Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
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In France, state spending is a massive 58pc of GDP, while the US, even with President’s Biden’s huge increases in welfare payments and industrial subsidies is still only at 36pc. A country which has usually been closer to Washington than Paris is now starting to drift the other way.
This is happening across the economy. As Tuesday’s shocking figures for public borrowing showed, even with punishing tax rises the government is still nowhere close to balancing the books, with a deficit running at 4.4pc of GDP compared with 5.5pc for our neighbour. And of course, growth is miserable.
France is expected to expand by only 0.7pc this year, on IMF forecasts, while the UK will only manage 0.5pc. The USA, on the other hand, is projected to roar ahead at 2.7pc.
The problem is that while we’re increasingly mimicking the French public spending strategy, we don’t seem to get anything like the same results. If you are going to have a huge, intrusive state – and of course at least a few of us would prefer that we didn’t – then at least you might as well have the French version.
For all its faults, it certainly seems to have one redeeming feature. It is effective. On almost any measure you care to look at the French government machine easily outperforms the British one.
Such as? France has a far better health system, combining social insurance with state provision, and while the French are angry that average waiting times to see a GP have risen from four days before the pandemic to 10 that is far better than this country, where the waiting time for a routine appointment is 19 days, if you can get to see a doctor at all.
We have huge levels of government spending. We have punitive taxes. The state micro-manages the economy, offering lavish levels of welfare, while constantly racking up more and more debt.
True, we don’t have a boulangerie on every corner, and we don’t have riots every weekend – or at least, not yet. But in almost every other way, however, as Indermit Gill, the chief economist of the World Bank, pointed out this week, the British economy has slowly turned into a French tribute act.
There is just one catch. While France at least gets results from its sprawling state, the UK seems to get almost nothing. We face a fate far worse than our neighbour on the other side of the Channel – French levels of tax and debt, combined with practically third-world levels of investment and public services.
It is one of the ironies of the last half decade that instead of turning into Singapore on Thames or mimicking American dynamism after leaving the European Union, the UK has turned into France instead.
As Gill put it, “the country that used to be most like the United States in all of Europe was the UK. And you guys decided to go and become a lot more like continental Europe. You look like France, not like the US.”
UK economy is turning into a French tribute act – without any of the hits
Matthew Lynn
24 April 2024 • 6:00am
Matthew Lynn
4
Sunak Macron
While France at least gets results from its sprawling state, the UK seems to get almost nothing Credit: Simon Dawson/No 10 Downing Street
We have huge levels of government spending. We have punitive taxes. The state micro-manages the economy, offering lavish levels of welfare, while constantly racking up more and more debt.
True, we don’t have a boulangerie on every corner, and we don’t have riots every weekend – or at least, not yet. But in almost every other way, however, as Indermit Gill, the chief economist of the World Bank, pointed out this week, the British economy has slowly turned into a French tribute act.
There is just one catch. While France at least gets results from its sprawling state, the UK seems to get almost nothing. We face a fate far worse than our neighbour on the other side of the Channel – French levels of tax and debt, combined with practically third-world levels of investment and public services.
It is one of the ironies of the last half decade that instead of turning into Singapore on Thames or mimicking American dynamism after leaving the European Union, the UK has turned into France instead.
As Gill put it, “the country that used to be most like the United States in all of Europe was the UK. And you guys decided to go and become a lot more like continental Europe. You look like France, not like the US.”
It’s hard to disagree. Public spending in the UK rose from 39pc of GDP in 2019 to 50pc during the pandemic, and it has now settled at 44pc.
Telegraph paywall.
Aying up for the bills. £87 billion a year – by the start of 2030 for defence, decarbonization of the grid will cost a few billions, where will they get all this money? Big deficits, more and more debt, growth almost non-existant....The tanks will drive with solar panels i guess....If we as civilians would be spending like Governments, we would 've been bankrupt decades ago.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/04/24/britain-faces-a-fate-much-worse-than-france/
Labour will have to deal with p
The pressure is building on this unfair Tax grab
Labour will have to deal with it somehow as reality bites back.
A court challenge must be coming
Serica’s Chairman is quite right of course but he’ll have his comments slapped back at him by announcing the maintaining of dividend and commencement of buybacks. It’s a no win situation other than for the UK Treasury .
SQZ results open with a sizzler:
“ Commenting on the results, David Latin, Serica's Chairman and incoming Interim CEO, stated:
"I am very pleased that Serica has delivered a strong set of results for 2023 despite significantly lower sales prices compared to 2022 and a full year of the UK marginal tax rate being at 75%. Any 'windfall' due to high commodity prices has long gone and the high tax situation is ill-suited to a mature oil and gas basin such as the UK North Sea. Its continuation will not benefit people in the UK either financially or environmentally.”
SQZ, announced results today and also announced a 15M share buyback which starts today. Not sure why ENQ has still to pull the trigger on these.