The Economist Magazine, 28 January 2022 PDF
Preview The Economist Magazine, 28 January 2022
What’s up with America’s workers? Russia’s military options in Ukraine The parable of Boris Johnson New evidence on vaccine mandates JANUARY22ND–28TH2022 Big tech’s supersized ambitions 012 012 Contents The Economist January 22nd 2022 3 Theworldthisweek UnitedStates 6 Asummary of political 19 Missing workers andbusiness news 20 Guaranteed income 21 Gunownership Leaders 21 Flags and free speech 9 The future of technology For our next trick 24 Voting rights and wrongs 10 British politics 24 Ida B. Wells Barbie Boris Johnson 25 America, best or worst? 11 Russia and Ukraine 25 Christian satire The momentum for war 26 Lexington Merrick 11 China’s economy Garland and his critics From hero to zero 12 Culture TheAmericas Onthecover Foodforthought 27 Omicron in Mexico America’s tech giants are 28 Mexico’s health system spending heroic sums in an Letters 30 Cuban protesters effort to stay on top. Good: 14 On Hong Kong, Chicago, leader,page 9.We assess what voting reform, 30 The Galapagos islands they are trying to achieve: northsouth divisions, briefing,page 16.China wants themetaverse to create a worldbeatingai industry. Don’t hold your Briefing Asia breath,page 55.Venture 16 Innovation 31 Antimicrobial resistance capital’s virtues,page 77 Big tech’s private passions in South Asia 32 Disaster in Tonga What’s up with America’s workers?The pool of potential 33 South Korea’s election workers in America may be 33 Indian cricket permanently smaller than once 34 Australia’s borders assumed, page 19.Economists 35 BanyanMissing Chinese are revising their views on robots tourists and jobs: Free exchange, page 69 China Russia’s military options in UkraineThe West must raise the 37 How propaganda costs to the Kremlin of invading became watchable its neighbour: leader, page 11,and 38 Regional filmmaking analysis, page 45 39 Chaguan Egalitarianism revisited TheparableofBorisJohnson Andwhatitsaysaboutthe countryhegoverns:leader, Back StoryHollywood page10.Theprimeministermay remakes are often MiddleEast&Africa clingtooffice,buthis derided. But the best offer 40 Jews in the Arab world premiershiphasbeenbroken, a form of time travel, 41 Where Arabs seek justice page50.Rebelliousmpsarebuilt page 78 42 Tension in Bahrain intheimageoftheirleader: Bagehot,page52 43 South Africa’s coal habit 44 Sex potions in Nigeria Newevidenceonvaccine mandatesHowCanadaand Europeusedcoerciontoboost jabs:graphicdetail,page81 →The digital element of your subscription means that you can search our archive, read all of our daily journalism and listen to audio versions of our stories. Visit economist.com Contents continues overleaf 012 4 Contents The Economist January 22nd 2022 Europe Finance&economics 45 Russia’s military options 63 China’s slowdown 46 France and Europe 64 Supply snarls 47 Arguing over vaccination 65 Banks’ earnings 47 The Nordic left 66 Ethereum and DeFi 48 Friedrich Merz 67 Employee perks 49 Charlemagne 68 ButtonwoodDislodging Foreign-policy cacophony the debt bias 69 Free exchange Britain Automation and jobs 50 The enfeeblement of Boris Johnson Science&technology 52 BagehotChildren of Boris 70 A$3bn biotech startup 72 Babies and saliva 72 Malarial drug-resistance 73 Abright green idea International 53 Divorce is getting easier Culture 74 Congolese rumba 75 Medieval queens 76 Tessa Hadley’s new novel 76 The art of fasting 77 Venture capital’s virtues Business 77 Ahip-hop revolutionary 55 China’s aimaster plan 78 Back StoryIn praise of 57 Microsoft’s acquisition remakes blizzard 58 Greenish ExxonMobil Economic&financialindicators 58 Airline ups and downs 80 Statistics on 42 economies 59 Unilever’s health cheque 60 BartlebyBoozing at work Graphicdetail 61 SchumpeterTurkish 81 How Canada and Europe used coercion to boost jabs delights Obituary 82 Charles McGee, one of the last Tuskegee Airmen Volume 442Number 9280 PublishedsinceSeptember1843 Subscriptionservice totakepartin“aseverecontestbetween For our full range of subscription offers, including To manage your account online, please visit intelligence, which presses forward, digital only or print and digital bundled, visit: my.economist.com where you can also access our and an unworthy, timid ignorance Economist.com/offers live chat service which is available 24/7. 