Is the hour of socialism upon us? Thanks to the exhausted financial orthodoxies of those who rule the eurozone, austerity is producing slump. No electorate, it seems, is yet ready to elect leaders who go to the root of the problem and reject the European currency, but almost all have lost faith in the Frankfurt solutions. So if François Hollande becomes the next President of France on Sunday, the cry will be that ‘growth’ (which, in this context, means more government spending and borrowing) is the answer, and the centre-right will be cast in the role history has allotted to Herbert Hoover. If Hollande can pull this one, how long before the two Eds proclaim their New deal here? What will David Cameron’s answer be?
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In the latest Sunday Times Rich List, only one of the ten richest people mentioned seems to be British-born (the Duke of Westminster). The question which I find myself asking, but cannot answer, is ‘Is this a good thing?’ On the one hand, it is a sign of a vigorous and open society that people should be able to come here, do business and do well. On the other hand, it is not an unequivocal blessing if rich people, for complicated tax reasons rather than Anglophilia, domicile themselves here. Are we a proud powerhouse of prosperity, or a convenient offshore postal address?
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One could ask comparable questions about immigration lower down the economic scale. There is huge resentment, which I share, about mass immigration. But this week I was sitting in a modest barber’s shop near Victoria having my hair cut by a Moroccan. I noticed a photograph of a rowing eight pinned to his mirror and asked him about it.
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