‘That sounded so much better in my head,’ said Rachel from Friends in Series 2. I suspect Jeremy Hunt is now thinking the same. He meant to say that British workers need to improve their productivity, and be weaned off work subsidies. But instead, it came out like:
‘We have to proceed with these tax credit changes because they are a very important cultural signal. My wife is Chinese, and if we want this to be one of the most successful countries in the world in 20, 30, 40 years’ time there’s a pretty difficult question that we have to answer which is essentially: are we going to be a country that is prepared to work hard in the way that Asian economies are prepared to work hard, in the way that Americans are prepared to work hard.’
Oh, Jeremy. Set aside the (unintended) insinuation that Brits don’t work very hard: people are worried enough about what Britain is going to look like after George Osborne’s bonfire of the tax credits without a Cabinet member holding up China as an example of what lies in store for us all. The headlines write themselves.
In the Sky/Spectator fringe this evening, Sajid Javid made the same point without stepping on a landmine. If Britain had American levels of productivity, he said, our Economy would be a third larger and households a third richer. Government had to ask: how can we help the economy and help workers reach their full potential?
He wisely didn’t extend the metaphor too far. Copying Americans – with their short holidays and low job security – is an unattractive prospect. The idea of emulating China is enough to make someone vote Labour. Almost.
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