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The Economist (ISSN 00130613) is published every week, except for a yearend double issue, by The Economist Newspaper Limited, 750 3rd Avenue, 5th Floor, New York, N Y 10017. The Economistis a registered trademark of The Economist Newspaper Limited. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes toThe Economist,P.O. Box 46978, St. Louis , MO. 631466978, USA. Canada Post publications mail (Canadian distribution) sales agreement no. 40012331. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to The Economist,PO Box 7258 STN A, Toronto, ON M5W 1X9. GST R123236267. Printed by Quad/Graphics, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866 012 Beyond rare vintages Recreating the perfect year A 99/100 96/100 19/20 M U L n g si e D e - h g el V s er Iri h p a gr o ot h P Grand Siècle Nº23 in magnum. Extremely limited. www.laurent-perrier.com - #grandsiecle P L E A S E E N J O Y R E S P O N S I B L Y 012 6 The world this week Politics TheEconomistJanuary22nd2022 Houthi rebels in Yemen Australia deported Novak Coronavirus data launched a drone attack on Djokovicafter judges Abu Dhabi, the capital of the dismissed his challenge to the To6amGMTJanuary 20th 2022 United Arab Emirates, killing cancellation of his visa for a Weeklyconfirmed cases by area, m three people. A day later, an second time. The immigration 8 airstrike by a Saudiled minister revoked the coalition killed at least 20 unvaccinated tennis player’s Western Europe 6 people in Sana’a, the Houthi visa on “health and good order 4 controlled capital of Yemen. In grounds”. UnitedStates Asia recent weeks forces backed by 2 Other the uaeand Saudi Arabia have Kazakhstan’sformer presi 0 pushed back the rebels. dent, Nursultan Nazarbayev, 2020 21 22 Russiasteppedupwhat appeared in public for the first lookedlikepreparationsto Nigerialifted a sevenmonth time this year. He gave a tele Estimatedglobalexcessdeaths, m invadeUkraine.Itstroops ban on people using Twitter vised address more than two With95%confidenceinterval weredeployedtoBelarus,from after the socialmedia firm weeks after nationwide prot 12.1 19.5 22.7 whichtheycouldopenupa agreed to meet certain condi ests flared up. He claimed 5.6mofficial covid-19 deaths secondfrontandthreaten tions, including opening an there was no conflict with his Kyiv,Ukraine’scapital.More office in the country. Nigeria chosen successor, Kassym Vaccinedosesgivenper100people than100,000troopshavenow blocked people from using the Zhomart Tokayev, who appears Bycountry-incomegroup massedonUkraine’sborders. service last year when Twitter to have sidelined him. Low 14 Acyberattack,allegedlyfrom removed a tweet by President Lower-middle 92 Russia,closeddownUkrainian Muhammadu Buhari that The fbishot dead a British Upper-middle 170 governmentwebsites.Presi some saw as inciting violence. man of Pakistani origin who High 177 dentJoeBidensaidRussiawas had taken four people hostage Sources:JohnsHopkinsUniversityCSSE; readytopounceandpromised Protesters against military rule at a synagogue near Dallas. OurWorldinData;UN;WorldBank; TheEconomist’sexcess-deathsmodel heavysanctionsifitdoes. in Sudanbarricaded streets Questions were asked about America’ssecretaryofstate, and forced shops to close for how the man, who had once AntonyBlinken(pictured),was two days. The security forces been a “subject of interest” to →Forourlatest coverage duetomeethisRussiancoun reportedly killed ten people. British intelligence, was pleasevisiteconomist.com/ terpart,SergeiLavrov,in allowed to enter the United coronavirus Geneva.Russiandomestic John Joël Joseph, a former States. His family said he had televisiongavelittlehintthat senator in Haiti, was arrested been mentally ill. warmightbeintheoffing. in Jamaica. Mr Joseph has been found that the federal agency accused by the Haitian police America’s Justice Department tasked with enforcing the France’sPresidentEmmanuel of being involved in the mur laid the first indictments for mandate did not have such MacroncalledonEuropeto der of President Jovenel Moïse seditionagainst some of the broad power to regulate