy policy.
*People should remember: poverty is not an accident, a coincidence or an inevitability. It is something which is manufactured by the ruling class, that's why investment is the key to sustaining your financial longevity*
You're absolutely right, you've remind me of what someone once said "The mind is the man, the poor is in it and the rich is it too". This sentence is the secret of most successful investors. I once attended similar and ever since then been waxing strong financially, and i most tell you the truth..investment is the key that can secure your family future.
Putting our time and effort in activities and investments that will yield a profitable return in the future is what we should be aiming for. Success depends on the actions or steps you take to achieve it. Show me a man without investment and I'll tell you how long it takes to go bankrupt. Investing creates a safe haven for the future. With the right investment choice that has at least a 10% minimum risk and with the advice of an expert, profits and interest is guaranteed.
I agree with you had a senior colleague at work who was doing well but never had an investment. Unfortunately he lost his job and went from living a comfortable life to hardship. There would had been something to fall back on if he had an investment
that's why I always urge everyone to start investing somewhere now no matter how small, this is literally the time for that, forget material things, don't get tempted,i became more better the moment i realized this.
Half way through this, and I've agreed with most of what he said. If you have always lived in and run a business in the UK you wont get the profound sense of just how bureaucratic and f'd up it is until you move to the USA and start again. I did, and couldn't go back. Everything from business rates, VAT, accounting, filings at Companies House, IR35, etc. is a sham that creates jobs for worthless, well-paid scroungers who work 35 hr weeks, get 6 weeks paid leave, and then retire on final salary pensions paid for by people like me. The self-employed are also left to navigate the City of London scum selling corrupt financial products that hide undisclosed liabilities. The UK is a great country, with great people, and rotten self-interested, woke, government. How else would we have reached the point where the Tavistock Clinic was able to pursue voodoo science. How else would we spend a 29 billion GBP on Hinkley Point C when the same plant costs 9 billion in the USA, and how else would we end up with HS2 being cancelled because it's too costly to bring the UK into a modern world where high speed rail links major cities across Europe. The conveyor belt from Oxbridge to the Cabinet is one reason we are so badly served, but the real reason for Britain's decline lies in British culture itself. We have been divided by Class, and then fed the Soylent Green of BBC and Channel 4. Millions sit and watch shit like East Enders and Coronation street when they should be out in their communities talking about how to make the things around them better. Go to any council estate and what do you see? Filthy streets, unkempt gardens, rotting window frames, chav cars and gangs of thugs. You can renovate houses but you cant renovate people.
Exceptional post sir. I might add that the deliberate closure of Grammar Schools and the Ponzi Scheme that is Higher Education are also factors. The NHS is not only a drain on the finances, but encourages people to play fast and loose with their own health. Then there's Wide open Borders.....how many economically inactive people have been allowed to move here this past 20 years ? Too many is the glib answer.....about 5 MILLION too many.
I have just spent a full day and one-half trying to resolve misbilling by Opus Energy on 8 of my properties. A day and a half! The beauroucracy and corruption is out of control. And I'm just a tiddler business. Go to HS2 or similar and it is eye-watering. As for 4G etc, I sailed down the coast of Papua New Guinea in 2014 and got full 4G a mile off the coast! I still don't get that here in rural Worcestershire, ten years later.
I was going to say, given the £106Bn spend on the pointless bauble that is/was HS2, it’s demented that smaller scale, but obviously far more impactful projects like 5G, run-of-the-mill east-west trains, fibre optic broadband etc. are bureaucratically shelved. It’s like a friend who buys 10k of frivolous tech they never use, then only buys a starter on a night out. Oh and let’s not forget the societally damaging £800Bn on furlough and rushed-through covid contracts… that one was just waved through, nullifying perhaps hundreds of years of supposedly beneficial penny pinching at the stroke of a pen. Anyway, around 3.30 you cover this point, and better, so I’ll shut up and listen!
Not only GDp is used as a proxy of happiness, but it is NOT even a measure of wealth. It is mainly a measure of expenditure (mostly sustained by high and evergrowing level of debt).
This stuff isn't a secret, we just have a useless elite (on both sides) that prefers managed decline to actual leadership and vision (which is why they loved being a rubber stamp for the EU, which is of course the same managed decline on a continenet wide level). Return to financial discipline, slash current spending in favour of capital investment by government, similarly incentivize private investment and private capital markets, then massively deregulate the private sector. Add some genuine reform of the state (full school choice, mostly abolish the army and RAF and roll their spending into the Navy since we're an island, abolish many government departments)
You are asking the wrong question. Wealth has transferred to corporation. One of Britain richest man James Dyson is worth £20billion. Microsoft is worth $3000billion. Google $2000 billion. The US has more billionaire and rich companies.
As an engineer working in the UK water sector this really resonates. Although much of the blame does lie with investor dividends and profits, the other side to the story is highly under reported in the press and thats very frustrating. The sector is very over regulated financially from central london by economists and lawrers. We often find ourselves having to undertake cost-benefit analysis exercises for fixing anything, even critical infrastructure and components! Utterly bonkers. Its really exacerbated the problem of lack of investment and high water bills.
In my view you need to connect 4 to 5 million people in North England so they can commute within an hour of one another to give a counter weight to London and diversification of the economy. The 'Green' agenda should be reshored manufacturing powered by renewables. Just 'Green' energy alone is half a con still importing from countries using coal.
@@karlarcher8773 connecting the north with highly functioning, high speed rail should seem the obvious choice for any politician looking to deliver true long term economic growth
Completely agree that transport infrastructure is ruined by bean counters who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. For example HS2 is still worth it even at $200BN for one simple reason, it is the future transport spine for a 2TN economy that will last for 200 years. If you work out the productivity output provided by that infrastructure you are talking about fractions of a single digit percentage if cost to benefit….
It might have been worth it had the track gone from Leeds/Manchester via Birmingham to Central London as planned. The last iteration before they scrapped it was Birmingham to Outer London and that would still have cost £200 billion and being a complete waste of money.
Anyone who studied HS2 would know the project should have never have seen the light of day! There was NEVER a valid business case for it at the outset, long before costs multiplied several times and they cut the route and decided to start it from a common in Action instead of Euston! It is now a railway nobody would want to use! What's worse is that far from increasing capacity to the north , it will reduce capacity because the HS2 trains when they run north of Birmingham on the west coast mainline have fewer seats than the current intercity trains on the west coast main line!! We are spending billions to reduce rail capacity and even the journey to Birmingham won't be quicker because it won't be stating from Euston. HS2 is a total and utter disaster and waste of billions better spent elsewhere.
The problem is that it wouldn't have cost 200 billion if you removed the army of civil servants, bureaucrats and lawyers that come with government projects
@@oscarlingwood3486 A clause in every single contract for HS2 required every contractor to engage in DEI and DEI training I believe. That alone added considerable sums of money I believe.
The main reason we are poor as a country is because our assets have been sold off by a bunch of incompetent self-seeking old Etonians. But at least French pension funds are doing well.
Rory talks A LOT of sense here. I particularly like the government not doing marketing only PR. It feels to me that we (the UK) is going backwards given a general lack of vision, looking far too short term and no aspiration to do better. Hard work is becoming less and less appealing, the sense you can't get on in life if you go the extra mile, take risks, put yourself out there. You can of course, but the incentives are becoming increasingly eroded through such things as a broken property market and socialist tax system = tax on aspirations...
The smartest engineer can manage an economy better than the smartest economist. The problem is none of the smartest kids we knew in school ever became politicians, lawyers or economists, these are entire fields filled with people who are mediocre.
When I worked abroad I spent 10% of my working time on administration. Now working in England, I spend 40% of my time on administration. Get rid of your medieval Coroners Courts and stop NHS, teachers and police recording every little thing they do.
but then, where would all those graduates go? you would also loose leverage in free trade deal with India, becuase that is where those back office jobs are being peformed.
When are the "Experts" going to tell us the truth that the UK desperately needs Industrialists, manufacturers and agronomists. It does not need a surfeit of bean counters. "Export or Die!!"
Rory is always on it. Unfortunately, we don't get a reply from Kate Andrews who is a professional economist. She is wrong about GDP. It is productivity that counts.
30 years ago, Britain had beautiful train lines everywhere between villages and had 18 nuclear power plants along with many canals. If we’d had marketeers then instead of economists, people might have realised what they could lose and the consequences financially and environmentally and in terms of lifestyle and jobs.
The reasons we’re poor are myriad, but ultimately it’s because we choose to be. We’ve forgotten why we shouldn’t be, become distracted and/or don’t have the will to not be. We remember periodically and do something about it. Thankfully I think we’re just starting to remember again.
Some great points, I've been saying for years that it is getting almost impossible to build things in our country, Clarksons farm, bless him for showing it, highlights the stupid bureaucracy we suffer from. Our agencies, Environment, HSE etc are preventing progress, and fighting with each other, to restrict advancement in our country. I applaud the genius who introduced the ISO systems, totally useless, employ thousands, but do nothing, however you need them to get a contract adding to costs. Funnily enough just yesterday I was talking to a Dutchman who has an English wife and has retired to the UK. He asked me why we are so obsessed with making laws, but worse obeying them? he said his country signed them all but just ignored them, a good point, he's right.
