RUSHES: Tony Blair speech and Q&A at Imperial College London

Tony Blair speech and Q&A at Imperial College London; Part 3 of 16ENGLAND: London: Imperial College London:INTSir Tony Blair (Former Prime Minister) speech (continued from Part 2) SOT- Our debt will be higher than at any time in the last half-century; and our sustainable growth rates in the next years will be around 17 per cent, nowhere near those of the first part of this century, and woefully insufficient to pay for the services we expect- For the average household, taxes will rise by around £370 per year; energy prices by £600; they will be asked to swap gas boilers for heat pumps and their conventional fuel cars for electric vehicles; the costs for basic foodstuffs are going up; and general inflation will cause rises in interest rates- Business will see the biggest uplift in corporation tax since the 1970s whilst investment is 12 per cent below pre-Brexit amounts- Our productivity levels – the real test of an economy’s strength and the key to real wage rises – are stagnating- We retain significant strengths / our universities / our leading-edge technology – particularly in areas like the life sciences which, post-Covid, are a huge asset / and now in climate technologies like renewables / the City of London as a global financial centre; creative industries; our language; our culture; historic and present connectivity to so much of the world- There is no cause for pessimism / but there is an urgent need for realism in the face of the three revolutions- Without a radical shift in policy, we face a steady, inexorable compound decline, similar to the 1960s and 1970s / it could be several years before we realise this, but with our present course, we are relegating ourselves to a league which is poorer, less prosperous and less powerful- I hesitate when I hear the government slogan “Levelling Up” / other than a desire to give opportunity to those without it, which is obviously hard to disagree with, the slogan risks misdirecting...