Speculation On The Future

How To Use Up The Time: Speculation On The Future

About the only people with no spare time on their hands now are those still working, especially those working from home and simultaneously looking after small children. For the rest of us there is the small problem of how to use up the spare time. There’s obviously reading, watching films, and listening to music. F acebook offers the opportunity for challenges such as posting photos, posting favourite songs, books, memories, etc. For me, apart from the first three, the preferred past-time is writing and speculation. So I want now to speculate on the future in the UK, as I have friends and family there.

For me all the big questions are about politics, the media and how the government governs over the next 9 months. There are some inferences that can be drawn from the last 3 months, I think, but above all innumerable questions for which answers are needed. Below are thoughts on some of the major issues.

Relaxation Of Lockdown

Johnson has been correct, I think, in emphasising the dangers of relaxing lockdown too much and too soon. Nonetheless, lockdown will have to be eased at some point. The advice from WHO and just about everywhere else is that pre-requisites are a defined structure and strategy, a staged process that allows for fallback, universal testing and tracing andPPE for everyone. The UK currently falls well short on testing, tracing and PPE. The Scottish and Welsh Assemblies have produced tentative proposals for easing lockdown but the UK government currently refuses to reveal either plans or the issues and priorities being considered. Why? Will other political parties and important representative groups be allowed input into the discussions? Will the government attempt to synchronise actions in England and Northern Ireland with Scotland and Wales?

Leadership

The crisis has made it clear that whatever Johnson is he is not a leader. Leaders are pro-active, decisive, prepared to take bold measures if required and generally follow a well thought out plan. Whatever the eventual outcome of the UK strategy it has thus far been characterised by complacency, prevarication, delay, indecision and necessary measures taken too late. If anyone is leading the government at the moment it would appear to be Dominic Cummings.

Support For Commerce

All affected countries have taken measures of various sorts to support commercial enterprises, large and small. The UK’s support for small enterprises seems to have been stymied thus far by the banks, through which the support was channelled. Could this problem not have been foreseen? Just now the government has decided to pay the interest on loans for a year, a useful measure but an afterthought and an oversight.

Loans have been made to large businesses but the government declines to disclose both the amounts and the recipients. Why? Which businesses have applied and which have been refused and why?For instance, if any media groups have received loans, which ones are they? Control over media coverage of government actions seems to be high on the governnent agenda.

Denmark, Poland and France have excluded all companies based in offshore tax havens from government support. This seems reasonable; if companies avoid taxes in a country why should they get financial support from it. (Perhaps Virgin could be refunded all the UK corporation tax it has paid over the past few years). I expect some other EU countries to do the same but not the UK.

Immigration (And Racism)

There can be little doubt that immigration is a major issue in the UK or that it was a significant factor in the EU referendum result. The number of race-related assaults recorded in the two years after the referendum result reportedly rose by 20-40%, dependent on area. However the high profile of immigrant NHS and care staff in combating the virus would appear to have defused the issue considerably. The advent of plane loads of Romanians to work in UK agriculture has further served to underline the UK’s economic dependency on immigration, previously stated in various economic studies. Will the government ever be honest enough to acknowledge this?

The Future Economy

The UK economy, like those in almost all countries, is taking a huge hit from the impact of the virus. This impact is likely to be followed by another in the UK if Johnson gets the no-agreement Brexit he appears to want (every economic commentator has said Brexit will harm the UK economy). Whatever the case, it is clear that commerce will require government support for some time to come. It seems unlikely that any government can support all of commerce so the support will have to be selective; but on what basis? It would be unreasonable to ask for an answer to that question now but the eventual answer, if we are ever allowed to know it, will be very important.