I applied for ‘Building Regs’ (didn’t need planning permission) for a large outbuilding in my back garden, for the foundation I used ‘Ground Screws’ which are basically metal piles, which are better for the environment than say a concrete base, requires no digging as they ‘screw’ straight into the ground and can be removed with little effort, the main issues I had with getting this built was the council ‘not liking’ this new and innovative way of working, the whole project was postponed for about 2.5 years because the council gave me lots of trouble and requests. I thought i was doing the right thing by spending a bit more money on something that was better for the environment. Seems not, the council would have been much happier if I had 10 ton of hardcore delivered and removed 10 tons of dirt then filled it with concrete with metal rebar…. Seems totally bonkers. Eventually I did get the work passed, but it was at a bigger cost and much more trouble than it was worth. Sorry about the rant…. Everything was way harder than it needed to be.
My sister inlaw worked as a nurse for the NHS, she told me two very simple things that cause the NHS to have an inflated budget. For example, let’s say a the staff break room needs a new microwave, a cheap one will cost £50 (for arguments sake) but she said, you cannot just put one in the staff room, once purchased, it has to be checked for health and safety reasons, then checked again for energy efficiency and PAT tested again. So after all the checks and pre-checks the cost ends up being 4 x what the thing should actually have to cost. Another issue the NHS has. To dispose of rubbish (normal food, packaging like at home) it costs about £50 per ton. But medical wasted (in the yellow waste bins) costs £400-£500 per ton. One issue all hospitals have is people cannot find a regular waste bin, so the nearest bin they see is a yellow medical waste bin, they then put empty cans of drink and whatever else in the medical waste bin. So now that is disposed of as medical waste costing a FORTUNE. So this is happening up and down the country. They could save fortunes by correcting this issue. But I suppose, the waste bin is some members of the public not caring.
@@Knuckle_Sandwich_Hand_Wraps Yep, my wife was a nurse and said the same. The following I'll swear is true as I experienced it many times, and others in the same position will be nodding their heads. Someone wants something built and asks your company to do it, a simple enough task eh? I'll ignore permissions from councils, building regs and planning applications and all that are obvious, here are the not so obvious. Do you need an archaeological survey, and worse a dig that may last years. Will your building 'impact' (love that word) on nature?, newts, bats etc, you might be stopped, you might be delayed or have to incorporate added expensive features. Do you need an environmental impact assessment? Are your materials sustainably sourced with a low carbon footprint? Do you have systems (usually ISO) in place for Safety/Environment etc etc etc etc etc all of course cost you money Do you need noise/air/water quality etc surveys before submitting applications. Do you have your Construction Phase Health and Safety plan approved? Do you fall under the CDM regs? Have you done all risk assessments and detailed risk assessments, Method Statements, permit system for some works, have a qualified person in charge etc etc etc Are your workforce qualified for their tasks and qualifications up to date. Do you provide ppe, inductions, welfare etc etc etc I'll stop there, but could go on and on, no the wonder nothing is built cheaply?
We don't have proportional representation, true, but the problem is the corruption and system behind the government. Where is our money going? It's going to a small group of people, to the detriment of the vast majority. In that sense it really isn't democracy. You're correct. The question is what should we do about it?
@@stevenhull5025 I say it because the money men, whether it is WEF, the Empire of Lies the Hegemon always install their puppets, we are given the illusion of choice, but the globalists already have their man chosen & ready., Trump is actually not chosen by them and that's why they the hegemony wants him dead. Our players are paid for. Also they are going to do their best to cancel Farage.
One type of infrastructure we have lost since the heady days of empire is coastal maritime traffic. A coastal cargo ship can carry the equivalent of several hundred 40 ton road lorries. We still have plenty of navigation deep enough to take coastal ships. To ship 200 containers from Southampton to London would probably take no longer than 200 lorries clogging up the roads.
@@stevo728822 well build more rail lines then lol other countries can manage it Instead we put it all on the highly limited motorways and roadways we have in this country. It takes longer to arrive and causes havoc along the way. Because it's cheaper and doesn't require long term planning. In all the competing interests that go into any planning in this country, the general public and the tax payer are valued the least. We're just expected to adjust to more and more congestion, more and more roadworks and diversions in our already narrow streets and roads. The reason people say this country is depressing is that we have so much smarts and many hardworking eminent people yet end up twiddling their thumbs because the aristocracy will object to any changes that would affect their cushy world just a little bit. It's why HS2 failed and public health and councils are a joke in this country. There are just too many competing interests and the taxpayer always comes last. And so any ambitious student or professional from a middle class family with half a brain knows that having a decent career where you actually make a difference with your knowledge and skills is just not going to happen here.
We spend a huge amount of money allowing people perfectly capable of working not to work; we allow poor people to come to this country without investments, and little / no skill and then subsidise them greatly, to no benefit; we let politicians - of all parties - get away with lying... utter madness. 😐
@@michaelchannon2644 So bleeding obvious that if you aren't able to discern it unaided it would be a waste of time trying to help you understand... unless you are pretending obtuseness, in which case still time wasting, and so irrelevant. 👍
Rory is a wonderful guest. Articulate, insightful, and interesting. If only our politicians could have a little of his experience and knowledge to apply to their policies. That was an enjoyable watch. I might buy his two books.
Cheap labour. All our old staff at the company I work for, were offered severance as they couldn’t reduce their pay, then they bring in new staff of less money and conditions. Nearly all immigrant labour
"Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that is measured matters" so said Einstein after coming face to face with US academic bureaucracy. This should be on the wall of every governement bureaucrat in the country. However I do think our size and population density is a key factor in making the UK work less smoothly than many other countries.
Lawyers build governments that provide jobs for more lawyers. Wow, I'm gobsmacked. Next thing you will tell me is that economists think the only way to solve our problems is with more economists. The real solution: less of all three: lawyers, economists, and government.
Did you know the ratio of managers to staff in the UK Civil Service? 1:2.5 even 1:1 in some departments. In the private sector, 1:5 ratio is too many already, lol
When the Victorians built stuff, we had a global empire and there was no China, and no one else in the world could manufacture like Britain. Now everywhere in the world can make what we invented, far far cheaper.
Without taking anything away from RS for vocalising this - hoorah for RS! - here we are: when stating the blindingly bloody obvious sounds like edgy, radically alternative thinking.
I thought the interviewer was doing a good job until the interrupting began. If you invite a guest on your show, *do not interrupt*. Rory showed great patience.
29:55 there’s nowhere left. All the affordable, commutable to London areas are massively overpriced and out of the budget for the 30 year old designer at Ogilvy hoping to start a family on a salary of £45k. After tax, adding up all the costs, it’s unfeasible - it only works if you are already from an area that surrounds London, have a family and friends there (because if you’re from north of York but live in a commuter town near London you have to add in the £100+ per person train tickets if you want to visit your parents) or - it works if you have Bank of mummy and daddy to finance a massive deposit so that your mortgage is in the pennies range. That said, I’m white English and therefore I have privilege and shouldn’t be given any help despite being from an economically deprived area in the North. I also should shut up as perhaps there’s a chance my great great great grandfather was a colonising salve trader, unlikely, but I should carry the burden of guilt and let a majority race(Africans, Indians) take over my ancestral minority (grey eyed people make up less than 3% of the global population) rainy little island….
I was experiencing almost exactly what you described: "are massively overpriced and out of the budget for the 30 year old designer" and left the UK over a decade ago. Never regretted it, was fortunate enough to work for a start up and make a lot more money. I couldn't see a path to any comfortable standard of living in SE England.
I appreciated that you let him talk - he had some intriguing perspectives, but I was also struck by how rare it is to have an uninterrupted encounter with someone interesting.
Sutherland is most interesting. I find it refreshing that he says the stuff that a lot of snobbish economists hate because they don't have any creativity at all
A major problem? I just visited a young relative during their second week at university. They are studying abroad in shabby seaside town that is past its best. I walked from the seafront to the university with my young relative. It was a quite multicultural town. I heard serval languages being spoken, including some English. There were lots of halal butchers and supermarkets with the flags of every arab nation and there were lots of Africans. A huge range of places to eat - French, Chinese, Indian, Arab etc. The place did have a pervasive but not overpowering smell of weed. And the name of this foreign city? Bournemouth.
Build a traffic free cycle route between every town and village, look what happens when we do…packed with cyclists getting fit and taking cars off the road. But as I work in construction I share your pain about public procurement, I reckon the price of any public project is at least twice the cost I could get it done for, but I have just spent a day filling in the pre-tender application for a two-day job for a local authority. Last time they just asked me my cost and told me to get on with it, this time I will have to charge 50% more to cover the paperwork time.
Britain is poor because of the explosion in house prices since 1996. And every govt and the BoE keep propping those prices up. That’s why Britain is a basket case. The rest is noise.
My marginal tax rate is currently about 60% in Scotland. All things considered. What do i do? I certainly don't do another hour of work! It is work that creates wealth. The uk is addicted to penalizing those who work in favour of indulging the lazy (...including a grotesque ownership class). My 2 cents.
