The Tories won’t do themselves any favours overruling independent pay bodies on public sector pay.
We are just likely to see more and more strikes and disruption and not just from the likes of the RMT who are politically motivated.
They're in a complete bind. They'll trot out the wage-price spiral excuse to justify bearing down on public sector pay, but the plain fact is that they're struggling to find politically acceptable cuts to fund extra spending in this area, borrowing is enormous and becoming ever more expensive, and so they're left with either digging their heels in and offering workers peanuts, or raising taxes on their core supporters to pay for more generous rises. There's no violin small enough.
The reality we are reaching the end game for the Blairite/Thatcher-lite model
It used to be chunky public spending and low taxes with the difference funded by clever balance sheet tricks (PFI/securitisation) or straight up borrowing. Wages were kept down by relaxed views on immigration
Cost of borrowing is going up and the markets are twitchy after all that QE
Asset price bubbles have driven a reasonable standard of living beyond the reach of many
Effectively unlimited immigration has resulted in underinvestment in business (low wages partly due to immigration and partly due to tax credits) drove down returns (cost saving) on investment and increased the strain on public services (governments didn’t invest in capacity).
The electorate has been trained to believe the government will always bail them out
We need a grown up conversation. Either taxes have to go up massively or public services need to be completely rethought.
But neither politicians or the electorate are ready to have that conversation.
While much of this is true, it is also the case that other countries have had similar situations to us, and have managed to avoid excessively expensive housing or stagnant business investment.
If you go back further, it's been happening all of @JackW's life;
The big fall- the first third of the twentieth century- is presumably all about education and emancipation of women. All the wobbles since then look pretty minor by comparison, though they do seem to correlate with feel good/feel bad times. (Which makes sense.)
And whilst there was a lockdown effect on birth rates, it wasn't that big (10% or so?) and seems to have bounced back;
The big fall seems to pre-date the 20th century. Late 19th. Classic demographic transition: urbanisation, improved sanitation, healthcare and reduced child mortality. And, as you say, female workforce participation.
Comments
They therefore cannot be the whole story.
century. Late 19th. Classic demographic transition: urbanisation, improved sanitation, healthcare and reduced child mortality. And, as you say, female workforce participation.