Given the hit on the public purse imposed by the virus, public finances will be stretched to the limit. So what will be the response of the government to public services? The UK government’s record on this is evident: to cut expenditures to the bone. The most likely outcome in the UK must be more austerity, with the virus as the obvious excuse (conveniently hiding the impact of Brexit). The NHS could be a particular problem here, with its current high positive profile. However an ostensibly high increase in its budget, even if inadequate to compensate for the cuts over the last decade and offset by higher costs generally, should do the trick. That should also serve to excuse cuts elsewhere. If Hancock’s offer of a badge for life-risking care workers for which they had to pay is any indication of government thinking, the means to recreate the NHS as it was a decade ago won’t even be sought. A more «socialist» approach from the current government seems very unlikely.

Managing natiional econolies after the pandemic but while its effects are still evident will be a lmajor challenge for all nations and will require genius economists and sensitive politicians to resolve it if major public unrest is to be avoided. Any signs of such in the UK?

Unemployment

Unemployment numbers are a statistician’s political game; it all depends on how you want to count them. Officially in the UK they were around 4.8% before the virus crisis, which is actually close to full employment, although a calculation in the FT put the figure at probably three times higher. Whatever the case, unemployment in the UK later in the year is likely to be very high. How will the government react to this? Even the government probably doesn’t know the answer to this problem yet but, given the general economic outlook, a large pool of low paid labour is likely to persist, which bodes ill for the economy. A large pool of low-paid labour encourages inefficiency locally and uncompetitiveness internationally.

Brexit

Brexit and EU relations are a backcloth to the virus crisis. The UK government has yet to state in any credible way why help offered by the EU in the virus crisis has been ignored (as well as help from some UK companies; why?). Brexit negotiations are reportedly fraught and a no-agreement Brexit seems the most probable outcome. In the interim some notable Leave campaigners have made very significant gains from the virus crisis. Will that be a trend over the rest of the year? Pecunia non olet but it has fingerprints.

The Media

Many of the media are in acute financial difficulties, which is why it would be relevant to know if any had received government financial support. The government lap-dogs posing as journalists in the Sun, Mail, Express and Telegraph have simply followed the government line in their coverage of the crisis, with very minor exceptions. The Sunday Times has been provoked into a return to journalism. Genuinely independent journalism, sometimes with a slight but discernible political slant, persists in such as The Independent, the «i», the Metro, The Guardian and the Belfast Telegraph. Helpfully it also persists in coverage of the UK by some of the foreign press such as the New York Times and Washington Post.

In UK TV the BBC and ITV have at least avoided any subservience to the government and Channel 4 has shown its teeth. If these can ignore any government threats to their licences, there is hope, because the UK and its democracy badly needs independent judgements and critical appraisals. However, it also needs access to the relevant information.

Openness, Scrutiny, Accounatbility

In his first speech from Downing Street after recovering from the virus Johnson made a pledge to openness and scrutiny. I think this is key to any democracy. However, if Johnson’s recovery from illness has not been an epiphany moment then this is simply a government ploy, much loved by masters of deception (dare I mention Goebbels?). Claim to do what others are criticising you for not doing but deliver only anodyne information, the trappings not the substance.

Before the virus crisis Johnson was being pressured to publish the report on Russian interference in the UK EU referendum which might, some claimed, contain information that would invalidate the referendum result. It would be easy to prove or disprove the claim, so why not publish the report? That, obviously, is very much on the back-burner now, although it would take only a minute to give the go-ahead to publish.

Before the crisis the government sought to exclude critical journalists from government briefings and has now reportedly barred Sunday Times journalists from asking questions at them. The government also threatened the licences of the BBC and Channel 4 for criticism of its policies. One of the first laws the government passed was to prevent Parliamentary scrutiny of trade deals. Why? Since then Johnson has lied over meeting corona virus patients, the government has lied over the provision of PPE and lied over testing. After any national crisis it is normal to have an independent enquiry into what happened yet the government refuses to commit to one. Why? A dependent enquiry maybe…….? If the government really does commit to openness it will truly have been an epiphany moment. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. There are many questions in this posting; the proof will be if we get answers to them.