How does a nurse, farmer, builder, roofer, aircraft or car technition, work remotely. We are told AI should reduce a large number of computer based remotable digital based jobs anyway
nope, AI means even more jobs for people in South Asia, it has something to do with free trade negotiations and several other issues. They will keep and grow those teams in the future.
It doesn't. One thing Rory misunderstands is that most remote working is by public sector bureaucrats who think sitting at a computer dignifies their pointless degrees. Any more of it will only encourage more people to want to work in a similar publicly funded role and they'll be a supply-side increase in even more such public sector jobs. This will also lead to a dearth of labour for useful jobs and yet more immigration to plug the gap. It's a downward spiral.
After I raised up to 325k trading with her I bought a new House and a car here in the states 🇺🇸🇺🇸 also paid for my son's surgery (Oscar). Glory to God.shalom.
It is regrettable that while the most acknowledged ingredient in ageing is the dramatic rise of profound loneliness yet the increasing sense of isolation emerging for younger people working from home is not considered to be a significant danger to the overall welfare of current society.
The country should be run by engineers, scientists and doctors. Career politicians should be banned - they should have worked in a small or medium sized business for at least 15 years beforehand. All the clever financial instruments should be highly regulated too, like hedge funds.
For once a quite good Spectator piece. We need more scientists and engineers in politics and drive things by evidence and systems thinking and not rhetoric. As for the Treasury they are more often the problem than the solution. More than half the country has not been harnessed so its not very surprising we have underperformed for many decades under red and blue. Our investment and productivity is crap, our infrastructure is pathetic, too many of our companies milk assets, our health is poor, the north has never recovered from being stripped bare etc. The facts have been perfectly clear for a long time but no-one actually tackles it. The Conservatives aren't the answer, they thought leaving the single market was a good idea. Labour could be a hope but so far one wonders if they will bottle it. Reform are not the answer with failed Conservative ideas on steroids.
40:18 "I think there are just more good ideas that you can post rationalize than there are good ideas that you can pre rationalize". I really like that quote.
Please consult a psychologist, psychiatrist and a sociologist about having people never get out of the house 🤦 it might be good for the infrastructure and the atmosphere and for achieving net zero but we're heading for a mental breakdown if you do this.
Why would it necessitate that people never leave the house? Also, what would the psychologist, psychiatrist and sociologist have to say about spending half of your life sat in traffic or on crowded public transport just to get to sit at a desk in a sterile office surrounded by people you tolerate at best?
There are many reasons Britain is getting poorer, but the main one due to mass migration of predominantly low or no income migrants. Nearly 1 in 5 working age people in Britain is not working, only a small percentage will be supporting themselves from savings.
I disagree - if you invite masses of people fom developing countries to take up good, middle class desk jobs which used to pay good money, putting benchmark of 21-26k, it is disastrous for the economy and for the treasury. On the other hand, hiring smart, educated and motivated people to do real jobs such as plumbing, farming and construction, even if you classify the jobs as 'low skilled' with poor pay, those are important jobs bringing real value and improving the quality of life in the UK.
The biggest problem in Britain is that we want everything to cost nothing. We do important infastucture work on the cheap, we want free public education on the cheap, we want free healthcare on the cheap. We don't want to pay taxes but we want all the services. To do everything on the cheap we ignore maintenance in favour of neglect and call it a saving.
Totally agree with Rory’s comment about mobile connectivity, just come back from Portugal had great mobile service through out, in fact it’s a great Country generally. Back here nothing works properly, from endless road works/ traffic, litter and crap service.
Basically we combine the worst bits of left and right without the good bits (i.e. our right wing party fails to encourage business and investment and promote order and efficiency, while our left wing party fails to invest in useful state capacity and pull those at the bottom out of poverty)
Absolutely right. Both parties are too scared to complete the tasks they are actually best suited to, out of fear of losing the floating voters.
@@JoshWiniberg That's a very interesting idea for why political dysfunction seems to be on the rise in general. Hadn't thought about this.
We have lived through a long period where the right wing politicians had time to attempt their strategy and have demonstrated how visionless they are. The rejection of the interests of business were palpable with Johnson and Truss.
Will the UK electorate give the left wing party enough time to deliver theirs which, superficially, appears to follow the line of thinking that Rory espouses?
Well said 👏.
Too much Blairite focus group reliance. No internal compass, no beliefs only a desire for power perhaps?
Focus groups foc us, tbh.
Didn't Nick Clegg block the development of a nuclear power station because it would be finished until the mid 2020s? If he hadn't been so short sighted it would be almost completed by now!
The French power station by EDF was 12 years late and 4 x over budget, it shut its self down after one day. Seems it shut down again.
I'm not sure that you can put the blame on Clegg when he was in effect under the thumb of the main coalition party. It's really difficult to say.
@@dandare1001 Not really. Nick Clegg literally said there's no point building a new power station in the 2010s because it won't go into operation until the 2020s. The very definition of short term thinking.
What's the Half-Life of spent nuclear fuel? Once it's spent you have to take care of it for 25,000 years. Who will pay for that and where will we store it safely? Also it piles up so where are you going to store all of the new spent fuel going forward.
@@cat_glove Firstly - between 1,000-10,000 year nuclear waste's radioactivity diminishes to that of the original ore. We know how to store it safely, and the vast majority of it is recyclable - the waste itself is easy to store. We've known this since the 1970s. There are plenty of resources available online about the myths regarding nuclear power.
“Our incapacity to build is just an embarrassment” - absolutely spot on. Imagine if the Victorians came back now and witnessed the state of UK infrastructure. They would laugh at us.
I suspect tears would be more likely.
That's because any public works are seized upon by greedy unions and equally greedy construction firms, who double and triple the cost of everything with needless bureaucracy and planned overruns.
Hundreds or maybe thousands of people died in numerous accidents both during construction and after. Navvies lived on subsistence wages in shanty towns in the Peak District to build the canals and railways. Yes arguably mechanisation will alleviate much of this, but have some perspective
@Fishstickification sounds like and big project in 2020s Qatar/Dubai/Saudi
@@Fishstickification Millions die from disease and malnutrition due to poverty. Have some perspective.
Rory is one the most authentic, astute and adroit commentators on all things economic and social cohesion I’ve seen in a very long time. I love him 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Yeah, he's amazing. Imagine telling Brits if you're not wealthy to move to the suburbs, sort you'll have to tolerate non Whites and plenty of noise. Haha, he's a typical free market traitor.
I love him too! I regret not finding him sooner.
I think he's the only one you've seen. This guy has been plastered everywhere.
Uk need Chinese investment😂
Because we centered to much power in the city rather than investing in industries that add value. Also our Universities have become a joke.
University courses like Gender and Queer Studies are clearly adding huge value. 😂😂😂😂
Totally agree.
@@edbop as a mature student in his forties studying an undergraduate program in chemistry I would have to disagree with you that all parts of all universities are a joke.
Our Universities are great (Lecturer, here). It's too easy to single out the odd course, but they generally add huge value to the economy and attract students from all over the world
@@bobhob35 if you want to nitpick - our universities are becoming jokes due to individual departments accomodating ridiculous subjects or censoring existing ones, i believe the term "anglo-saxon" has been removed from courses at Cambridge to "de-colonise the curriculum" whatever that means 🤷
Rory makes sense. He understands complexity. His reference to magic is his man on the street way of talking complexity. As in Complex Systems. Economists, lawyers and Politicians think in reductionist terms. Worse still, consulting firms hate complexity as they can’t scales cookie cutter solutions and rip the taxpayer off. Worse, they attempt quash the idea of complexity.
@@peterweston1356 Bravo.
@@Ghurshah thank you
I’m British living in Chile and whilst this country has its issues - I can’t put into words how much it’s changed my life living in a country where if someone or something needs to get something done - they by and large, get it done. I can’t remember the last time I filled out a form or had to be on hold during a telephone call.
From what I've heard that's mostly thanks to the reforms Pinochet carried out in the 80s, and which the current elites are working to wreck.
On the individual level, you can have that in the UK as-well it's just a case of having the contacts, lol but i suppose things are less formal in Chile, less regulations, less costs associated with those regulations that are passed onto the consumer.
E.g if you need a car fixed in the UK or a plumber or your heating looked at holy shit, prepare to be frustrated and mugged off
I am retired, but if I was 21 years old I would learn Spanish and apply to move to Chile. A beautiful country which I visited many times on shipping business.
But my business visits turned into a wonderful experience due to the courtesy of the people and the beauty of the countryside. High rises are blighting Santiago (as almost everywhere else in the world) but when I visited there many of the urban areas were also very pleasant.
Welcome to the Americas. We kicked Europe out for a reason.
Yup after moving to the UK 17 years ago, after my first 6 months I was gobsmacked that they hadn't blown themselves up accidentally due to incompetence (at one of the nuclear power plants for example). And every time I have a problem and have to call customer service I want to cry because I know it will waste hours, be entirely frustrating and get nothing resolved. Also every company I've worked for in this country except one has been an incredible shit show. BT being one of the worst. I have no idea how they have lasted as long as they have in the free market except for the fact they have Openreach.
This country also has to reinvent the wheel every time! Heaven forbid they see what is working elsewhere and adapt that.
