The list of issues that the article list seems very ad hoc. Some are compared to EU countries, but apparently only where this makes the UK come out worst.
It also ignores the fact that the UK might do better in some area's than other countries, it would be fair to lists these as well. Otherwise you could make a list like this for any country in the world.
Also some issues seem irrelevant. E.g. the crime rate was given, and it was mentioned that this had been actually going down in the recent years. But then it was compared to the crime rate after WO2, and yes, compared to that it went up.
"These are not just disconnected observations", says the article. Yeah, but they might be actually. For instance the one about France producing more electricity is because France famously over-invested in nuclear power stations and that's why its electricity price recently went negative. Meanwhile the UK probably needs to increase supply slightly, but the comparison is misleading.
One of the authors is from the center for policy studies, which is a thinktank that was founded by Margaret Thatcher and 2 others. The other two authors seem to be the founder and one of the main contributors to https://worksinprogress.co/ which describes itself as "a magazine of new and underrated ideas to improve the world."
So I'm going to guess it's gonna be that sort of thing. Someone with a neoliberal economic perspective who stands to benefit from government investments in largescale infrastructure projects.
This is one of the worst comments I've read on HackerNews and engenders the decline in critical thinking that has become so pervasive here in recent years.
You find a bunch of ways to frame the authors as the out-group, then cast a totally baseless aspersion. Presumably so you don't have to engage with any of the actual points in the article.
I'm not framing them in terms of an out group at all. It's the exact opposite- they are the most "in" of in-groups. In the UK, government policy for the last 15 years has been hugely influenced by this specific thinktank and two or three similar ones. It's an extraordinarily small group. If Britain is in decline due to lack of infrastructure investment it's in no small part because of the policy positions that they have advocated and implemented during that time.
I care a great deal about the actual points in the article. It's just important to understand this is not in any sense a neutral analysis.
This section really shows where they're coming from:
Privatisation, tax cuts, and the curbing of union power fixed important swathes of the UK economy. Crucially, they tackled chronic underinvestment in sectors that had been neglected under state ownership. Political incentives under state ownership encouraged underfunding – and where the Treasury did put money in, it tended to go on operational expenditures (e.g., unionised workers’ wages rather than capital investments). This problem has immediately reemerged as the Department for Transport has begun to nationalise various franchises (which it promises to do to all of them).
It is bizarre to me that they can claim that under government ownership the incentives were towards underfunding, implying that somehow the incentives are any different under private ownership (although admittedly, there's been great investment in ticket barriers...)
> who stands to benefit from government investments in largescale infrastructure projects
I'm unsure if there's anyone in the country who wouldn't benefit from that. Hell, you can even wipe "government away", the essay talks at length about re-enabling private infrastructure investment too.
I would say most people benefit from working infrastructure. What we have seen in the last decade or so is a lot of government spending on infrastructure analysis (eg the "levelling up" agenda which brought spending mostly in London - the exact opposite of the stated intent or HS2 which has seen 15bn of spend mostly on slideware and consultants) without much in the way of actual infrastructure being developed.
There is unquestionably a large swathe of the UK (in particular the North, North East and most of Wales) which would benefit tremendously from improved infrastructure.
What an ugly, impoverished view of the world. Someone sees that the UK is poorer than it would be if economic policy wasn’t a disaster and wants to publicise that so it can be improved and tens of millions of people’s lives improved and you’re looking for an “angle”.
It also ignores the fact that the UK might do better in some area's than other countries, it would be fair to lists these as well. Otherwise you could make a list like this for any country in the world.
Also some issues seem irrelevant. E.g. the crime rate was given, and it was mentioned that this had been actually going down in the recent years. But then it was compared to the crime rate after WO2, and yes, compared to that it went up.