Over the last 25 years or so, ten really bad ideas have taken hold of the British economy. We are not alone – they have also seized many other Western economies – but they are particularly virulent in our country. These ideas harm not only our economy but our political system, since our mainstream political parties have all signed up to them and thereby denied voters a serious choice about their economic future. Here they are:

1)         Public borrowing bad: private borrowing good. It is better for the economy to invest in a hedge fund than in a hospital. Public borrowing is so bad that it is worth paying way over the odds for public assets in order to pretend that they are being funded by the private sector, so that our children and grandchildren will be paying for them long after they have fallen into disuse. Public borrowing must be controlled or concealed but private borrowing and personal debt can rise for ever and ever, world without end, Amen.  When people run out of money, something will turn up. Indubitably.

2)         The balance of payments does not matter any more. The exchange rate does not matter any more. Our currency will rise independently of whether it can be exchanged for any goods and services people want to buy.  It is fine to sell British assets to foreigners to fund our current account deficit. And when we have run out of worthwhile assets, foreigners will go on accepting British IOUs because they enjoy collecting British paper. Foreigners take over British manufacturing assets because they love creating jobs in Britain and they cannot wait to modernize British manufacturing so that it can compete with their existing operations.

3)         A good way to achieve economic stability is to make the British economy more and more dependent on the performance of financial markets.

4)         Global competition means that all workers except CEOs and top directors must accept lower real wages and pensions and poorer working conditions. This is because globalization makes all types of labour more abundant, except CEOs and top directors. Mysteriously, these people become scarcer in a global economy (possibly through alien abduction).

5)         British life is so awful that rich people will not live here unless we make taxation voluntary at the top end of the scale. Britain is such an awful place to do business that we must always reduce business taxes, especially for big companies with smart tax lawyers and the ability to park money in laundries and shelters. A good way to bring foreign money into Britain is to let rich foreigners live here without paying taxes, so long as they keep their money overseas.

6)         British businessmen know more about any economic problem, especially running public services, than anyone else. British business is chock-a-block with talented leaders who can take time off from running their businesses to show government and public services the error of their ways. When British businesses take over public services they lose all interest in making profits for their shareholders – they just love helping society. The best people to advise on regulation are the businesses affected by it. Better regulation is lower regulation, especially in financial services. There must be no restriction on the right of financial managers to invest people’s savings and pensions in financial fantasy products which they do not understand.

7)         Markets are so wonderful that they have to be invented, especially in public services (such as law and order) where they do not exist. The National Health Service is best run as a gigantic supermarket chain (today’s 3 for 2 special: a triple heart bypass operation at the same rate as a double). Existing public service providers should be made to pretend that they are independent businesses, and spend a great deal of money inventing numbers to sustain the pretence.  If private businesses are reluctant to enter a new “pseudo-market” they need to be incentivized by secret sweetheart deals, including the creation of temporary monopolies over essential services.

8)         The best way to help poor people is to create a system which subsidizes low wages and punishes people when they pull themselves into a reasonable standard of living. If you can make that system as complex as possible, so much the better (ditto for poor pensioners). Entrust its administration to the Inland Revenue, an agency which is better at collecting money than handing it out. A good way to drive up living standards and working conditions is to punish poor people, especially vulnerable lone parents, for not entering jobs with low wages, poor working conditions and zero career prospects.

9)  A good way to provide affordable housing is to stop local authorities from building it and to force them to give up their existing stock.

10)       There is no alternative to any of the above.