So here are the grim truths that Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak have to convey to the public, election consequences be damned. As liberals both of them, I suspect that each message line the last is what they want to say in private. You cannot be America and Europe. That is, you cannot have low taxes and good public services. The few nations that tend to be inimitable. “You have South Korea’s crime rate and family structures” is not a plan. Neither is “Be Switzerland”. In Britain, right now, you can track your stolen MacBook on its city odyssey while the very thin police do nothing. The country must raise its tax burden four or five percentage points as a share of national output or lower its expectations of the state. Every choice is respected. The curse of “austerity” is not. Neither is putting high hopes on efficiency savings. “I’ve paid all my life,” goes the ancient refrain of the underserved UK citizen. Yes, but not enough. There will be no leveling up. Germany and Italy have many centers of wealth because they did not unite as nations until late. Countries like Hamburg and Florence had centuries to develop as autonomous cities or even republics. England has been a unitary state for a millennium. It is no coincidence that Europe’s other long-unified nation, France, has a similarly sovereign capital. Governments can only do so much against entrenched history and path dependency. Waving a white paper on the regeneration of northern cities at their hapless inhabitants is not big-hearted. It’s tough. The Green Belt was a disaster. It stops the expansion of productive cities. London should have more than 20 million people rather than 10 million. Liverpool and Manchester should be a Dallas-Fort Worth type metro grid. The research labs that are a big part of this country’s economic future are out of place. And all this for the preservation of an often limitless land: no Hampstead Heath is at stake here. If patriotism is the sacrifice of one’s interests for the interests of the nation, the Nimbys are unpatriotic. No prime minister can say that, I hear you interject, especially someone like Sunak. Of course it can. Voters will – what? — being chased to the Santa Monica branch of his property empire in 2025? Only Sunak can tell. You are not as rich as you think. Here I blame the penetration into the public psyche of a statistic. Britain is, as its citizens keep hearing, “the fifth richest nation on Earth.” Except it isn’t. It is the fifth (maybe sixth) largest economy. On a per capita basis, it looks at much of western Europe and the Anglosphere. This problem, which informs almost everyone else, can be fixed, but must be recognized in the first place. There must be a rapprochement with the EU. Rejoining anytime soon is unlikely. But staying out of the customs union of the huge market on your doorstep is untenable. And if the UK gets back into it, the gravitational pull of 450 million people to 65 million could lead who knows where. An accommodation will be on EU terms. It will be embarrassing. But so was membership in 1973 on a lower footing than was available a generation earlier. The point is that “Brexit is not being exploited” is the best that staunch leavers can now claim. Who thinks this line will last? The secret of this contest is that Truss and Sunak are the same candidates: market lovers, awkward in the way dogmatic people are, impatient with the laziness of their country. Temperament equips them to say harsh things. So is the occasion. Neither can expect to be in power for long. If Sunak had more about him, knowing that he is losing this race, he would now begin to speak plainly. Shocking Britain out of its hideous nastiness is a better legacy than some recent prime ministers can claim. Email Janan at [email protected]
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