One Year On Substack
Right and Left! Thank You For Being With Me!
I have been writing on Substack for a little over one year now. It has been great to explore ideas, keep in touch with family and friends and make new connections.
Below are some takeouts in no particular order.
Among my best performing pieces was one of my first - The Decline of The United Kingdom and What We Must Do.
I borrow concepts from the traditional left and the right to attempt to diagnose why Britain has stagnated.
Ideology has no place in the relentless pursuit of improved living standards. If it becomes clear that the privatisation of the water system (in England) was a mistake, then it should be adressed head-on. It is difficult to offer competition on services and products that lend themselves to monopolisation such as water.
After 40 years of the most profitable infrastructure assets in the world being open to the market, we have not reached a point where UK water companies are competing with the Spanish and the French titans, winning contracts all over the world and investing in pioneering new technologies, which will win them further contracts in far-flung countries deep into the future.
Similarly, much of our planning system evidently needs streamlined and liberalised. More than £300m was spent on the planning and application phase alone for the Lower Thames Crossing (linking Essex and Kent). This is more than double the £140m (adjusted for inflation) it cost Norway to build the 15-mile Lærdal Tunnel.
I very much enjoyed discovering more about the growth of Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) around the world
It has grown from a fringe pursuit to something which is now very much mainstream.
The funds themselves will become increasingly important geopolitically as their share of global financial flows profilterates.
From my perspective, I cannot overstate their importance in teaching fiscal prudence and mitigating imbalances from mineral resources (or any sector).
Norway will in theory, within 25 years, be able to scrap taxes continue funding state expenditure through its 3% annual withdrawl.
Forward
Whatever the pressures, I hope to keep to one weekly column, on average, into the future.
Every third or fourth, I will put behind a paywall.
They will be around 300 words.
I may change the name of the newsletter to reflect more international commentary beyond Britain. Perhaps something like ‘Economic Health’.
Best