builditsowncollectivesecuri- in July last year. He denies it. rioters who stormed Congress public health. The decision tyframeworkinthefaceof on January 6th last year. Eleven opens the way for Republican Russianaggression.Atlanti Ingrid Betancourt, a former people, including the leader of states to outlaw companies’ cists,especiallyineastern senator in Colombia, said she the Oath Keepers, a farright “no jab, no job” requirements. Europe,arewaryoftheidea, would run for president in group, were charged with whichtheyfearcoulddivide May. Ms Betancourt was cap conspiring “to oppose by covax, a scheme to provide nato.MrMacronishopingto tured by farcrebels in 2002 force” the transfer of presi covid19 vaccines to nonrich bereelectedinApril. and held for six years. She dential power (Congress was countries, delivered its presents herself as a centrist. certifying the result of the billionth dose. It still has a lot The frontrunner is a left 2020 election at the time). of work to do. Of the who’s Araucousparty winger, Gustavo Petro. 194 member countries, 36 Boris Johnsonclung to power, In a day of drama in the Amer have inoculated less than 10% as more of his Conservative Cuba’sCommunist regime ican Senate, Democrats failed of their populations and 88 mps called on him to resign. held closed trials for peaceful to pass measures that would less than 40%. The British prime minister’s protesters, some as young as standardise voting proce- convoluted explanations of 16, who took to the streets last duresacross the country, and why Downing Street held a year to demand democracy and were also defeated in an at WaitaminuteMrPostman party when the rest of the reliable electricity. Harsh tempt to change the filibuster The Chinesegovernment, country was in a strict lock penalties are expected. rule that would have allowed which is hoping for a covid down (“nobody told me” it was the bills to proceed. Repub free Winter Olympics in against the rules) have not A volcanic eruption in Tonga licans were adamantly op Beijing, urged people to wear gone down well. David Davis, a cut off communications with posed, accusing the Democrats gloves and masks when open former minister, quoted words the archipelagic kingdom for of exaggerating the effect of ing mail, especially foreign that saw off a premier in 1940 days. Three deaths were con state changes to voting rules. packages. It claims the and the whole of Parliament in firmed, though the toll is Omicron variant may have 1653: “In the name of God, go.” expected to rise. The eruption Joe Biden urged companies to entered China that way, after a A Conservative mpdefected to caused a tsunami so large that implement their own vaccine woman tested positive and Labour. This seemed to rally two people drowned across the mandates, after the Supreme traces of the virus were found Tory support behind the prime Pacific in Peru. Tongan islands Court struck down his order on a parcel she had received minister, for now. were heaped with ash. for them to do so. The court from Canada. 012 The world this week Business TheEconomistJanuary22nd2022 7 Inwhatisbyfarthebiggest InternationalLabourOrgani fourthquarter,yearonyear, year.Brentcrudetradedwell evertakeoverinthegaming sation.Itslatestforecastesti theslowestpacesincethe above$88abarrel;theprice industry,Microsoftagreedto matesthattherewillbe52m depthsofthepandemic.The hasrisenby13%sincethestart buyActivisionBlizzard,the fewerjobsin2022compared economyofficiallygrewby oftheyear. companybehindthe“Callof with2019,andthatafullrecov 8.1%forthewholeof2021. Duty”seriesand“Warcraft”,for eryin2023“remainselusive”. TheBankofJapanraisedits $69bn.Microsoftishungryfor Britain’sannualrateof inflationforecastfor2022to newcontentasitseeksto inflationroseto5.4%,its 1.1%,lowbyinternational Germany’s GDP developaNetflixforgames, highestlevelin30years.Food standardsbutuncommonina % change from previous quarter whichcanbestreamedfrom pricesareclimbingattheir countrythathasbattleddefla anydevice,suchasphones, 10 fastestpacesince2008.Energy tionfordecades.Higherener andnotjustitsXboxconsole. 