03/12/2004 2:11:59 pm
Britons! Don?t Make the Swedish Mistake! In The Spectator yesterday, Nick Herbert of the think-tank Reform wrote an interesting article. He believes, after watching the Queen?s speech, that New labour has chosen a very risky path for their third term. It is guided by one principle, often repeated:
"It is about the progressive power of government as a force for good."
That is a totally different form of government than what Tony Blair has been preaching. He has repeatedly said that government should just give people opportunities and that you sould decide by yourself what to do with them. Now, Mr Herbert fears, British politics will be all about running peoples lives for them. And that road leads to becoming the new Sweden:

"And it is the suggestion that Britain might become the new Sweden which should truly set alarm bells ringing in corporate Britain and indeed in the home of any British taxpayer. ... Setting aside its crime rate, which is the highest in Europe, and its problem of alcoholism, both feats which Britain is attempting to emulate, this is the mother of high- tax nations. Sweden?s tax burden is an eye-watering 50.8 per cent of GDP, compared with 35.3 per cent here and 25.4 per cent in the US. Nearly £6 of every £10 in the country is spent by the government. About 10 per cent of the Swedish workforce are on sick leave at any one time. ... The brief intervention of a conservative government in the early 1990s introduced economic and public service reforms, including tax reductions, which dramatically improved Sweden?s economic performance, resulting in a period of better growth and lower unemployment. But ironically these are policy lessons which New Labour refuses to learn. ... Britain is, to use Tony Blair?s phrase, at a fork in the road. One way leads to the new Sweden, to ever bigger, more expensive and intrusive government, of the kind from which Britain has traditionally recoiled. The other way leads to personal responsibility, freedom, and the wealth that follows."

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