• Login
  • Register
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Premium
  • Donate
  • Log In
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result

Britain’s Liberal Technocratic Recession

by Noah Carl
13 November 2022 7:00 AM

On November 3rd, the Bank of England announced that Britain is facing its “longest recession since records began”, with unemployment forecast to nearly double by 2025.

How did we get here?

In most developed economies, recessions happen once or twice a decade (although Australia went without one for 30 years). So in some sense, they’re unavoidable. Yet the scale of the one we’re facing – the longest since records began – suggests some fundamental errors have been made.

The first was lockdown. For more than a year, we spent untold sums of money on daft furlough schemes and boondoggles like ‘Test and Trace’. Meanwhile, we allowed supply chains to break down through trade restrictions and lack of maintenance. We were spending more while producing less – which set us on course for inflation.

The second was letting dozens of oil refineries shut down without building any new ones. Such refineries became unprofitable during the pandemic, and firms didn’t bother to upgrade or replace them due to costly environmental regulations and the uncertainty surrounding ‘Net Zero’.

The third were the reckless sanctions against Russia. Rather than using the threat of sanctions as a bargaining chip, we immediately went pedal to the metal and tried to crush Russia’s economy. This backfired: while we have inflicted some long-term damage, we hamstrung our own economies in the process.

All three of these blunders stem from hubris on the part of liberal technocratic policymakers, who believe there are straightforward ‘solutions’ to problems like pandemics, climate change and interstate conflict. In reality, we’re always faced with trade-offs and unintended consequences.

The British economy is now grappling with general inflation (caused by lockdowns) and rising energy costs (caused by lack of refining capacity and sanctions against Russia).

The severity of these problems is laid bare in the ONS’s Business Insights and Conditions Survey – a fortnightly survey of around 10,000 businesses. Respondents were asked, “Which of the following, if any, will be the main concern for your business in November 2022?” Results are shown below.

Results from the ONS’s Business Insights and Conditions Survey.

As you can see, by far the most frequently mentioned concerns were “inflation” and “energy prices”. Only around 7% of businesses mentioned “taxation” as their main concern, demonstrating how ill-conceived was Liz Truss’s economic programme. (She thought we could tax-cut our way out of an energy crisis.)

Policymakers need to get grips with the fact that not every problem has a liberal technocratic ‘solution’. Paying people not to work, shutting down refineries and sanctioning other countries may feel good. But that doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.

Tags: LockdownRecessionTechnocracy

Donate

We depend on your donations to keep this site going. Please give what you can.

Donate Today

Comment on this Article

You’ll need to set up an account to comment if you don’t already have one. We ask for a minimum donation of £5 if you'd like to make a comment or post in our Forums.

Sign Up
Previous Post

News Round-Up

Next Post

Why is the USA Still Insisting Visitors Are Vaccinated When Every Other Country Has Ended Its Travel Restrictions?

Subscribe
Login
Notify of
Please log in to comment

To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.

Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.

29 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

NEWSLETTER

View today’s newsletter

To receive our latest news in the form of a daily email, enter your details here:

DONATE

PODCAST

The Sceptic | Episode 43: William Yarwood on Labour’s Welfare Farce, Niall Gooch on Catholicism vs Lib Dems and Much More

by Richard Eldred
4 July 2025
0

LISTED ARTICLES

  • Most Read
  • Most Commented
  • Editor’s Picks

Introducing POTS: The Next Social Contagion to Grip Miserable Teenage Girls

7 July 2025
by Mary Gilleece

Brighton Council Leader Reports the Spectator to the Police

7 July 2025
by Will Jones

Watch: Moment Two Brothers “Assaulted Police Officers Trying to Arrest Them at Manchester Airport”

7 July 2025
by Will Jones

Panic Over Labour Wealth Tax to Fill £30 Billion Black Hole as Millionaires Flee UK

7 July 2025
by Will Jones

News Round-Up

8 July 2025
by Richard Eldred

Introducing POTS: The Next Social Contagion to Grip Miserable Teenage Girls

58

Panic Over Labour Wealth Tax to Fill £30 Billion Black Hole as Millionaires Flee UK

43

Brighton Council Leader Reports the Spectator to the Police

36

Watch: Moment Two Brothers “Assaulted Police Officers Trying to Arrest Them at Manchester Airport”

29

Another Oil Refinery Bites the Dust

30

Advice to Jordan Peterson After Watching Him Surrounded

8 July 2025
by James Alexander

No, Using Less Oil Won’t Boost America’s Energy Security – It’ll Make it Poorer and Beholden to China

8 July 2025
by Tilak Doshi

Introducing POTS: The Next Social Contagion to Grip Miserable Teenage Girls

7 July 2025
by Mary Gilleece

Another Oil Refinery Bites the Dust

7 July 2025
by Ben Pile

The Independent Commission on Community and Cohesion Cannot Save Multiculturalism

6 July 2025
by Laurie Wastell

POSTS BY DATE

November 2022
M T W T F S S
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
282930  
« Oct   Dec »

SOCIAL LINKS

Free Speech Union

NEWSLETTER

View today’s newsletter

To receive our latest news in the form of a daily email, enter your details here:

POSTS BY DATE

November 2022
M T W T F S S
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
282930  
« Oct   Dec »

DONATE

LISTED ARTICLES

  • Most Read
  • Most Commented
  • Editor’s Picks

Introducing POTS: The Next Social Contagion to Grip Miserable Teenage Girls

7 July 2025
by Mary Gilleece

Brighton Council Leader Reports the Spectator to the Police

7 July 2025
by Will Jones

Watch: Moment Two Brothers “Assaulted Police Officers Trying to Arrest Them at Manchester Airport”

7 July 2025
by Will Jones

Panic Over Labour Wealth Tax to Fill £30 Billion Black Hole as Millionaires Flee UK

7 July 2025
by Will Jones

News Round-Up

8 July 2025
by Richard Eldred

Introducing POTS: The Next Social Contagion to Grip Miserable Teenage Girls

58

Panic Over Labour Wealth Tax to Fill £30 Billion Black Hole as Millionaires Flee UK

43

Brighton Council Leader Reports the Spectator to the Police

36

Watch: Moment Two Brothers “Assaulted Police Officers Trying to Arrest Them at Manchester Airport”

29

Another Oil Refinery Bites the Dust

30

Advice to Jordan Peterson After Watching Him Surrounded

8 July 2025
by James Alexander

No, Using Less Oil Won’t Boost America’s Energy Security – It’ll Make it Poorer and Beholden to China

8 July 2025
by Tilak Doshi

Introducing POTS: The Next Social Contagion to Grip Miserable Teenage Girls

7 July 2025
by Mary Gilleece

Another Oil Refinery Bites the Dust

7 July 2025
by Ben Pile

The Independent Commission on Community and Cohesion Cannot Save Multiculturalism

6 July 2025
by Laurie Wastell

SOCIAL LINKS

Free Speech Union
  • Home
  • About us
  • Donate
  • Privacy Policy

Facebook

  • X

Instagram

RSS

Subscribe to our newsletter

© Skeptics Ltd.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Premium
  • Donate
  • Log In

© Skeptics Ltd.

wpDiscuz
You are going to send email to

Move Comment