5 costsarealsorocketing,and gyandfoodpricesarefeeding Gaming“willplayakeyrolein areexpectedtosoareven throughtotheeconomy,but 0 thedevelopmentofmetaverse higherwhentheregulator’s withinflationstillfarbelow * -5 platforms”,statedSatya pricecapisliftedinApril.The thecentralbank’s2%targetit Nadella,Microsoft’sboss. -10 numberofhouseholdsunder seesnoneedtoincrease 2019 20 21 “fuelstress”,spendingatleast interestrates. Unileversaiditwouldnot Source: Federal 10%oftheirincomeonenergy increaseits£50bn($68bn) Statistics Office *Estimated range bills,issettojump. at&tandVerizonagainpost offerforGlaxoSmithKline’s Anothersurgeincovidand ponedtheirrolloutof5g consumerhealthcarebusi supplychain bottlenecks In some good news for the servicesat some airports amid ness,whichineffectendsits caused Germany’s economy British economy, gdprose warnings that the cellular pursuitofadeal.Itsambitious to shrink by up to 1% in the above its prepandemic level towers could interfere with playforthebusiness,which fourth quarter of 2021 com for the first time in November. aircraft navigation systems. includessuchfamiliarbrands pared with the third, according Although that was before asAdvil,Nicorette,Panadol to an initial official estimate. Omicron struck. andSensodyne,andinwhich For the whole year, German Asqueezeonhouseholds Pfizerownsa32%stake,didn’t gdprose by 2.7%, though Governments in the euare also The price of orangejuice godownwellwithUnilever’s output was still 2% lower than struggling to control the im futures surged, after this year’s investors.Theconglomerate’s in 2019, before the pandemic. pact of higher energy costs. In orange cropin Florida was stockswoonedwhennewsof France, edf, an energy provid forecast to be the smallest thebidwasmadepublic. The People’s Bank of China cut er, saw its market value slump since 1945. The Sunshine one of its main interest rates. by a fifth after it said that the State’s orange groves are The reduction was small, but a French government’s attempt plagued with tree lice. Orange Betterlatethannever signal to markets that officials to limit rises in electricity bills prices are also sensitive to a ExxonMobillaid out its strat are prepared to act to stabilise would hurt its earnings. drought in Brazil, which has egy to reduce carbon emis the economy amid covid and hurt citrus production there. sions, with an aim to reach difficulties in the housing Meanwhile oil priceshit a The overall demand for orange netzero emissions by 2050 market. The main lending rate sevenyear high, as markets has lost some zest in recent and a pledge to reduce them by for mortgages was also cut. tried to assess whether de years, as consumers switch to a fifth by 2030 compared with China’sgdpgrew by 4% in the mand will outpace supply this lowsugar drinks. 2016. But the plan counts only the company’s own green house gases from its produc tion of oil and gas, and not the broader category of “Scope 3” emissions, which are generat ed across a firm’s value chain, suppliers and customers. Providing reassurance that pandemic restrictions really do apply to everyone, António Horta-Osórioresigned as chairman of Credit Suisse after the bank’s board reportedly found that he broke quaran tine rules, including on a trip to the Wimbledon tennis final in July. Mr HortaOsório had held the job for less than nine months. The global job marketwill take longer to recover from the covid19 crisis than had been thought, according to the 012 #ModernMBA It’s Time for the Business School of the Future “2022 will be business as usual,” said no one, ever. Luckily, there’s a business school that’s anything but usual. Apply now at Quantic.edu Quantic’s highly selective MBAandExecutiveMBA teach Applications close soon. business essentials and future-forward skills like blockchain. Start your future today. 