Britain's Economic COLLAPSE: From Global Leader to 27th Place | Lord Moynihan | IEA Live

IEA Podcast

In this IEA Live event interview, Executive Director Tom Clougherty sits down with Lord Moynihan of Chelsea to explore the key themes from his two-volume work "Return to Growth." Lord Moynihan presents his analysis of what he calls "the three devils" preventing UK economic growth: excessive government spending, high taxation, and burdensome regulation. Throughout their conversation, they explore how the UK has moved from a position of economic strength to facing stagnant growth, with current GDP per capita growth effectively at zero.

Lord Moynihan offers a stark assessment of Britain's economic decline, arguing that the country has transitioned from a free market economy toward an increasingly extractive state system. He suggests that returning to policies similar to those of early Blair-era Britain, when government spending was around 30% of GDP rather than today's 45%, could help restore annual growth to 3%. The conversation delves into specific issues such as energy policy, employment regulations, and the challenges posed by Wagner's Law—the tendency of democracies to demand ever-expanding government services.

The discussion also explores broader cultural factors affecting growth, including the exodus of entrepreneurial talent from the UK and the psychological differences between "head" and "heart" decision-making that influence political choices. Lord Moynihan concludes with a sobering analysis of how difficult meaningful reform might be given the entrenched regulatory state but maintains that a shift in the Overton Window of acceptable political discourse could eventually create the conditions for change, similar to what happened before the Thatcher revolution of the 1980s.

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