Liz Truss is just the latest Prime Minister to be tripped up trying to tackle productivity.
This last jab was particularly galling for Truss, and not just because it nodded at how politically unstable the UK has become . The comparison also points to the UK's economic malaise: its low growth, its bloated public services — and its sluggish productivity, a long-lived feature of the UK economy that Truss vowed to reverse.
Truss telegraphed her intent to tackle Britain's culture of unproductive laziness during the race to replace Boris Johnson, so it was no surprise to anyone who was listening when she burst out of the gate, guns leveled at Britain's low productivity and growth. Her, released on September 23, promised the biggest tax cuts the UK had seen since 1972, as well as an energy price freeze, all to be paid for with a massive borrowing spree.
Productivity languished for years. Margaret Thatcher made improving it one of her missions, urging people to"Travel abroad, and see how much better our neighbors are doing," while she was in opposition. Once in power, in 1979, she ushered in a series of reforms that cut taxes, empowered employers over unions, dismantled public ownership of assets and deregulated much of the economy.
"We've had flat lining productivity since the mid-2000s," she says."And while compared to other countries, they've had slowdowns, we've just had a much worse slowdown than anybody."
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