012 Leaders 9 Supersized ambitions America’s tech giants are spending heroic sums in an effort to stay on top. Good Is there any limit to the ambition and hubris of big tech shows. Buying Activision may help Microsoft provide a richer firms? In October Mark Zuckerberg renamed Facebook Meta experience for its gaming customers, while Mesh, a platform for and described humankind’s new future in virtual worlds. On virtual 3dworkplaces, is aimed at corporate users (see Business January 18th Microsoft, worth more than $2trn, decided it wasn’t section). The cloudcomputing platforms operated by Alphabet, big enough and bid $69bn for Activision Blizzard, a videogames Amazon and Microsoft literally charge rent to host computing firm, in its biggestever deal. These decisions are part of a vast environments for other companies. new investment surge at five of America’s biggest firms, Alpha Governments, rivals and billions of customers, who already bet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft—call them maama. To fear these firms are too powerful, may be alarmed by all this. One gether, they have invested $280bn in the past year, equivalent to view is that thecompanies’ large customer bases, and control of 9% of American business investment, up from 4% five years ago. pools of data with which to train artificial intelligence (ai), give Big tech wants to find the next big opportunity, and our anal them an insurmountable advantage. Won’t the giants use that to ysis of deals, patents, recruitment and other yardsticks shows squash rivals? Yet all these new areas look competitive for the that cash is flowing into everything from driverless cars to quan time being. Many other firms are in the metaverse race, for ex tum computing (see Briefing). The shift reflects a fear that the lu ample. “Fortnite”, made by Epic Games, has more than 300m crative fiefs of the 2010s are losing relevance, and the fact that players worldwide, while Roblox has 47m gamers who spend tech’s titans are increasingly moving onto each other’s patches 3bn hours a month on its platform. Nvidia, a chip firm, is mov (the share of sales that overlap has doubled since 2015 to 40%). ing into the space, too. Even Microsoft’s Activision deal would So they are all looking to swoop into new territory. raise its market share in gaming to only 1015%—hardly a mo They also have an eye on the history of technology, which is nopoly. In autonomous cars, big tech must contend with the littered with oncedominant firms that were brought down not likes of Tesla, gmand Volkswagen. Global startups raised $621bn by regulators, but by missing the next big thing. Fairchild Semi of venture funding in 2021, far more than big tech invested (see conductor ruled in the 1950s but now exists only in books. In 1983 Culture section). And new rivals have emerged with unexpected ibmwas America’s most profitable firm but eight years later was speed in some areas, such as TikTok in social media. lossmaking after botching the move from Moreover, there is an outside chance that the mainframes to pcs. Nokia, once seemingly in new terrain will prove less prone to domination vincible in mobile devices, fumbled the shift to by centralised platforms. Deeplearning tech smartphones. The maamas spent the 2010s nology, the dominant form of aitoday, relies on fortifying commanding positions, in business large amounts of data, but future forms of ai tools for Microsoft, ecommerce for Amazon, may not. Then there are the decentralised social media for Meta, and so on. The pandemic blockchain services owned and operated by us has boosted demand, from bored couchsurfers ers, loosely known as Web3. At the moment to startups in need of cloud computing. Apple these have clunky interfaces, use up lots of en and Alphabet are nowlarger than were usSteel and Standard Oil, ergy and are not always as decentralised as they seem. But in one the two mighty monopolies of the 1900s, measured by profits area—decentralised finance, or DeFi—rapid improvements are relative to domestic gdp. Yet past performance is not indicative already under way (see Finance & economics section). of future results, and now all of them are limbering up for what Nonetheless, the temptation is for regulators to clamp down ever comes next. preemptively. In 2020 Lina Khan, who is now America’s top The problem is that nobody knows what it will be. But it will antitrust official, recommended that big tech firms be banned probably involve new physical devices that will supersede the from expanding into adjacent areas. Some big antitrust cases smartphone as the dominant means of connecting people to in may reach America’s courts by 2023. And Europe may soon pass formation and services. Whoever makes such devices will there a sweeping Digital Markets