A New England #5: The Economy

I have to confess, before launching into the final diatribe of this series, that my knowledge of economics is a little bit flimsy. I remember once making a simple suggestion on how to improve fiscal matters in this country, only to be laughed out of the room by those more knowledgable (and all I said was that it might be a good idea to try investing in magic beans). I've never had too much aptitude when it comes to private enterprise; my family even banned me from playing Monopoly as a child because I kept declaring that all property was theft.

The two issues I particularly want to raise, though, do fall reasonably within the field of my knowledge. The first is privatisation, something that all major party leaders in this country have for some reason taken to their heart as The One True Way - even the ones who should really know better. Its proponents somehow always manage to keep straight faces as they claim that competition between rival companies will ensure that you pay less, and get a better service for your money. And you probably will, until one company emerges as top dog, creates a monopoly, and sets about taking you for every penny you have in return for sub-standard service. Not that the privatisation advocates are bothered by this point; indeed, most of them will own shares in the company in question. Call me unadventurous, but given the choice between paying a small amount of money for terrible services or a large amount of money for terrible services, I'd rather let my wallet do the talking.

My second ranting point for the day revolves, perhaps unsurprisingly, around the state of industry and employment in the nation. The mark of many a Third World country around the world is that all hopes of employment for the young lie in the capital city, while the rest of the country economically stagnates. Thirty or forty years ago, you wouldn't have thought it possible of England, where the Midlands and the North were vital industrial organs with work available for most, if not all. It's difficult to pinpoint exactly what went wrong (although as a one-word answer, "Thatcher" probably isn't too far off the mark), but it increasingly seems that anyone with hopes for their life has to submit to being dragged into London's grimy orbit. Basically, England's still a land of hope and glory, only someone decided to take 95% of the hope and glory, squirrel it away down in the south-east, and demand that anyone who wants a share spend their pocket money on the next train down there. Oh, and the ticket won't come cheap, by the way; privatised rail service, you see.

For once, I have no answers. Oh, I can make silly suggestions in abundance: we could boycott Virgin trains by travelling everywhere on rocket-propelled jaffa cakes. We could sneak down to London in the middle of the night, take all the jobs while everyone's sleeping, and then hide them away in an old barn outside Garstang until companies down there realise that there is a nation beyond the M25. But like the other "theories" I've propounded this week, they're only there to make you smile, and possibly to think about what you would do to tackle these very real problems. Because I just don't know.

If you do know how to make this world all happy and nice, please share it with us all via the comments box, and help to brighten up my week.