Boris Johnson should not turn into the new Macmillan

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She entered government in 1979, on the first day of Margaret Thatcher’s premiership, as Special Adviser to Keith Joseph, then Minister of Industry. It was a world no one can recognize today, one of expropriation taxes and endless strikes (it was only shortly after the infamous winter of discontent in which the entire public sector, including a large part of the NHS and local government, in strike for weeks). It was also a world in which we were humiliatingly ostracized as the “sick man of Europe”, the International Monetary Fund had to come to our rescue and unemployment was about to rise to levels unimaginable today.

Of course, this is a frustrating part of history, but why should that day occupy us? Yes, our decline was caused by labor governments controlled by trade unions, but it was also tolerated, if not actively encouraged, by the conservative governments of the time, governments that believed only tripartite organisations, combining management, labor and voluntary organisations. , can plan the economy.

I fear that Boris Johnson will agree with Macmillanette’s view that our economy can – and should – be planned by the actions of a powerful state, a development that threatens with dire consequences. If there is one thing that remains stubbornly elusive, it is the ability to simply plan for a growing economy. Yes, it is possible and there is no better example than China, but to emulate it we have to give up everything we consider necessary in a free society. Running a democracy is like trying to reverse an articulated car, the most unexpected things happen when you try.

Growth in our system does not come from government, or even large corporations, but from the day-to-day activities of growing companies, which are resilient and adaptable to rapidly changing markets and emerging technologies. The most any government can do is create a climate in which the economy can thrive, which we in Mrs. Thatcher’s government eventually achieved, with so much pain.

It is now a matter of history that hundreds of thousands of new businesses were created by the unemployed (companies that grew and prospered), that we took large industries out of the dead hand of government, cut taxes and regulations and allowed people to rediscover their soul in business.

Who could have planned, or even imagined, companies like Amazon or Facebook? Who knows what companies will dominate in 20 years? The only certainty about the future has always been that it will be very different from anything we can imagine. Who foresaw not so much the pandemic but the advent of Zoom and Teams, the technologies that have enabled us to continue working from home and are likely to transform our large cities and towns? This technology is only in the beginning, who knows how it will evolve?

Why then is the government spending billions on HS2, yesterday’s technology if any? No private company would think about it. The costs have already tripled, and the only sure thing is that it will cost more and take longer to build. The only advantage it has – faster access to it – may not be needed long before it’s completed.

If we are to rebuild better, transforming nothing more than an empty political slogan into a reality, it cannot be done by the government alone, but only by re-igniting the project of the people. Let the government do what it does best, creating the conditions and opportunity for new small businesses to start – especially in the North and other regions.

Now that we’re out of the EU, let’s create more enterprise zones, tax- and regulatory-free zones in the North and reintroduce more successful programs like the old enterprise allowance scheme that created many new businesses at the time.

We can offer an Extended Startup Loan Program and provide financing to enable expanding businesses to grow. We can stop wasting so much on third-tier universities, re-establish and expand training colleges, and give people opportunities to create their own future. Everything is there to take it.

We’ve done it before and we can do it again. The earlier we start, the better we actually start to rebuild.

Lord Young of Grafham was a minister in Margaret Thatcher’s government

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