The Economist January 8th 2022 Britain 49Kickingwinners
M
ost countriestake pride in their successful industries. Olaf
Scholz, the new German chancellor, hosted a rally for Volks
wagen’s workers, ignoring a decade of corporate misdeeds by the
carmaker. After his health minister suggested easing off the wine,
Emmanuel Macron boasted that he drank it at lunch and dinner
and shuddered at the idea of dry January.
In Britain politicians take a different tack, ignoring, disdaining
or even actively despising the most successful sectors of the econ
omy. Everything from banks to universities is denigrated. Two
centuries ago David Ricardo came up with the notion of compara
tive advantage, that countries should focus on producing goods
and services in areas where they are relatively efficient. Britain’s
politicians have turned this on its head: comparative disadvan
tage is in vogue.
Part of the problem is political geography. Take London. During
the past three decades it has been transformed from a shrinking
husk into a global powerhouse. Its productivity means that it pays
£36bn ($49bn; 2% of gdp) more in taxes than it gets back in public
spending. Both Boris Johnson, the prime minister, and Sir Keir
Starmer, his Labour counterpart, represent London seats. But they
keep quiet about it—except when exchanging barbs. “You can take
the lawyer out of Islington but you can’t take Islington out of the
lawyer,” Mr Johnson once said. In fact, Sir Keir does not live in Is
lington, but Mr Johnson did for many years.
Both parties are desperate to avoid being painted as metropol
itan. Lisa Nandy, the Labour shadow minister for “levelling up”,
frequently laments high investment in cities, arguing that regen
eration in Manchester has failed to boost Wigan, her constituency.
But wealth flowed from London to Woking perfectly efficiently.
The problem is not that places like Manchester became too much
like London; it is that they are still not enough like London, with
too little wealth to spread. But now that the frontline of British
politics is in towns, such arguments go down poorly. Politicians
do not follow growth, but votes.
If cities have fallen out of favour politically, the City has fallen
furthest of all. Financial firms have few political friends. As mayor
of London between 2008 and 2016, Mr Johnson was a booster of
banks; as prime minister, his government is an enthusiastic bash
er.The finance sector was sacrificed during Brexit negotiations.
Virtually none of its demands were met. Again, the negativity runs
across party lines. Labour is twitchy about Tony Blair’s economic
model, namely being intensely relaxed about people getting filthy
rich as long as they paid their taxes. The era of encouraging pros
perity and sharing out the gains is over.
One reason Britain’s strongest professions struggle to gain a
sympathetic hearing is that they fall on the wrong side of the
“Richard Scarry rule”. Named for the muchloved author and illus
trator, this warns politicians against picking fights with workers
depicted in children’s books. So fishermen will always find politi
cal allies; traders, lawyers and management consultants will
struggle. The bestknown reference to lawyers in the English
canon comes in “Henry VI”, where a character suggests that the
quickest way to improve the country would be to kill them all.
Another is that, when it comes to economic matters, British
politicians can be puritanical. They seem to think the country’s
thriving creative industries are not serious enough to merit praise.
They talk about Premier League football as if it were a mere den of
iniquity, rather than Britain’s most potent cultural export. Video
gaming is dismissed as a hobby rather than acknowledged as a na
tional strength. When Nadine Dorries became culture secretary in
2021, her main qualification was a willingness to put the boot into
luvvies. In the same vein, politicians seem to see culture as easy
and industry as hard. This gets things backwards. Any big Euro
pean country could host a Nissan factory. But few could devise
itv’s teatime quiz, “The Chase”, which has been a global success.
Higher education is one of the few sectors where Britain can
truly claim to be, in Westminster’s peculiar vernacular, “world
beating”. But the big rise in students going to university is cue for
handwringing by (degreeholding) commentators, as if three
more years of education over 80 years of life will lead to deca
dence. If the push to cut student numbers succeeds, it will be the
University of Bolton that downsizes, not the University of Man
chester. For a government set on levelling up—delinking opportu
nity from geography—this is a bad idea. In a place like Teesside,
the new freeport may snatch headlines and be graced with visits
by politicians in hivis jackets. The expanding university, which
has helped stem the region’s decline, is sometimes ignored.
Many of these factors are longstanding—and indeed, Britain’s
star industries may have flourished in part because of political ne
glect, rather than despite it. But Brexit ripped up its economic
blueprint. Universities, financial and legal firms, and the creative
industries were boosted by eumembership, and no party has
identified a replacement. Many voters seem not to care. About
twothirds of pensioners supported the Conservatives, who prom
ised a hard Brexit, at the election in 2019. So did nearly 60% of peo
ple who own their home outright. To someone with no rent or
mortgage, and an inflationlinked pension, it may seem of little
concern whether Britain’s strongest industries wither. Hard hats v mortarboards
Indeed, comparative disadvantage has its fans. Politicians are
kicking winners because they think it will be popular. After all,
bankers deserved opprobrium after the financial crisis. And man
cannot live by quiz shows alone. If a voter’s town struggles, it is ea
sy to resent a thriving London. Many felt that the old system did
not work for them, and so politiciansstoodon a platform of
smashing it. Britain’s economy was lopsided.But it is easier to fix
weakness if you also play to your strengths.nBagehot
Britain’s politics involve a unique disdain for the country’s strengths