Post Brexit - the UK's urgent fixes

This is a filler post until the conclusion of the Commons vote tomorrow. As debate continues in the House, we must look forward to the UK’s role in the world post-Brexit – and start to identify those characteristics of our national economy which most drag us down.

A useful tool is the WEF’s 2017/18 Global Competitiveness Report. For starters, I’ve pulled off the rankings of the UK and of our closest competitor, Germany, in the field of Institutions.

Well, we rank much higher than Germany overall – 12th to their 21st – but we could do a lot better. In terms of legal rights – investor protection, property rights, judicial independence – we’re way ahead. Giving investors confidence that the State won’t seize their wealth on a whim is a sound foundation.

However, there are three key indices that completely drag us down. Government favouritism (pork barrel corruption), government efficiency (27th globally compared to Germany’s 6th) and the burden of government regulation (32nd globally to Germany’s 7th). My own view is that the drag of government on the nation’s output is due to our highly concentrated central State. Whitehall wants to control and micromanage everything, but does so badly – and as a consequence economic efficiency is badly impaired.

The other index that lets us down badly is trust in our politicians. Britain’s politicians are trusted less than 16 other nations. Of course, this was compiled before their disgraceful behaviour in Parliament over Brexit. Today it must be off the page.