Andrew Willshire is founder of the independent strategic analytics consultancy Diametrical Ltd.
Accusing politicians of short-term thinking isn’t exactly novel, but even “long-term thinking” too often means looking 10-20 years ahead, a time period in which the default assumption is that the country’s population, economy and place in the world are broadly similar to how they are now.
But it seems there is a larger pattern of wilful blindness across the political spectrum, a staunch refusal to think about the more distant future. It is both a failure to contend with obvious facts and a failure of imagination.
Take transportation, for example.
A hundred years from now, will people still be travelling around the UK on the same railway lines that the Victorians laid down? Will it still more than three hours to travel from Edinburgh to Manchester or from Newcastle to Birmingham? If not, then at some point between now and then, a politician has to propose the building of a high-speed rail network, exceeding even the original scope of HS2, let alone the embarrassing rump it has become. Who, when, and why not the current Transport Secretary?
Or imagine if you stated this as a policy objective at any time in the last hundred years: “We aim to have the most expensive energy in the world, and for all major manufacturing and chemical industries to be in the control of our major strategic competitor.”
People would have assumed you were mad or an enemy agent.
The much-lauded decarbonisation of our economy is built on a fiction – that reducing territorial emissions rather than consumption emissions is of any value whatsoever, especially in a world where China and India have little genuine intention of decarbonising.
A bold politician could state that we are changing our objective to minimising our consumption emissions, a decision that would open up a range of policy options, especially around investment in R&D and in reindustrialisation based on cheap, clean domestic energy. Who, when, and why not the current Energy Secretary?
The fuss about the winter fuel allowance obscures a real problem. If the pension triple-lock is left in place indefinitely it will result in all state spending being allocated to the state pension. To avoid this, someone needs to explain why the government should only automatically uprate pensions with inflation. Who, when, and why not the current Pensions Secretary?
On defence, there is no justification for being able to contribute a relatively trivial number of soldiers to fight a land war in Eastern Europe while letting the Royal Navy deteriorate to the point where there are no spare frigates or destroyers to protect our home waters and overseas dependencies adequately, particularly with our increased reliance on subsea electrical and data infrastructure.
The Army’s shopping list of equipment to be remotely capable of matching a peer adversary is clearly unaffordable. At some point, someone will need to announce that the UK will no longer seek to be a major land power. Who, when, and why not the current Defence Secretary?
What about immigration? An astonishingly unremarked fact is that the population of Africa is projected by the UN to reach 4.5 billion by the year 2100, roughly three times its current population. It would be reasonable to expect that increased conflict over water, resources, religion and ethnicity will drive huge numbers to seek asylum in the UK and our immediate neighbours.
Currently, around 70% of asylum claims are accepted, essentially because in most of the world, it is entirely normal to be oppressed because of your religion, sex, sexuality, or politics. At some point, politicians will have to change both our own laws to be much more selective about who we accept but also the international treaties governing the rights to seek asylum. Who, when, and why not the current Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary?
In terms of our global standing, what is the likelihood that in fifty years’ time, the permanent members of the UN Security Council will still include the UK and France?
Will, e.g., India, Brazil, Indonesia, Pakistan and Nigeria be content with that situation, unjustifiable by economics, military capability or demographics? One day, it is likely that the post-war “rules-based order” is going to be in the grip of countries which are not liberal, secular democracies.
Already we can see that Chinese money can buy votes in the UN or corrupt organisations like the WHO. Do we have a plan for when the UN gives the Falklands to Argentina, allows the Russians to drill for oil in the British Antarctic Territory, and the Chinese to send its vast fishing fleet to the British Indian Ocean Territory? One day, someone will have to assert how the UK will defend its interests against the manipulation of international law or, if necessary, in defiance of it. Who, when, and why not the current Prime Minister?
The list is virtually endless. Will a Health Minister realise that, as the rest of the world gets richer, we won’t be able to rely on stealing doctors from poor countries to staff the NHS? Will the Chancellor admit that one day, international investors will have better options than to buy British Government debt and that we need to start reducing the pile?
Most of these are not mere policy options to be debated. They are inevitabilities.
Politicians need to raise their eyes beyond the election cycle, beyond the likely length of their career, and even beyond their own lifespan, and see that important decisions need to be made before they are forced upon us. It’s not necessary for a politician to rhapsodise about a thousand-year reich; just give a hint that the country’s future occasionally crosses their mind.
