Past: How We Talked Ourselves Into a Corner
We never really argued Europe on first principles—peace, prosperity, human rights, freedom of movement, shared standards. We argued on slogans. We outsourced the national imagination to tabloids and demagogues, and then acted surprised when magical thinking produced real-world bills. By the time the dust settled, “sovereignty” had become a vibe, not a plan.
Present: The Pragmatism Trap
Today’s politics feels relentlessly utilitarian: manage the spreadsheet, massage the headline, survive the next 24-hour cycle. Vision is treated as a risk factor. Meanwhile, the structural problems keep stacking up:
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Debt at 60-year highs. Public sector net debt sits around 96% of GDP, a level last seen in the early 1960s.
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A health service running hot. NHS elective waiting lists hover at 7.36 million despite record treatment volumes.
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Inflation cooled, but prices didn’t. CPI is down to 3.8% (from an 11.1% peak in 2022), but households are still living with the permanent shift in costs.
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Housing approvals at record lows. The pipeline is shrinking, even as the government talks up 1.5 million new homes.
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The politics of optics. “Small boats” dominate the agenda, while coherent policies on growth, migration and industry are sacrificed to tabloid storms.
This is what happens when governments treat governing like crisis PR: you chase the loudest gust of wind. The result is performative toughness—hotel bans, punitive rhetoric—while the fundamentals (growth, productivity, health, housing, skills) remain under-powered.
Future: A Grown-Up Programme for Renewal
We don’t need new messiahs; we need competent, credentialed reformers with an ethic. A country can’t live forever on services, inflated rates and an isolationist shrug.
1. Industrial base fit for AI.
Ten-year strategy on AI, clean energy, advanced materials, with support for both “frontier” research and everyday adoption by small firms.
2. Education and skills as national infrastructure.
Support teacher retention, technical education pipelines, lifelong learning accounts, apprenticeships with genuine ladders into growth clusters.
3. Health and care joined up.
Integrate NHS and social-care budgets, expand surgical hubs, measure success by reduced emergency admissions.
4. Housing built where people need it.
Make the 1.5m homes target binding, with planning reform and public-interest land value capture.
5. Europe, soberly.
Step back in functionally: science programmes, youth mobility, security cooperation, sector agreements—trust rebuilt by substance, not symbols.
6. Migration with adult supervision.
Break smuggling, speed up asylum decisions, create lawful routes, stop governing by hotel headlines.
Closing
Pragmatism is a virtue only when it’s anchored in principle. Otherwise, it’s drift. Britain needs leaders who can hold a compass in high wind—and citizens ready to reward them for it.