Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favorite stories in this weekly newspaper.
The UK government’s appeal to regulators to come up with a soft growth mindset. It’s not completely unwise to put regulators on notice that their rates can change – but only if you talk to those who know what it’s like to be regulated. Here, as often with this government, the signs are confusing.
Governing is difficult. There is schadenfreude, among veterans of previous administrations, as Labor begins to realize this after six months in office. When Sir Keir Starmer lashed out at what he called a “severe shower of controlled deregulation”, he was reflecting the confusion caused by every new prime minister. But in his case, things are made worse by the lack of a clear governing philosophy.
The new administration is full of strong, hard-working ministers. But there is little to read everywhere. The Cabinet feels more like a group of people with different worldviews than a group with anything approaching a clear assessment of what ails Britain, and what needs to be done about it.
Listening to the prime minister of the Duchy of Lancaster vow to “make the country like a startup”, the science and technology minister talking about artificial intelligence, or the health secretary talking about patient choice, it’s possible to feel have hope. A completely different point of view is expressed by the author of the study, who wants to turn back the time by manipulating the twenty-year-old party policy. schools. And he is the deputy prime minister, whose labor rights package is undermining business confidence, even as the Treasury is trying to restore it.
All ruling parties are coalitions of interests. But the degree of dissonance in this matter makes it difficult to be sure where this is government it will stay in any place. Which makes it difficult to build trust.
Angela Rayner’s argument work the bill of rights is that low productivity in the UK is defined as insecure work. As a result, other measures seem reasonable: eliminating “fire and re-hire” procedures that impose new terms and conditions on workers, helping freelancers to be paid on time, and simplifying other aspects of zero hours contracts. But the bill contains a series of other laws: on the rights to sick pay from the first day, on parental leave and unfair dismissal, on the power of the union and others that directly contradict the mission of growth that Starmer says is in the middle.
Indeed, an insecure job may not be productive. But the same goes for no work at all. The Independent Committee on Regulatory Policy has clarified the government’s campaign to assess the impact of the law on “not fit for purpose”, and warned that the measures would hurt low-wage workers. Business surveys suggest that the bill will accelerate moves to invest in technology not people. The complexity and scale of the new rights mean – of course – that a new regulator will be created to oversee them.
Number 10 and the Treasury are caught up in the business response to the rise in national insurance, and are very concerned about the latest economic news. You would think that they would not agree with the job offers. Instead, a limited trial period of nine months has been offered in the case of unfair dismissal.
Given the concerns about whether the package would meet the expectations of workers, only two groups stand to undoubtedly benefit: lawyers and unions. The same thing applies to school loan from the education sector, where secretary of state Bridget Phillipson appears to be independent and not linked to anything the other government is doing.
Phillipson wants to scrap the reforms started by Labour’s Andrew Adonis, who grew up in care, and later promoted by Conservative Michael Gove, the adopted son of a Scottish fish processor. The changes saw England’s schools rise in international rankings to become some of the best in the world. They were based on the twin principles of creating schools with more freedom, for example paying better teachers, and less accountability through league tables. Education centers have become a tool for turning around failing schools.
Phillipson wants to brush off much of this, having no other compelling philosophy on how to raise standards. His answer to what should be done about schools that are rated as “inadequate” seems to be to replace that term with something broader, which will not give parents the same definition.
None of this makes sense. There are improvements that could have been made, for example, in the assessment of many school trusts. But why change the system that helped a large number of the poorest children?
When it comes to investment, the Labor majority has brought much-needed political stability. But investors also need to trust the consistent direction of the policy. They need an educated and flexible labor market, too. Ignoring that seems unwise, to say the least.
Unlike Boris Johnson, Starmer isn’t lazy and he’s not a brat. But like Johnson, he still finds that ideas, some of them very bad, fill any void in the center. In meetings, he is known for asking for solutions, not problems. But in Whitehall, the most difficult questions go up through the system until they reach the prime minister’s desk. Without a clear indication of what he wants, it will be difficult to drive the machine.