Act, aimed at regulating big technol fore control access to users. This explains why Apple is planning ogy companies “ex ante”—that is, constraining such firms’ be a virtualreality headset to compete with Meta’s Oculus range haviour upfront, rather than punishing them later with antitrust and Microsoft’s HoloLens. Alphabet, Apple and Amazon have cases (Margrethe Vestager, the eu’s competition tsar, explains all also all placed expensive bets on autonomous cars. And vast on our “Money Talks” podcast). sums are being spent on designing specialised chips, and pursu Yet a lighter touch is the best policy. Investment in tech is ing new approaches like quantum computing, to provide the linked to rising productivity, and the share of cashflows the tech processing power for whatever new devices emerge. giants are reinvesting has almost doubled since a decade ago. The maamas’ other priority is creating software platforms Trustbusters will struggle to predict the technologies of tomor that will allow them to extract rents, by drawing in users, and row. What they can do is block firms from doing deals that give then relying on network effects to draw in even more. Hence them a monopoly position in new markets today. That is not yet Facebook’s renaming and its $10bn annual spending on immer a danger. Indeed, history suggests that tech giants are most often sive online worlds, known as the metaverse. Apple has been ex brought down by failing to master emerging technologies. If to panding the walled garden of services it provides to users of its day’s giants want to spend billions trying to move intonewareas devices, moving into areas such as fitness classes and television to avoid that fate, so far there is no reason to stop them. n 012 10 Leaders The Economist January 22nd 2022 British politics The parable of Boris Johnson And what it says about the country he governs In early september Boris Johnson setouthisvisionforbeat civillibertiesandrestrictthe rights of new citizens. It is a mark ing Margaret Thatcher’s 11year record, and so to become the of Mr Johnson’s unseriousness that he tosses aside his vaunted longestserving British prime minister of modern times. Like a classical liberal beliefs as carelessly as an empty bottle. bumptious schoolboy, he got far ahead of himself. In the coming You can trace this trivialisation of the business of governing days or weeks, he may be kicked out of office by his own mps. right back to the referendum. To get Brexit done, Mr Johnson More likely, he will cling on in 10 Downing Street under the per agreed on a customs border in the Irish Sea and then proceeded manent threat of eviction (see Britain section). Either way, he no to pretend he hadn’t. He argued that Britain would escape the longer controls the fate of his own premiership. regulatory straitjacket of the European Union, but he has avoid The immediate cause of Mr Johnson’s diminishment is, on ed doing much deregulating—which, however swashbuckling it the face of it, laughably puerile. Downing Street indulged in rou sounds in a headline, tends in real life to be unpopular. To prosp tine latenight boozeups while the rest of the country was un er, Britain needs decent relations with the eu, its closest neigh der strict lockdown. The prime minister’s disingenuous at bour and biggest trading partner. But Mr Johnson relishes pick tempts to wriggle out of being blamed did him no good—indeed, ing fights instead, because he likes to play to the gallery. they served only to reveal his and his wife’s own carousing. Treating voters as dopes to be bought off with bombast is a Tory mps will measure the lapse in judgment of a serial trans feature of the demagoguery that Mr Johnson rode to power. It is gressor against an 87seat working majority that Mr Johnson an example of the contempt with which populist leaders treat conjured out of nothing, his success in bringing about Brexit, a the people they govern. So, alas, is the other trait that has infect worldclass vaccine programme and a gift for making the politi ed postBrexit Britain: lying in politics. cal weather. Donald Trump still dominates the Republican Party, Mr Johnson has crumbled because he repeatedly failed to tell despite his part in the