Another autumn statement has come and gone with any faint hope of the beginnings of an economic revival extinguished.
Once again, we have measures ranging from inadequate and counterproductive, to ones that will simply cost the poorest and benefit the richest. But the most damage will likely come as the result of the announcement of the cash freeze to investment spending (our public sector investment is already lower than in comparable countries), which in the long term will mean more real-terms cuts to our public services, which are already in tatters.
This government has spent its entire term saying it wants to make our economy stronger. But we can see across all markers – and in the day-to-day experiences of our lives – that this has not been realised. Perhaps the reason for its failure is a complete misunderstanding of what the economy is, and how it functions – or ceases to.
