RSA Animate - The Economic Consequences of Mr Brown

That is mister Brown's brilliant slogan for his economic policy: "Prudence for a purpose". Prudence is the budget, the use of money, the inputs. And purpose is what it's about, the outcomes. By that standard... by the standard of purpose new labor in government is a failure. The purpose was inspired by the ideas of social justice to break with the thatcharite legacy of reckless inequality. But under new labor Britain far from becoming more equal became more unequal society. More unequal economically in the distribution of income and more unequal socially for example in health inequalities. The economic consequences of Mr Brown are negligible not much for the good not much for the bad. Just nothing. However, this is only the trivial part of my story here this evening. What I'm really hear to talk about is WHY? And that will shift my attention very quickly from questions of this or that about a government to questions of the constitution. In my study I've looked at four core policies: child powerty, health care crime, education and then overall inequality. The assessment is, on the government's own terms, prudence for a purpose. And here's the best available independent research and evidence and I've looked mainly at the good years from 1997 to 2007. So inputs there: the story was very good Mr Brown was master of the budget. More money was put into priority policy areas. More public investments. Public investments went up. And new policy instruments were puts to use. But then again nothing or next to nothing follow through to results in outcomes. Let me say a few things about child poverty Mr Brown's flagship policy. This is a picture of what happened. That is the percentage of children living in households in poverty. Now what this picture basically shows is nothing. It is basically nothing. It remains about a third of children in Britain lived in poverty. Now there are some small movements up and down on that charge but basically this picture shows nothing. Of the small movements.. What happened was that a long upwards trend in the rates of child poverty came to an end in 1994 three years before the new labor came to power. Then the rates started to edge down and that's when new labor came in. And hten after Mr brown introduced tax credits the new instruments to combat child poverty the rates of child poverty again increased. They should of course have decreased but they increased. And the reason for that was that underlying income inequality then shifted towards the increasing inequality and the policies that were in place were not capable for protecting children against the fallout of increasing underlying inequality. That was exactly the story during the 1980s. Children were not protected and they are still not protected. In crime after the new money was put in a long trend of falling rates of crime was interrupted and the level of crime stabilized. Only in education is there some success. Here a long-term trends of improvements in educational results were maintained and did not and not interrupted or lost. Now there is not much of success, but at least it's not outright failure. It was a poor value for money. Here also productivity declined and again inequalities persistent. All in all than in individual policies nothing or next to nothing follows through. and you get overall purpose of breaking the back of inequality and introducing and nobody else social justice nothing absolutely nothing so the question then is why ambassador that is extremely difficult and paradoxical because this was a government but should have succeeded it how did everything he had power and you got money to work with from economic growth you got mom to expedite vision it had ambition yet activism it had sincerity and it was a competent government there is a real tragedy in the greek meaning the gods gave the ladies and gentlemen of the new labor government everything they could warmth and dream of a moscow and then the guards denied them any benefits from back east by mister brown and mister cameron child at each other in parliament ones saying we had succeeded and long the other saying you are incompetence they are both wrong the story of new different is not a story of a government that failed because of incompetence did he say intriguing story of a government that failed in spite of competence apartment the government made by the sections one child poverty they used the wrong instruments and they did not put enough money in they were warned in the n_h_l_ s much too much money was put in much too quickly and with much to march political spin on health and crime preventive policies were neglected and everything was invested in reactive and controlling missions so that was the mistakes and there's much to learn from them even body is not much of an explanation because we have to ask why then a competent government mess it up for itself with bad decisions the deeper explanation then lies in the system of governance and in the constitution nine looking into government policies in detail what i've done here it quickly becomes visible how extremely centralized the british system of government now is everything is decided in and run from downing street the rest of the country undocking foods parliament is on the receiving end more under commons dot in partnership now the absence of mobilizing policies in this review sleeve the population was not immobilized politically the reintegration of the shame of child poverty and to repay its debts to it's true the professions and health care in schools were not valid and encourage neighborhoods will not hold i think it's the scourge of anti-social behavior people were not small were nice to take care of their health the government to come on that and everyone else was controlled your neighbor for all the children shape it's been neglected ought to be to ship in particular inside the bottle stopper actors of government during the last thirty years or so the british constitution of p drastically leadership mister barone mister brown inherited missus fractures centralization have been broken with that legacy they may have succeeded instead they slipped into continuing its and inadvertently perhaps undermine their own calls and condemned themselves ever more effort for everlasting if your neighbor with all the guards gave them in nineteen ninety seven court naku then no government in this country clip in a focal crew this evening by offering you professor ring ginza gender for constitutional reform restore the house of commons as the central political authority in british democracy second reinvent local democracy and it needs to be reinvented our suitcases britain just does not have proper noble units to devolve power to and third straighten out political funding and the way we pay for politics my recipe is default make all political funding public don all donations from individuals businesses and unions and distribute public money asb anxious to borders for them to give to their partner of choice or to throw away ladies and gentlemen last week in washington president obama reminded congress of their duty to get don what we were sent here to do here in britain today the constitution is now such that no government can get done Transcribe by http://www.facebook.com/KnowledgeConsumersSociety