Thread by @ifgevents

And we're off with our first event, with Hannah White discussing the challenges of the year ahead with Sam Freedman, Ayesha Hazarika, Paul Johnson, and Chloe Smith MP.

Watch here: app.sli.do/event/9KY5VbbH…

Or you can follow our live tweeting in this thread

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Sam kicks us off. He says we've become poorer due to external events and government policy. Should this mean lower public sector pay? Higher taxes? These are some of the issues the govt must grapple with
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With Hunt/Sunak focussed on the election, they're not as focussed as they should be on the state of the public sector (especially the NHS, education, transport, the the criminal justice sector). With a govt focussed on the next election, this makes recovery trickier.
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In other words, public services above party unity!
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Stability is critical. Sam doesn't think there will be any 2022-esque instability this year, but you have to capitalise on that stability, which is tricky in the run up to an election. Stability is the foundation of action, and the government needs to build on that.
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Paul makes the point that there's nothing the govt can do to stop us being even poorer in the coming years. A real pay cut that public service workers are experiencing have been foreseeable for a while...

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..., and the govt has not used this time to adequately deal with the problem. We also have to grapple with the shrinking size of the labour force, both because people have moved out of it entirely (relying on private income)...

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... and because people are forced out for health reasons. These will be big foci for Hunt and Sunak

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Because govt spent so much during covid, and made big promses on energy bills, this might leave the public angry that the govt isn't doing more on public service pay. But, as Paul points out, the basic rules of fiscal management haven't changed.

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On the other hand, demands for functioning public services are not unreasonable, and it's naturally hard for this circle to be squared with the public.
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Chloe argues that the inability to recruit and retain will be a huge focus for 2023, both for growth and also the human element, with people missing out on opportunities. The labour stats released today confirm the scale of this issue.
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This will involve businesses exploiting into untapped reserves of talent when it comes to hiring, and in being responsive to what employees actually want.

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Chloe also discusses the idea of 2023 as a 'wasted year'. There's an important role the election can play in helping leaders work towards long term solutions to these problems.

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The election, in other words, is a good way for sounding out the issues that matter to people, and this doesn't have to be short-termist.

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Ayesha's turn: On whether politicians will shy away from the big issues facing the country, she thinks this is already evident. Both Lab and Tories have been captured by people selling political fairytales (e.g. Corbyn and Johnson promising the world)

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...mirrored also in the Truss/Kwarteng experiment. 2022 has given politicians the ability to say 'this is what can happen when you promise too much'. This change is evident in the failure then success of Sunak's leadership bid on either side of that experiment

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There's been a correction of a 'have all you want' attitude. There are tricky expectations to manage after the country has become accustomed to having the state step in again and again. The argument now (between Sunak and Starmer)...

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... is one of 'two centrist dads' giving people sensible warnings about what's possible.

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Truss gifted the 'economic credibility' advantage to Labour. But Labour are still aware of how brittle these poll leads are. Labour in opposition is like carrying a priceless Ming vase... and as a result they're being very cautious and disciplined

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The danger is to overcorrect, such that people can't see the difference between Starmer and Sunak
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Question time: Paul comments on the dysfunctionality of the childcare market. A complete childcare reconfiguration is needed to deal with the cost of childcare, which a large proportion of families are spending large amounts on.

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Ayesha argues women and grandmothers give up a lot of their career-potential for their children, and we never quantify this unpaid labour. This is a source of huge frustration, that for a long time feminists have been arguing to make this part of econ infrastructure

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The amount of time older women especially give up to look after grandchildren and others, without any help from the state, is staggering. Increased flexibility is going to be key to getting people back into the workplace.
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Manopause is also a big driver of women dropping out of the workforce. To improve the economy and workforce issues, we need to take a more holistic approach to these issues.

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On Labour's constitutional proposals, Ayesha (who was on the Brown Commission) reinforces the importance of Lords reform to Starmer. The driver here was to signify the importance unifying the country, and the importance devolution can play in this.

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Back to social care, Sam argues that with a tight labour market and the cost of social care set to rise, the only way to fill the 165,000 social care vacancies is to have freedom of movement with the EU (unlikely) or whack up wages

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Paul argues the govt should have seen strikes from a mile off, and we're now in a situation in which low paid staff in the NHS will have a higher pension than pay, an accidental result of decade-old pension reform. When it comes to strikes then, a failure of both economics AND...

politics, with failures to grow and tackle inflation married to a failure to plan ahead and confront issues facing the public sector workforce
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Final word on the politics of the strikes from Ayesha: the govt is acting as though it wants to have a Thatcherite moment against unions, who have been heavily curtailed since that time. It's 'insane' that the way to solve the workforce issues has seemed to be...
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... picking fights with nurses, and trying to curtail rights to strike. A happy workforce is a more productive one, so the govt isn't joining the dots between positive treatment of workers the worker productivity.

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A war with govt and unions is very unhelpful in light of the bigger strategic conversation we need to have to fix the challenges facing Britain

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