attack on Congress a year ago. Are sausage the truth to Parliament and the nation about Downing Street’s rolls and sauvignon blanc really a sacking offence? bacchanals. First he declared that his staff did not hold parties. For Britain’s sake, they should be. One reason is that the re When that was disproved, he denied knowing about them. lentless partying is evidence of Mr Johnson’s sense of entitle When it emerged that he had been at one, he said he had not real ment, which holds that there is one rule for him ised they counted as parties. And when it was and his people and another for everyone else. claimed that he had been warned they did, he Double standards at the top tend to corrupt the seemed to suggest that he misunderstood the whole of public life. More important, it raises rules his own government had drafted. It is a two other of Mr Johnson’s attributes that plague pattern that stretches back to his time as a jour postBrexit Britain. They are traits the country nalist, when he lied to his editors; to when he needs to overcome if it is to thrive. was an editor, when he lied to his proprietor; The first is Mr Johnson’s childish lack of se and to when he was a shadow minister, when he riousness about the business of government. lied to his party’s leader. Downing Street’s fightback this week, supposedly under the title The untruths go beyond one selfabsorbed man. Where pop “Operation Red Meat”, launched a fusillade of Torypleasing ulism thrives, it subordinates the facts to tribalism. That may be pledges to abolish the bbc licence fee and stop asylumseekers why, according to polling by Opinium released on January 17th, from reaching Britain across the English Channel. The govern almost half of Conservative Party members still believe that Mr ment says it will get the Royal Navy to police the seas and send Johnson’s account of Number 10’s revels is true, compared with applicants away, reportedly to be processed in Ghana or Rwanda. just 13% of all voters in a poll published a few days earlier. Again, None of that bluster survived the briefest encounter with reality. you can trace the pattern to Brexit, when campaigners who knew This lack of seriousness has infected the government. This better said that Turkey was about to join the eu, that the euhad week the Tories took credit for the fact that Britain has the fastest more to lose from a breakdown in trade than Britain did and that annual growth rate in the g7 and that output regained its pre leaving would free up £350m ($480m) a week to spend on the pandemic level in November, ahead of forecasts. But they have National Health Service. It is no accident that, after the vote, Re not grappled with Brexit’s probable longterm hit to productivi mainers’ advice was rejected just because of who they were. ty, of about 4%. Over five years, Britain’s growth rate has been Democratic politics has always been about pleasing the poor. Inflation, which reached 5.4% in the 12 months to Decem crowd, as well as plugging away at policies. Brexiteers were right ber, a 30year high, means real average weekly pay is less than in to sense that a run of technocratic British governments had lost 2007. Business investment is lower than before the referendum. touch with voters. But the excesses of Partygate have shown that Mr Johnson’s government has unveiled plenty of big econ the postBrexit Tory party has lost touch with reality. omyboosting ideas, including levelling up prosperity across It is a strength of the parliamentary system that mps can Britain, tearing down planning restrictions and making Britain a bring about a rapid change of direction. If the Conservative Party science superpower. But the government is more interested in is to find its way, it will need a new leader. If reforms are to take fanfare than fulfilment. The big ideas are either still slogans or root, they will need detailed planning and sustained applica have been quietly abandoned. At the same time, the Tories have tion. If Britain is to make the most of the opportunities present pressed ahead with crowdpleasing, illiberal bills that trample ed by Brexit, it needs to face up to the difficult choices ahead. n 012
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