Is There Any Party for Prosperity?
When Reform UK backed the triple lock, Nigel Farage ended the possibility his party would create a better future for us all, especially the young. It is time to change the tune.
When Nigel Farage’s Reform UK joined the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats in pledging to maintain the pension triple lock, something important happened in British politics: the possibility of a government promoting prosperity in the next parliament died. Alas for the young, who already face a nightmare.
Every major national party has now signed up to a policy the Office for Budget Responsibility has repeatedly described as a major long‑term fiscal risk – one that will dramatically increase over the coming decades, worsening an unsustainable debt path.
We know who will pay: people in their twenties and thirties who are already locked out of home ownership, loaded with student debt, squeezed by stagnant wages and facing some of the highest childcare costs in the developed world.
It is a disaster for them and our whole society.
Politicians and journalists know the truth
Shamefully, politicians and journalists know the truth that the welfare state cannot be afforded and yet do nothing about it: nothing to change policy and nothing to hold politicians to account for their failure. The terrain of debate is the easy one: for higher spending and lower taxes. That spells ruin.
It’s true that many politicians – perhaps a majority – are thoroughly ignorant of the mess we are in, which I spelt out here. But Chancellors are not.
I vividly recall a private meeting of Conservative MPs while Rishi was Chancellor. About 30 colleagues were gathered in one of the larger committee rooms in the Palace of Westminster to lobby him. When my turn came, I briefly sketched that argument: that the welfare state is unaffordable and headed to default. MPs looked downcast as Rishi, to his credit, confirmed I was right. Then one said, “But we can’t do anything about it at the next election,” and the bubble burst: the impossible demands of the voters again drove politicians to make promises they know cannot be kept.
And recently, on our podcast, the excellent journalist Kevin Schofield readily agreed we are headed for default and that journalists do know. He told us every party admits in private that the welfare state is unsustainable. We discussed why this is not news.
It is an extraordinary failure of democracy that this looming implosion and the implications of coping with it are not shaping the news.
