Fool Britannia: sloppy Tory treatise a hint of horrible things to come – Crikey

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A decade ago, Britannia Unchained, a poorly researched and written book charting new directions for UK growth, was released. Today two of its authors hold the keys to the kingdom.

Ten years ago this month, a group of eager young Tory things issued a pamphlet called Britannia Unchained. It is a rather unremarkable little treatise -- badly researched, with cherry-picked data and using the anecdotes of London taxi drivers as evidence that we are all lazy.

Britannia Unchaineddeserves to be less than a footnote of history. And it would be, if it were not for the fact that two of its authors are the new prime minister and her close friend, the new chancellor of the exchequer.

The others were Priti Patel, Dominic Raab and Chris Skidmore, who had an undistinguished ministerial career -- unless you measure his achievements against the disasters of Patel and Raab. All have now been dropped as not good enough, and this is in lockstep with the theme of the book. Only hardworking, dynamic risk-takers can survive. Failures are to be dumped, and they deserve to fail in the first place. Ayn Rand, eat your heart out.

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Jonty Bloom

The New European

Jonty Bloom is a freelance journalist, and was previously business correspondent for the BBC.

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Fool Britannia: sloppy Tory treatise a hint of horrible things to come - Crikey