The problem with the UK economy is that there are large numbers of people benefitting from it to a level quite beyond their normal means. People earning £10 an hour run cars. They shouldn’t be able to afford to do so. They can spend a week’s pay on a mobile phone, and half a day’s pay each month to provide them with air time. They pay to have somebody else cook their meals and even somebody else to deliver them to their door. These “service” jobs attract the same low pay as their customers are earning. The country has developed an economic model which relies on large numbers of people with low skills receiving low pay. It also depends on the taxpayer complementing low pay by topping it up via benefits.
In order to change that some radical alterations are necessary. The education system needs amending so that those who are prepared to study can gain some useful qualifications (not those currently on offer from former Polytechnics) that identify their capabilities. They can then go on to work in the professions. Those with lower capabilities will either have to work harder or reduce their consumption of the things I mentioned above.
There’s lots of detail required but essentially the UK’s economic model has been broken for years. It will take more than Rishi Sunak to mend it. It will take an entire government who is prepared to tackle the problem at source rather than tinker by trying to address the symptoms. And that won’t happen because it will upset too many people and politicians never look beyond the next election.