Don't even get me started on the rediculous house buying process.
I find these PPE 'degrees' hilarious. So, on average, you had one year of philosophy, politics, and economy each.
So you hardly know anything about three areas. Brilliant. Go run the country now.
Unbelievable.
All just a big club
1 year of the 3 then 2 years of your chosen 2 was how it was run before. Probably the same before. Regardless, you'd have thought at least a PhD would be required to run a country's economy.
I prefer the previous lot and their clutch of PPE certificates than the current lot and their Lawyers degrees.
I'm surprised such a degree can even exist, usually you need to study for 6 years of which at most 2 are actually focused on your degree before you get your degree.
@@culturespot75If the bad lawyers who run things did not cherry pick the economics advice and misapply it, Rory’s spiel here wouldn’t have made sense.
My greatest concern is how to recover from all these economic and global troubles and stay afloat especially with the political power tussle going on in Britain.
Inflation already have a significant impact on individuals and their cost of living. As a result, it can cause negative market sentiment. It is important for individuals and businesses to find ways to navigate and potentially mitigate the effects of inflation on their finances. The current economic climate, including underperformance of financial markets due to fear of inflation, has led to a decrease in the value of my portfolio. I would appreciate any recommendations on how to potentially increase returns during this market downturn.
Stocks are pretty unstable at the moment, but if you do the right math, you should be just fine. Bloomberg and other finance media have been recording cases of folks gaining over $100k just in a matter of weeks/couple months, so I think there are a lot of wealth transfer in this downtime if you know where to look.
Such market uncertainties are the reason I don’t base my market judgements and decisions on rumours and here-says, got the best of me 2020 and had me holding worthless position in the market, I had to revamp my entire portfolio through the aid of an advisor, before I started seeing any significant results happens in my portfolio, been using the same advisor and I’ve scaled up $450k within 2 years, whether a bullish or down market, both makes for good profit, it all depends on where you’re looking.
@@williamDonaldson432 Impressive can you share more info?
@@williamDonaldson432 Your advisor must be really good, I hope it's okay to inquire if you're still collaborating with the same advisor and how I can get in touch with them?
The world has changed. My grandmother told me that when she got married in 1932 she gave up her job in a local shop because it would bring shame on my grandfather for not earning enough to support her. Today a woman taking a 2 year break from her career is seen as a problem.
Universal Credit rules force single mothers into looking for 30 hour a week work when their youngest child is two years old. A mother not working 30 hours a week is now considered lazy. 50 years ago the concern was latch key kids whose came home from school to an empty house.
The change in attitude is amazing.
The difference is WHO's attitude....fifty years ago it was friends and neighbours and relatives....in your current-day example it is the government.
I was born in the 1950s, when I had my son in 1983, I worked all through my pregnancy, only had three weeks off. I did run a business from home until he was nearly 9 months old, but had no choice to return to a full-time job to support us both. My son went to nursery full time. When I was a child, my grandmother looked after me so that my mum could do a part-time job, she was born in the 30s. Dad wasn't happy it about it but she chose to have some of her own money to spend on how she chose. She made many of our clothes too. She would go to jumble sales, buy jumpers and unpick the wool and then knit it into jumpers for her children. She would make dresses for me too. The motto being, waste not, want not. So yes the attitude changed with the throwaway society.
In the mid 1960s my (educated and intelligent) Mother said to my Father that she would like to return to work, just part-time, now that I (an only child) was in my teens. My Father's response? "I'm sorry, darling, I couldn't possibly allow that. My colleagues might think I didn't earn enough to support the family, and I would be humiliated". My Mother's response to my Father's response ? "Oh yes, I see what you mean. I hadn't thought of it that way. I shan't be able to do that, then". So, after a discussion, they decided that she would stand for election to the City Council (for which, in those days, you were not paid) which she did, successfully. And my Father supported her totally, both in her campaign for election and by cooking his own tea, and mine, on the occasions when she had to go to a meeting. She became a well-regarded City Councillor and everyone was happy with the outcome. Totally different world.
I have lived in Japan for over 20 years. The GDP figures may not look so good, but they have nailed down what Rory refers to as ‘the experience’. The people would not accept anything less. And you can buy a house outside Tokyo/Osaka relatively easily. Focusing on economic metrics alone does not equate to a good quality of life. Entirely concur.
Yes, it doesn't tell the whole picture. Sacrificing GDP to improve family life for example would be seen as a bad thing in pure numerical terms. Rory made a good observation in that if a metric becomes a target then it loses its value as a metric, I definitely think that applies to GDP
Yep. INCREDIBLE place in many ways. And when you say "you can buy a house" people here wouldn't believe it. You can get something run down in a beautiful rural area or a nice quiet urban neighbourhood for 15k. And something modest and nice for 50k.
250k gets you a big house on a decent amount of land that would cost you over a million in the UK.
Japan has a fantastic quality of life - walkable cities, high quality transport and public services etc etc- but decades of economic stagnation has left the last 2-3 generations largely bereft of ambition or social engagement- the %s of young people who have never dated and barely leave their homes- financially supported by their parents or PT jobs - had grown exponentially- the birthrate is in steady decline and immigration is minimal - it’s an economy in a very elegant and slow death spiral
@@Daniel-rp7nb Ultimately, Japan is only somewhat worse off demographically than Europe, but the quality of life is worlds better. They didn't let in ridiculous numbers of Muslim "refugees" to form rape gangs, their infrastructure is top notch, their tax burden is lower than most of Europe, cost of living is really low given the typical wages. Life is getting harder there to some extent, but far less so than in other developed countries of late.
They also have public toilets everywhere
I moved to Spain some 35 years ago.😢 Spain at that time seemed much less efficient than Britain. But how things have changed. In my small town (population 24,000), the state has built two new secondary schools, a new courthouse, a new police station, a new motorway, a huge new industrial estate, a new swimming pool and sports centre, some 20 km of bike lanes, a new hospital, and almost everyone has 1Gb fibre optic internet. A similar British town would have received next to nothing. In addition, childcare and university for my two children was free. 😊
Lol. Depends which part of Spain, same as in UK there are vast areas of Spain Extremadura and parts of andulucia which have some of the poorest areas in Europe
Plenty of areas in UK are far better than Spain
Thats probably what people mean by 'less efficient'
In the UK 'efficient' means build something, then run it to 150% capacity.
I remember when stansted first opened in the early 90s. It was lovely, spacious, quiet, empty. The opposite to the grim, dark, crowded corridors of Heathrow or Gatwick. But from a business POV, the stansted of 1995 was probably a disaster. Under-utilized. Now its an absolute zoo, just like every other airport in England. But probably a right money spinner for our social betters.
We need to stop looking at things from a business POV & start looking at them from a quality of life one.
I was at Murcia airport earlier this year. That was how I remember stansted in the early 90s. Quiet & empty. How I like it, but probably not very profitable.
I first visited England (NW M25 area, mostly, but also London, of course) in the late 80s. Back when, I fell in love with it's infraestructure, specially, but not only, the tube. I was there several summers, then lapsed until mid 2000s. I found the stagnation quite upsetting and unexpected. From tube reliability, to newspaper quality to... And, quite often, stagnation would actually have been a step up.
Take care
Tourism is what took Spain out of poverty, now they're telling tourists to leave.
@@KimThomas-vp4vm That... lacks a bunch of nuance.
"Spain" is not telling tourists to leave. A non-negligible part of the population is. Part of the reason is that mainline Spanish politicians seems to be unable to hold more than a single idea in their pretty heads.
Now, tourism did, indeed, help Spain out of the mire it was. It wasn't, by a looong shot, the only factor, but it sure did help. As publicity, if nothing else. However, any monoculture is a danger. One of the reasons the 2008 crisis (and, kindof, the CoViD one) affected Spain so hard is, precisely, it's overreliance on tourism and home development. It's still dangerously so reliant.
In the meanwhile, Spanish politicians have refused to build a decent coastal merchant railway on the Southern and Eastern coasts, pushed against water links to France, 5G testbeds... If it worked before don't EVER change it seems to be their motto. Don't even get distracted by new ideas. Just in case.
Now, adding insult to injury, there's tourism and tourism. And that's something that both critics and defenders seem to miss. There's a difference between family tourism and having to control a bunch of teens while you scrape their friend off the walkway. *Several* places in Spain are *notorious* for that. There's a difference between a hotel and a battery of flats that price most (and I do mean 'most') of the workforce out of a home. Not a house, a simple 650 sq feet apartment. I've had friends in apartments less than 600 sq ft, 7 people. 500-ish for 5. And no reasonable prospects for a better option that allows them both a job within driving distance and beds for their families. 100 yards away, a whole building got turned into "luxury apartments". Basically, hotels. Real luxury apartments are not in that neighbourhood.
So, yes, people are a tad pissed out. And some poeple will defend *all* tourism, at *all* costs, while others will attack *all* tourism. Meanwhile, the common citizen manages, somehow. But right now a 600-ish apartment rents for 100% of the median income.
Take care
City of London financial elites have transferred a great deal of money from the economy to overseas trusts. This has created a number of problems for the domestic UK economy.
Keynsian reverse multiplier.
