Choices

The Financial Times has taken to banging one of my favourite drums. To the effect that we would do better if public and political discourse made more effort to explain to the public, to the men and women in the street, that most of the things that we want more of - like health or foreign holidays - involve trade-offs and that there are few free lunches available.

The first piece, reference 1, is about three bad choices that the great British public have made - but probably won't take responsibility for. First we opted for Brexit, the costs and pain of which will be with us for a long time. Second, we have opted for a low-tax regime while wanting a high-tax standard of public service. Which will never add up. Third, we are very bad at getting anything done. Yes we need more houses, but not anywhere near me thank you very much. And you are not going to build a special school or a prison anywhere where I might have to walk or drive past it. The banana syndrome of reference 3.

The second piece, reference 2, is about how we fail to recognise those trade-offs. One example being the waiting time at A&E departments. Sure, it would be nice if we got the average down to half an hour, but most people don't expect their taxes to go up in order to get there. Surely somebody else can pay? Perhaps some of those people who splash out on things like Bulgari watches? Another being the abuse of stop and search. Do you stop and search lots of people and catch lots of villains or do you use stop and search very sparingly, thus avoiding annoying (or worse) lots of innocent people? Yes, a better trained police force might do better, but you are not going to magic away the underlying trade-off. Or the cost of having a better trained police force.

PS 1: while the crows snapped above have chosen a tree between Upper Court Road and Lower Court Road (Court for the Epsom Court farm which used to be on this land) for their morning congregation. I associate to the rather larger tree in Brading where there was a big, evening congregation. See reference 4. While for Epsom Court see reference 2 in reference 5.

PS 2: later: I have just read of another example of our not getting things done. It seems, for reasons which I missed, the government has blocked the building of a big electricity interconnector between Portsmouth and France. What is going on? Is it the Russia/Ukraine connection? It is not as if the government is being asked to stump up the dosh.

References

Reference 1: We, the people, are to blame for Britain’s economic woes: The UK economy looks sickly against international comparisons, so let’s be honest about the three causes - Chris Giles, Financial Times - 2023.

Reference 2: Politicians are unhealthily obsessed with getting to zero: The key to making sensible policy is to be honest about the trade-offs involved - Stephen Bush, Financial Times - 2023.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/12/trolley-551.html.

Reference 4: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/07/twit-log.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-blenheim.html.