Over on CentreRight Charlie Elphicke has posted a continuation of their new debate on Britain's relative decline (and not just economically, they say). In his post he talks about how we should be more rich, not touching the more ambiguous topics supposedly in distress such as crime levels and military power.

But what of this magical idea that under the Tories with tax cuts and rolling back employee rights would mean more growth, specifically when compared to the Thatcher years? Well right off the bat lets get some facts straight...

• When Thatcher got in to power she was commanding a country that had a declining level of growth but failed to stop that growth from decreasing, until the economy hit rock bottom in the 80's (worse than he after effects of Black Monday) during her reign.
• Thatcher's government was careless with policy creation and ultimately to blame for high unemployment leading up to the 1983 election, yet managed to succesfully deflect her own parties failings on to the previous government's actions
• Thatcher's government failed, possibly through beliefs in economic cycles being unstoppable, to stop the "boom/bust" scenario's that have now been absent from out economy for at least 15 years.
• Thatcher certainly turned things around, and successful policies have been carried on. Wage growth continued to rise above inflation, housing and stocks too were on the ascendency, but so was the gap between the rich and the poor which she also managed to implement.

You see, there are actually two completely separate undertones here, the first is that of individual wealth while the second is of true economic growth, stability and societal well being. In the first count it is obvious that the Tories would have an argument for us to be more "rich", they would cut taxes that would mean we would all take home more pay. Right?

Well, actually, as I've already said, we would probably in general be less well off with tax cuts unless Tory plans were to simultaneously cut large amounts of spending. They will of course argue that this can be done, that Quango's can be quashed and red tape cut to make things all that more streamlined. Alas we all know that this doesn't last long in responsive governance so in the long term it is either our services or our benefits that go, and while it's the latter at least 3/5ths of our country will be economically worse off - rich people need their emergency services more than the poor need their benefits you see.

Charlie also revisits the claim that Labour have increased taxes by £10k, which, again, I once corrected the man himself on already. You see it doesn't matter how much he says it, Labour are probably only taxing us in real terms to the tune of £1.8k more, with most of that being duty increases. It is interesting that in the commons the opposition will use the RPI to argue economic issues, but when adding up real term figures clearly use CPI to artificially make their point.

I'm not saying Labour is perfect here by any means, nor that the Conservatives haven't had a hand in our current economic history. Labour have taken on previous Tory policy to the benefit of increasing wages and the strength of the pound yet also have failed to solve the problem of a rich/poor divide that is inevitable under Conservative politics. What they have done though is stem the flow, stop the rot.

I feel Labour have kept the economic boat steady one way or another, with the counter-balance most probably being that we aren't reaching the GDP growth we're capable of. But with many less unemployed than under Tory led policies, more benefits for the poor stifling most hints of outrage at just how few people get so much of the total wage packet every year, and an economy that may not be super strong but also doesn't succumb to the mega lows of Conservative politics, one has to ask just how you should measure how "rich" a nation is in the first place.