And Kate Andrews, the "think tanks" she used to work for, a sizeable number of MPs, our right wing media class are all part of a group who would like a whole lot more of this, they're just not saying it out loud.
What's the root cause? Taxes. Very uncompetitive and high tax rates.
@@lecaprice2572 I don’t agree. It’s quite apparent that the decision making is by lawyers and economics who don’t think on the upside, always the downside. You ever had a lawyer tell you anything other than ‘if you do this, the risk is this’. Economists run projects through their standard models, which were all developed and refined since the Industrial Revolution. If they existed before then, nothing would have happened.
@@ManForToday Horseshit. It's the structures and loopholes that exist that allow them to avoid taxes.
I like Rory Sutherland but I can't help but feel that The Spectator's values don't align with the average citizen of the UK.
Perhaps one option is to unwind the legal and managerial shackles built up since 1997 or before.
The universities would not wear it.
Kate Andrews looked decidedly uncomfortable when Rory was describing how the UK has protected the position of pensioners to the point that working people are paying for things they are unable to ever benefit from. She was equally quiet when he argued for more flexible working.
Obviously, many people work in jobs where being on-site is essential but those in office environments can be managed remotely with great effectiveness and good productivity.
The benefits of reduced travel pressure and a more even spread of housing demand make absolute sense in 2024.
@@VinceLammas something to do with the demographic of people who read the spectator, neither the conservatives or Labour are willing to pull the plug on the triple lock and the planning code.
@@VinceLammas
She's part of the institute of economics affairs.
She's working to make that liz truss' budget (the IEAs budget) will get another chance and the idea of ignoring economists warnings works very well towards this.
I guess doubling down on trickle down economics that's has plainly not worked is very much believing in magic.
@@Pr1ckst1ck yep. Her economic ideas are a joke and it's no surprise she's employed by the spectator. I literally cringed when I realised she was the host. I've seen her on TV making ridiculous arguments. If it were up to her we'd have some sort of American hellscape and no NHS.
If everyone who didn’t need to be working in person, worked from home. You could convert a HUGE number of business centres into housing very quickly and thanks to the location of most current office areas, with the exception of schools, they would have fantastic local infrastructure already place! Restaurants, shops, healthcare, banks etc.
Bingo
The tax system has all the benefits for the asset owner and very little for the productive worker.
@@abrin5508 this! 💯💯💯💯
And the welfare system has all the benefits for the welfare layabout...but very little for the productive worker.
Basically, work does not pay in the UK. At all. You're taxed like hell and get very few government services -- those are saved for "refugees" and lazy chavs.
Well one of the bigest employers now is the state and the public sector is where our productivity problems are. Presumably above inflation to the PS with zero productivity gains has been a win from your perspective? As a taxpayer I am less sure.
This is true, but the hurdle for taxing asset owners need to be tempered by the value of their assets. People who save rather than spend their whole lives are becoming targets and we have to appreciate small time landlords are being pushed out of the market and we will end up with large scale institutionalised landlords. I very much agree with the South East property market issues but head north and you will find property that is massively more affordable.
Britain isn't poor it's massively unequal
@@michaelsmedley7519 So, being equally poor is the ideal?
@@abschmit But that's been the British mental attitude since World War 2. If you have something and I don't have it, it's far better neither of us have anything; that's 'fair' in Britain. Even in the 1970s an American think tank wrote something like "An American workingman walks down the street and a Cadillac drives past. The workingman says 'One day I'll have two Cadillacs.' A British workingman walks down the street and a Rolls Royce drives past. The man says 'That man has a Rolls Royce. One day I'll bring him down to my level.'" It *is* the British attitude that that's fair.
@@WilliamSmith-mx6ze Another puzzle piece falls into place. No wonder they are poorer than Mississippi.
@WilliamSmith-mx6ze I don't think the ruling classes think like the average working man.. the uk is poor because the wealthy few have stripped every ounce of profit from the land...
The wealthy are fine living in the countryside and the poor suffer in the run down city areas...
@@abschmit no but having a less unequal society is
@Spectator: I would love you to write a column with Rory Sutherland on "Why England is the only country in Europe that doesn't have an international airport connected directly by rail to other cities. Or why all our rail networks only lead to one city? or why the majority of all the roads go towards one city. Or why two tiers on economies in place set by the minium wage rule.
These would be heavily constructive conversations to have in the UK on a practical level!
I prefer this Rory. Much better than the Stewart one.
What about Rory Storm?
But they're both okay really, compared to most political and social commentators.
The Conservative Party would be in a better place if it was led by these kind of conservatives.
I'm not a huge fan of the Stewart flavour of Rory, but his work with Give Directly is commendable. His recent ted talk is eye-opening, and well worth a watch.
he has a vape in his hand but did not hit it once the entire 40 minute interview. respect
@@tacokoneko 15:28 He waits until he’s listening, there may be a bit of editing in play too😅
I like Rory Sutherland, hes a clever perceptive person..
Very true. It's also the absolute cascade of ideas and perspectives he generates that excites me. Whether or not they're all going to hold water doesn't really matter because there's plenty of ones that will, and even with the ones that don't, excellent plans B, C and D etc. will get generated in response.
It's taken me far too long to realise how exceedingly awesome he is
Today I learned he thinks air fryers are magic. But he is a remarkable and valuable thinker.
I only came across him last week. I've been down a Rory Sutherland rabbit hole ever since lol.
Looks like andy serkis too. Gollum actor
We made money in the past, through manufacturing. We raised living standards. We out- souced manufacturing, destroying jobs and innovation. Those who control the existing assetts get rich. Those without assets get poorer.
London is an international money making machine that the rest of the populace is drip fed stimulus for there food. Thats the UK in a nutshell. Why complete the HS2 ? well they literally dont need to rest of the country, in fact they hope that the rest of the country just stop reproducing .
Those without assets will often spend their income exclusively on products which do not benefit them in long term. Like mobile phones contract, designer clothes, fast food,tattoos, luxurious holidays etc.
@@CommunityofEngineers The manufacturing that made money in the past was greatly assisted by a colonial global order that was one sided.
Economic Value Added is far more Today than simply physical assets!
I used to live in spain. Feels like uk infrastructure is built by a mean accountant in comparison to Spain’s.
Wasn't a lot of Spain's paid for by the EU though?
Absolutely everything in the UK for the past 20 years was overseen by mean accountants. Whether public projects or private businesses. Ironically and counterintuitively, mean accountants and lawyers are also the reason everything costs a fortune but is still crud, because the mean accountants and lawyers pay themselves insane amounts but pay the capable people doing the work very little.
Yes. It's called the Treasury.
And yet the Spectator seems to support that party most against such spending. It is no surprise that the more libertarian a society, the worse the public infrastructure.
@@chrisrobinson7546 Exactly. They pissed a lot of it up the wall, because it was "free".
I enjoy Sutherland so much -clear, concise and brilliant.
Absolutely- great free thinker.
I wish he could finish a sentence without asking if it's ok
@r1c4ard He's not asking. Saying OK at the end of a sentence is a psychological trick to make people believe what the person is saying is more a fact than a opinion.
Something the Spectator won't admit: Funny how when Britain had the most 'bureaucracy', i.e. very strong unions, nationalised industries, generous welfare, and extensive council housing, it actually did better than today's neo-liberal nightmare. Taxes on the rich were higher, inequality was low, the economy was doing extremely well, and the arts flourished. Compare that with today and you'll see why the period between 1950 and 1975 was considered a golden age of capitalism.
@@scallamander4899 the 'bureaucracy' you celebrate started well enough because it was rebuilding a war-ravaged nation, but ultimately led to the 70s...do you remember the latter 70s? I do, and it was a complete disaster.
The Three Day Week? In Place of Strife? More a bronze age, than a golden . . . but socially, culturally more interesting, at least.
@@stevemoore8745 It's definitely right not to romanticise the time period. I just think it's worth drawing on to counter the assumptions we have about the state and capitalism today, wouldn't you agree?
@@scallamander4899 The tax burden and thus "bureaucracy" is higher now than any other time post-war, hence our decline. We won't get economic growth and improved living standards again until the government take of GDP is greatly reduced, and of course we also have a sane energy policy.
@@scallamander4899 I think Rory's premise still holds. Even in that bronze age of state control the 'bureaucracy' was much lighter, less risk averse.
*People should remember: poverty is not an accident, a coincidence or an inevitability. It is something which is manufactured by the ruling class, that's why investment is the key to sustaining your financial longevity*
You're absolutely right, you've remind me of what someone once said "The mind is the man, the poor is in it and the rich is it too". This sentence is the secret of most successful investors. I once attended similar and ever since then been waxing strong financially, and i most tell you the truth..investment is the key that can secure your family future.
Putting our time and effort in activities and investments that will yield a profitable return in the future is what we should be aiming for. Success depends on the actions or steps you take to achieve it. Show me a man without investment and I'll tell you how long it takes to go bankrupt. Investing creates a safe haven for the future. With the right investment choice that has at least a 10% minimum risk and with the advice of an expert, profits and interest is guaranteed.
