Socialism is reviving the British disease

Thatcher's legacy squandered by Blair: "Perceptions about the "state of the nation" tend to change only gradually. In the 1980s the belief that Britain was doomed to decline lingered for some time after the Thatcher reforms had paved the road to economic recovery. Labour, by contrast, has benefited from revived national confidence that Britain had rediscovered the secrets of market-led success. That confidence appears increasingly misplaced.... Public sector productivity is deplorably low, so that the larger the public payroll, the worse Britain's overall economy performs. In every year since Labour came to power, British output per hour, which had previously been showing relative improvement, has fallen further behind that of the United States. This year's productivity gain is expected to be a mere 0.9 per cent, equal to that of Germany, well behind France (1.4 per cent), and half the rate in the US (1.8 per cent) and Japan (1.9 per cent)... The past eight years have seen a marked "continental drift" in Britain. Taxes here are now higher than in Germany for the first time in a generation. According to the OECD, which is as objective as any institution, British state spending will swallow a bigger slice of national wealth next year than the famously profligate German welfare state".

Socialist tax laws could drive big British companies overseas: "The Times has learnt that at least one FTSE 100 company is investigating domiciling itself outside the UK following an 18-month crackdown by Revenue & Customs on tax avoidance. Other companies are so angry at the clampdown on previously accepted business practices that they are refusing to co-operate with Revenue's attempts to understand corporate tax planning. Guy Brannan, head of tax at Linklaters, the City law firm, said that the relocation plans of a number of companies were at a "pretty advanced stage". Mr Brannan said: "The Government's attitude is becoming counter-productive. If companies do not have to be headquartered in the UK and a large proportion of their business is elsewhere, they are investigating moving outside the UK." The Netherlands, Ireland and Luxembourg were popular alternatives to Britain, he said.... Last November Ian McCafferty, the CBI's chief economic adviser, attacked the Treasury's anti-avoidance campaign. "These measures are effectively a covert means of extending the tax base to raise revenue while circumventing previously accepted tax principle and practice," he said."

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