I agree with you had a senior colleague at work who was doing well but never had an investment. Unfortunately he lost his job and went from living a comfortable life to hardship. There would had been something to fall back on if he had an investment
that's why I always urge everyone to start investing somewhere now no matter how small, this is literally the time for that, forget material things, don't get tempted,i became more better the moment i realized this.
exactly! That's my major concern and what kind of profitable business or investment can someone do with the current rise in economic downturn
Half way through this, and I've agreed with most of what he said. If you have always lived in and run a business in the UK you wont get the profound sense of just how bureaucratic and f'd up it is until you move to the USA and start again. I did, and couldn't go back. Everything from business rates, VAT, accounting, filings at Companies House, IR35, etc. is a sham that creates jobs for worthless, well-paid scroungers who work 35 hr weeks, get 6 weeks paid leave, and then retire on final salary pensions paid for by people like me. The self-employed are also left to navigate the City of London scum selling corrupt financial products that hide undisclosed liabilities.
The UK is a great country, with great people, and rotten self-interested, woke, government. How else would we have reached the point where the Tavistock Clinic was able to pursue voodoo science. How else would we spend a 29 billion GBP on Hinkley Point C when the same plant costs 9 billion in the USA, and how else would we end up with HS2 being cancelled because it's too costly to bring the UK into a modern world where high speed rail links major cities across Europe.
The conveyor belt from Oxbridge to the Cabinet is one reason we are so badly served, but the real reason for Britain's decline lies in British culture itself. We have been divided by Class, and then fed the Soylent Green of BBC and Channel 4. Millions sit and watch shit like East Enders and Coronation street when they should be out in their communities talking about how to make the things around them better. Go to any council estate and what do you see? Filthy streets, unkempt gardens, rotting window frames, chav cars and gangs of thugs. You can renovate houses but you cant renovate people.
Don’t think I could have said that better!
I'd agree with most of what you say but working a 35 hour week? Try "working" in a local council, 5 hours of actual work would be good going.
3682 Well stated !
Exceptional post sir. I might add that the deliberate closure of Grammar Schools and the Ponzi Scheme that is Higher Education are also factors. The NHS is not only a drain on the finances, but encourages people to play fast and loose with their own health. Then there's Wide open Borders.....how many economically inactive people have been allowed to move here this past 20 years ? Too many is the glib answer.....about 5 MILLION too many.
Brilliant comment 👍
I have just spent a full day and one-half trying to resolve misbilling by Opus Energy on 8 of my properties. A day and a half! The beauroucracy and corruption is out of control.
And I'm just a tiddler business. Go to HS2 or similar and it is eye-watering. As for 4G etc, I sailed down the coast of Papua New Guinea in 2014 and got full 4G a mile off the coast!
I still don't get that here in rural Worcestershire, ten years later.
@@WatchingtheWorldBurning ‘on eight of my properties’ - found the problem
You're the problem
What a joke we are, and it's all down to our badly managed economy thanks to poor political choices and priorities , always not what we voted for.
@@matthewv4170 LOL.......and they have very high mountains in PNG with which to mount an antenna !
Stop moaning, you are rich and privileged.
I was going to say, given the £106Bn spend on the pointless bauble that is/was HS2, it’s demented that smaller scale, but obviously far more impactful projects like 5G, run-of-the-mill east-west trains, fibre optic broadband etc. are bureaucratically shelved. It’s like a friend who buys 10k of frivolous tech they never use, then only buys a starter on a night out.
Oh and let’s not forget the societally damaging £800Bn on furlough and rushed-through covid contracts… that one was just waved through, nullifying perhaps hundreds of years of supposedly beneficial penny pinching at the stroke of a pen.
Anyway, around 3.30 you cover this point, and better, so I’ll shut up and listen!
The money our governments waste is unbelievable. We need businessmen running the country not bs lawyers
How about goung aftervtge £25 billuon furlough fraud
Not only GDp is used as a proxy of happiness, but it is NOT even a measure of wealth. It is mainly a measure of expenditure (mostly sustained by high and evergrowing level of debt).
Absolute gold Rory. Comprehensive, insightful, practical and solutions-oriented. Good bit of telly.
This stuff isn't a secret, we just have a useless elite (on both sides) that prefers managed decline to actual leadership and vision (which is why they loved being a rubber stamp for the EU, which is of course the same managed decline on a continenet wide level).
Return to financial discipline, slash current spending in favour of capital investment by government, similarly incentivize private investment and private capital markets, then massively deregulate the private sector. Add some genuine reform of the state (full school choice, mostly abolish the army and RAF and roll their spending into the Navy since we're an island, abolish many government departments)
Many EU countries don't have the UK's problems though, so this managed decline isn't a phenomenon everywhere
The decline is intentional. they know what is happening and they simply go along with it.
Managed Decline should be the official slogan of all the political parties
@@tomo_xD True, I just mean the EU as a whole (and those countries are succeeding despite the EU, not because of it)
Ah handing more even power and money to the weathy elites and fkin the plebs.. what could go wrong?
The richest 50 families in the UK have seen their wealth increase over the past 20 years to over half a trillion.
Not sure how that’s relevant to the points raised, and in some cases simple compounding will do that
That is only a useful statistics if you tell us what their worth was 20 years ago.
You are asking the wrong question. Wealth has transferred to corporation. One of Britain richest man James Dyson is worth £20billion. Microsoft is worth $3000billion. Google $2000 billion. The US has more billionaire and rich companies.
As an engineer working in the UK water sector this really resonates. Although much of the blame does lie with investor dividends and profits, the other side to the story is highly under reported in the press and thats very frustrating. The sector is very over regulated financially from central london by economists and lawrers. We often find ourselves having to undertake cost-benefit analysis exercises for fixing anything, even critical infrastructure and components! Utterly bonkers. Its really exacerbated the problem of lack of investment and high water bills.
In my view you need to connect 4 to 5 million people in North England so they can commute within an hour of one another to give a counter weight to London and diversification of the economy.
The 'Green' agenda should be reshored manufacturing powered by renewables. Just 'Green' energy alone is half a con still importing from countries using coal.
@@karlarcher8773 that’s a great idea 💡 I wish they did
@@karlarcher8773 connecting the north with highly functioning, high speed rail should seem the obvious choice for any politician looking to deliver true long term economic growth
Renewables are a waste of space, you can't build a stable power grid on sunbeams and fairy farts.
Completely agree that transport infrastructure is ruined by bean counters who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. For example HS2 is still worth it even at $200BN for one simple reason, it is the future transport spine for a 2TN economy that will last for 200 years. If you work out the productivity output provided by that infrastructure you are talking about fractions of a single digit percentage if cost to benefit….
It might have been worth it had the track gone from Leeds/Manchester via Birmingham to Central London as planned. The last iteration before they scrapped it was Birmingham to Outer London and that would still have cost £200 billion and being a complete waste of money.
Anyone who studied HS2 would know the project should have never have seen the light of day! There was NEVER a valid business case for it at the outset, long before costs multiplied several times and they cut the route and decided to start it from a common in Action instead of Euston! It is now a railway nobody would want to use! What's worse is that far from increasing capacity to the north , it will reduce capacity because the HS2 trains when they run north of Birmingham on the west coast mainline have fewer seats than the current intercity trains on the west coast main line!! We are spending billions to reduce rail capacity and even the journey to Birmingham won't be quicker because it won't be stating from Euston. HS2 is a total and utter disaster and waste of billions better spent elsewhere.
The problem is that it wouldn't have cost 200 billion if you removed the army of civil servants, bureaucrats and lawyers that come with government projects
@@oscarlingwood3486 A clause in every single contract for HS2 required every contractor to engage in DEI and DEI training I believe. That alone added considerable sums of money I believe.
Robert Holness was chair of HS1 he applied for the same position in HS2 and was told by a senior bureaucrat he didn’t have the right qualifications 🤣
The main reason we are poor as a country is because our assets have been sold off by a bunch of incompetent self-seeking old Etonians.
But at least French pension funds are doing well.
Oh forgot to mention Brexit. But we aren't supposed to mention Brexit.
@@stevep4131Re Tony Benn and Peter Shore on the damage done joining that club
The rich get richer...... because the government favours the rich maybe?
Rory talks A LOT of sense here. I particularly like the government not doing marketing only PR. It feels to me that we (the UK) is going backwards given a general lack of vision, looking far too short term and no aspiration to do better. Hard work is becoming less and less appealing, the sense you can't get on in life if you go the extra mile, take risks, put yourself out there. You can of course, but the incentives are becoming increasingly eroded through such things as a broken property market and socialist tax system = tax on aspirations...
Always a pleasure to listen to Rory's insights.
The smartest engineer can manage an economy better than the smartest economist. The problem is none of the smartest kids we knew in school ever became politicians, lawyers or economists, these are entire fields filled with people who are mediocre.
When I worked abroad I spent 10% of my working time on administration. Now working in England, I spend 40% of my time on administration. Get rid of your medieval Coroners Courts and stop NHS, teachers and police recording every little thing they do.
but then, where would all those graduates go? you would also loose leverage in free trade deal with India, becuase that is where those back office jobs are being peformed.
You have to micromanage if you reduce the States role in doing anything.
@@ScruffyTubbles Not in AUS
@@ScruffyTubbles No-one ever needs to micromanage. its just a control freak's neurosis.
You should try Spain where 95% of your time is admin and red tape.
Because the ideal of British society is effective feudalism.
Theres a reason elites dont like to invest in the skills and education of the masses.
When are the "Experts" going to tell us the truth that the UK desperately needs Industrialists, manufacturers and agronomists. It does not need a surfeit of bean counters. "Export or Die!!"
I've read the article, and it perfectly captures and expresses the thoughts I’ve been reflecting on for months.
Thank you
Rory is always on it. Unfortunately, we don't get a reply from Kate Andrews who is a professional economist. She is wrong about GDP. It is productivity that counts.
Gdp is productivity (and also consumption).
Kate is wrong about a lot of things. She is part of the problem class that Rory was railing against in the interview.
30 years ago, Britain had beautiful train lines everywhere between villages and had 18 nuclear power plants along with many canals. If we’d had marketeers then instead of economists, people might have realised what they could lose and the consequences financially and environmentally and in terms of lifestyle and jobs.
The reasons we’re poor are myriad, but ultimately it’s because we choose to be. We’ve forgotten why we shouldn’t be, become distracted and/or don’t have the will to not be. We remember periodically and do something about it. Thankfully I think we’re just starting to remember again.
Amazing Interview. I had no idea his political and economical insights are as good as his marketing stuff.
Nice trolling.
Need Chinese investment😂
Some great points, I've been saying for years that it is getting almost impossible to build things in our country, Clarksons farm, bless him for showing it, highlights the stupid bureaucracy we suffer from. Our agencies, Environment, HSE etc are preventing progress, and fighting with each other, to restrict advancement in our country. I applaud the genius who introduced the ISO systems, totally useless, employ thousands, but do nothing, however you need them to get a contract adding to costs. Funnily enough just yesterday I was talking to a Dutchman who has an English wife and has retired to the UK. He asked me why we are so obsessed with making laws, but worse obeying them? he said his country signed them all but just ignored them, a good point, he's right.
Colonial mentality make laws for natives and fudge them for the elites 😂
I applied for ‘Building Regs’ (didn’t need planning permission) for a large outbuilding in my back garden, for the foundation I used ‘Ground Screws’ which are basically metal piles, which are better for the environment than say a concrete base, requires no digging as they ‘screw’ straight into the ground and can be removed with little effort, the main issues I had with getting this built was the council ‘not liking’ this new and innovative way of working, the whole project was postponed for about 2.5 years because the council gave me lots of trouble and requests. I thought i was doing the right thing by spending a bit more money on something that was better for the environment. Seems not, the council would have been much happier if I had 10 ton of hardcore delivered and removed 10 tons of dirt then filled it with concrete with metal rebar…. Seems totally bonkers. Eventually I did get the work passed, but it was at a bigger cost and much more trouble than it was worth.
Sorry about the rant….
Everything was way harder than it needed to be.
My sister inlaw worked as a nurse for the NHS, she told me two very simple things that cause the NHS to have an inflated budget. For example, let’s say a the staff break room needs a new microwave, a cheap one will cost £50 (for arguments sake) but she said, you cannot just put one in the staff room, once purchased, it has to be checked for health and safety reasons, then checked again for energy efficiency and PAT tested again. So after all the checks and pre-checks the cost ends up being 4 x what the thing should actually have to cost.
Another issue the NHS has.
To dispose of rubbish (normal food, packaging like at home) it costs about £50 per ton.
But medical wasted (in the yellow waste bins) costs £400-£500 per ton.
One issue all hospitals have is people cannot find a regular waste bin, so the nearest bin they see is a yellow medical waste bin, they then put empty cans of drink and whatever else in the medical waste bin.
So now that is disposed of as medical waste costing a FORTUNE. So this is happening up and down the country. They could save fortunes by correcting this issue. But I suppose, the waste bin is some members of the public not caring.
@@Knuckle_Sandwich_Hand_Wraps Yep, my wife was a nurse and said the same. The following I'll swear is true as I experienced it many times, and others in the same position will be nodding their heads. Someone wants something built and asks your company to do it, a simple enough task eh? I'll ignore permissions from councils, building regs and planning applications and all that are obvious, here are the not so obvious.
Do you need an archaeological survey, and worse a dig that may last years.
Will your building 'impact' (love that word) on nature?, newts, bats etc, you might be stopped, you might be delayed or have to incorporate added expensive features. Do you need an environmental impact assessment?
Are your materials sustainably sourced with a low carbon footprint?
Do you have systems (usually ISO) in place for Safety/Environment etc etc etc etc etc all of course cost you money
Do you need noise/air/water quality etc surveys before submitting applications.
Do you have your Construction Phase Health and Safety plan approved? Do you fall under the CDM regs? Have you done all risk assessments and detailed risk assessments, Method Statements, permit system for some works, have a qualified person in charge etc etc etc
Are your workforce qualified for their tasks and qualifications up to date. Do you provide ppe, inductions, welfare etc etc etc
I'll stop there, but could go on and on, no the wonder nothing is built cheaply?
highly astute man who uses everyday observation to workout the real economics of our failing country.
We don't have democracy.
Globalisation destroyed the nation state democracy decades ago unfortunately.
We don't have proportional representation, true, but the problem is the corruption and system behind the government. Where is our money going? It's going to a small group of people, to the detriment of the vast majority.
In that sense it really isn't democracy. You're correct.
The question is what should we do about it?
@@dandare1001 Agree, I can't comment as I am so censored. No freedom of speech, no Democracy
We would have if we had proportionate representation
@@stevenhull5025 I say it because the money men, whether it is WEF, the Empire of Lies the Hegemon always install their puppets, we are given the illusion of choice, but the globalists already have their man chosen & ready., Trump is actually not chosen by them and that's why they the hegemony wants him dead. Our players are paid for. Also they are going to do their best to cancel Farage.
Uk is poor but british people attitude wtf😂😂😂
One type of infrastructure we have lost since the heady days of empire is coastal maritime traffic. A coastal cargo ship can carry the equivalent of several hundred 40 ton road lorries. We still have plenty of navigation deep enough to take coastal ships. To ship 200 containers from Southampton to London would probably take no longer than 200 lorries clogging up the roads.
That's a good point.
What about just having decent cargo trains ?
@@pierzing.glint1sh76 less nimbys at sea
@@pierzing.glint1sh76 There's little track capacity to take more trains. Night time is used for track maintenance.
@@stevo728822 well build more rail lines then lol other countries can manage it
Instead we put it all on the highly limited motorways and roadways we have in this country. It takes longer to arrive and causes havoc along the way.
Because it's cheaper and doesn't require long term planning. In all the competing interests that go into any planning in this country, the general public and the tax payer are valued the least. We're just expected to adjust to more and more congestion, more and more roadworks and diversions in our already narrow streets and roads.
The reason people say this country is depressing is that we have so much smarts and many hardworking eminent people yet end up twiddling their thumbs because the aristocracy will object to any changes that would affect their cushy world just a little bit. It's why HS2 failed and public health and councils are a joke in this country. There are just too many competing interests and the taxpayer always comes last.
And so any ambitious student or professional from a middle class family with half a brain knows that having a decent career where you actually make a difference with your knowledge and skills is just not going to happen here.
We spend a huge amount of money allowing people perfectly capable of working not to work; we allow poor people to come to this country without investments, and little / no skill and then subsidise them greatly, to no benefit; we let politicians - of all parties - get away with lying... utter madness. 😐
and we let a lot of very rich people and companies avoid paying tax, so what's your point
@@michaelchannon2644 So bleeding obvious that if you aren't able to discern it unaided it would be a waste of time trying to help you understand... unless you are pretending obtuseness, in which case still time wasting, and so irrelevant. 👍
@@ginojaco So you don't know then, thought so!
Need Chinese investment😂
Rory is a wonderful guest. Articulate, insightful, and interesting. If only our politicians could have a little of his experience and knowledge to apply to their policies. That was an enjoyable watch. I might buy his two books.
If it's so broke why does it keep importing immigrants to cater to?
Because increasing immigration means that the government can’t fudge the numbers and make it look like our economy is better than it actually is.
@@raimesey I think you meant CAN fudge the numbers
(Although the OBR recently had to admit otherwise)
To prop up house prices, rents and to suppress wages.
GDP
Cheap labour. All our old staff at the company I work for, were offered severance as they couldn’t reduce their pay, then they bring in new staff of less money and conditions. Nearly all immigrant labour
Such an interesting guest. I shall look for him now in other you tube videos. Best wishes to Rory Sutherland.
"Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that is measured matters" so said Einstein after coming face to face with US academic bureaucracy. This should be on the wall of every governement bureaucrat in the country. However I do think our size and population density is a key factor in making the UK work less smoothly than many other countries.
Love this guy - more of him please
Rory's comment on living in cities, couldn't agree more. 👏
I feel for you Rory. You are trying your best. Keep at it pls. Soon the tide will turn. 👏👏
Lawyers build governments that provide jobs for more lawyers. Wow, I'm gobsmacked. Next thing you will tell me is that economists think the only way to solve our problems is with more economists. The real solution: less of all three: lawyers, economists, and government.
Did you know the ratio of managers to staff in the UK Civil Service? 1:2.5 even 1:1 in some departments. In the private sector, 1:5 ratio is too many already, lol
One of the best rants I've heard for years. Good guy
The last part of Rory's monologue might sound confusing. What he is saying is that great discoveries come from trial and error, not rational logic.
When the Victorians built stuff, we had a global empire and there was no China, and no one else in the world could manufacture like Britain. Now everywhere in the world can make what we invented, far far cheaper.
Without taking anything away from RS for vocalising this - hoorah for RS! - here we are: when stating the blindingly bloody obvious sounds like edgy, radically alternative thinking.
Superb. Simple logical genius
Excellent analysis. Bureaucracy is killing us.
Absolute oracle of sense.
I thought the interviewer was doing a good job until the interrupting began.
If you invite a guest on your show, *do not interrupt*.
Rory showed great patience.
I agree. It was like watching a "gotcher" interview by the BBC.
Glad to have seen your interview, thanks.
Thanks so much for sharing this. I thoroughly enjoyed listening in but wish to Christ that this calibre of discussion was exercised in government.
29:55 there’s nowhere left. All the affordable, commutable to London areas are massively overpriced and out of the budget for the 30 year old designer at Ogilvy hoping to start a family on a salary of £45k. After tax, adding up all the costs, it’s unfeasible - it only works if you are already from an area that surrounds London, have a family and friends there (because if you’re from north of York but live in a commuter town near London you have to add in the £100+ per person train tickets if you want to visit your parents) or - it works if you have Bank of mummy and daddy to finance a massive deposit so that your mortgage is in the pennies range.
That said, I’m white English and therefore I have privilege and shouldn’t be given any help despite being from an economically deprived area in the North. I also should shut up as perhaps there’s a chance my great great great grandfather was a colonising salve trader, unlikely, but I should carry the burden of guilt and let a majority race(Africans, Indians) take over my ancestral minority (grey eyed people make up less than 3% of the global population) rainy little island….
I was experiencing almost exactly what you described: "are massively overpriced and out of the budget for the 30 year old designer" and left the UK over a decade ago. Never regretted it, was fortunate enough to work for a start up and make a lot more money. I couldn't see a path to any comfortable standard of living in SE England.
I appreciated that you let him talk - he had some intriguing perspectives, but I was also struck by how rare it is to have an uninterrupted encounter with someone interesting.
Rory rural areas aren't always quiet as a farmer, The worst nimbys are from cities who want to livestock, tractors or farmers.
Who want to what?
Sutherland is most interesting. I find it refreshing that he says the stuff that a lot of snobbish economists hate because they don't have any creativity at all
A major problem? I just visited a young relative during their second week at university. They are studying abroad in shabby seaside town that is past its best. I walked from the seafront to the university with my young relative. It was a quite multicultural town. I heard serval languages being spoken, including some English. There were lots of halal butchers and supermarkets with the flags of every arab nation and there were lots of Africans. A huge range of places to eat - French, Chinese, Indian, Arab etc. The place did have a pervasive but not overpowering smell of weed. And the name of this foreign city? Bournemouth.
@@VaucluseVanguard sounds like a nice place to live
don't be hyperbolic
That’s got a bit of racism in this comment 🤔
@@moalllivesmatter where sorry ? I can’t see it
Wow this gets increasingly brilliant as it goes on.
Build a traffic free cycle route between every town and village, look what happens when we do…packed with cyclists getting fit and taking cars off the road. But as I work in construction I share your pain about public procurement, I reckon the price of any public project is at least twice the cost I could get it done for, but I have just spent a day filling in the pre-tender application for a two-day job for a local authority. Last time they just asked me my cost and told me to get on with it, this time I will have to charge 50% more to cover the paperwork time.
If the UK's weather was not so dismal I would agree with you. Cycling through hail and lightning is no fun.
Britain is poor because of the explosion in house prices since 1996. And every govt and the BoE keep propping those prices up. That’s why Britain is a basket case. The rest is noise.
Because rich are taxed at 10 pc and average joe at 40 pc.. media and sold politicians are in lap of rich .. serfdom for bottom 70 pc
Yeah, that’s the problem. Your taxes are too low.
My marginal tax rate is currently about 60% in Scotland. All things considered. What do i do? I certainly don't do another hour of work! It is work that creates wealth. The uk is addicted to penalizing those who work in favour of indulging the lazy (...including a grotesque ownership class). My 2 cents.
HS2 cost per mile was about 100x that of the French TGV.
How does a nurse, farmer, builder, roofer, aircraft or car technition, work remotely. We are told AI should reduce a large number of computer based remotable digital based jobs anyway
nope, AI means even more jobs for people in South Asia, it has something to do with free trade negotiations and several other issues. They will keep and grow those teams in the future.
It doesn't. One thing Rory misunderstands is that most remote working is by public sector bureaucrats who think sitting at a computer dignifies their pointless degrees. Any more of it will only encourage more people to want to work in a similar publicly funded role and they'll be a supply-side increase in even more such public sector jobs. This will also lead to a dearth of labour for useful jobs and yet more immigration to plug the gap. It's a downward spiral.
Not every job can be done remotely but plenty can be with decent reliable internet
This gentleman makes a lot of sense to me. I have often dreamed (whilst equally fearing!) of the idea of a temporary benign dictatorship
$450k Returns the Lord is my saviour in times of my need!!!
wow this awesome 👏 I'm 37 and have been looking for ways to be successful, please how??
After I raised up to 325k trading with her I bought a new House and a car here in the states 🇺🇸🇺🇸 also paid for my son's surgery (Oscar). Glory to God.shalom.
It's Ms. Susan Jane Christy doing, she's changed my life.
I do know Ms. Susan Jane Christy, I also have even become successful....
Absolutely! I've heard stories of people who started with little to no knowledge but made it out victoriously thanks to Ms. Susan Jane Christy.
It is regrettable that while the most acknowledged ingredient in ageing is the dramatic rise of profound loneliness yet the increasing sense of isolation emerging for younger people working from home is not considered to be a significant danger to the overall welfare of current society.
Because we givecto much away and pay for none workers
In the greater scheme of things, apart from social security, we give very little away
The country should be run by engineers, scientists and doctors. Career politicians should be banned - they should have worked in a small or medium sized business for at least 15 years beforehand. All the clever financial instruments should be highly regulated too, like hedge funds.
For once a quite good Spectator piece. We need more scientists and engineers in politics and drive things by evidence and systems thinking and not rhetoric. As for the Treasury they are more often the problem than the solution. More than half the country has not been harnessed so its not very surprising we have underperformed for many decades under red and blue. Our investment and productivity is crap, our infrastructure is pathetic, too many of our companies milk assets, our health is poor, the north has never recovered from being stripped bare etc. The facts have been perfectly clear for a long time but no-one actually tackles it. The Conservatives aren't the answer, they thought leaving the single market was a good idea. Labour could be a hope but so far one wonders if they will bottle it. Reform are not the answer with failed Conservative ideas on steroids.
40:18 "I think there are just more good ideas that you can post rationalize than there are good ideas that you can pre rationalize". I really like that quote.
Please consult a psychologist, psychiatrist and a sociologist about having people never get out of the house 🤦 it might be good for the infrastructure and the atmosphere and for achieving net zero but we're heading for a mental breakdown if you do this.
Why would it necessitate that people never leave the house? Also, what would the psychologist, psychiatrist and sociologist have to say about spending half of your life sat in traffic or on crowded public transport just to get to sit at a desk in a sterile office surrounded by people you tolerate at best?
Excellent. Intelligent discussion about an important subject.
There are many reasons Britain is getting poorer, but the main one due to mass migration of predominantly low or no income migrants. Nearly 1 in 5 working age people in Britain is not working, only a small percentage will be supporting themselves from savings.
@@andys1333 it won’t change. Ideology rules as 2TK whilst he took only 20% of vote.
The police will be round to “check your thinking “
@@longandshort6639
😂😂😂
I disagree - if you invite masses of people fom developing countries to take up good, middle class desk jobs which used to pay good money, putting benchmark of 21-26k, it is disastrous for the economy and for the treasury.
On the other hand, hiring smart, educated and motivated people to do real jobs such as plumbing, farming and construction, even if you classify the jobs as 'low skilled' with poor pay, those are important jobs bringing real value and improving the quality of life in the UK.
@@bigbarry8343
The Eastern Europeans fell into the very useful category.
They’re now being replaced by Africans. How many African plumbers?
Great program.
Basically go back to the post-war consensus.
Totally agree with his points on infrastructure
The biggest problem in Britain is that we want everything to cost nothing. We do important infastucture work on the cheap, we want free public education on the cheap, we want free healthcare on the cheap. We don't want to pay taxes but we want all the services. To do everything on the cheap we ignore maintenance in favour of neglect and call it a saving.
Spot on
Except we pay all of the taxes, and get none of the services ?!
Of course Britain ISN'T poor - but it IS getting relatively poorer
He has some interesting ideas. The interviewer certainly does not.
Totally agree with Rory’s comment about mobile connectivity, just come back from Portugal had great mobile service through out, in fact it’s a great Country generally. Back here nothing works properly, from endless road works/ traffic, litter and crap service.