The Critic Show

This week on The Critic Show, Chris Bayliss and Tom Jones are joined by William Clouston, leader of the SDP, to discuss his paper From an Entitlement State to an Investment State.

Britain has moved from a state that invests in its future to one increasingly dominated by pensions, welfare and benefits. Since the 1970s, public spending has shifted dramatically: investment in infrastructure has fallen, while entitlement spending has soared. The result, he says, has been collapsing productivity, stagnation and a country less able to build, grow or renew itself.

Are Britain’s present problems are downstream of decades of poor statecraft, weak leadership and bad policy decisions? Watch to find out.
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This week on The Critic Show, Tom Jones and Chris Bayliss are joined by historian and columnist Dominic Green to discuss his latest piece for The Critic, exploring the conflict between empire and republic.

Dominic argues that it is better to see the United States not as a settled European-style nation state, but as a perpetually evolving republic whose moments of upheaval, from Andrew Jackson to Donald Trump, are a continuation of the dynamism it has always possessed, rather than a sign of impending collapse.

On British foreign policy, as tensions in the Gulf continue to alternate between uneasy hostility and all-out war, Britain must reconcile its increasingly uncertain position between Washington and Brussels. Does Britain risk sinking its alliance with the United States in pursuit of a stagnant European project?

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This week, Chris and Tom are joined by Dr Ioannes Chountis de Fabbri, the historian of political ideas, political conflict and the decline of the Royal Navy.
Comparing the Navy of decades past with the Navy we have today, one must ask: how did civil servants, bureaucrats and government bring about its decline? This inevitably leads to the question of the efficacy of the civil service, whether we have too many bureaucrats in the modern world despite huge technological advances, and how people were paid then compared with how the system works now.
What did statesmen of the past understand about power, defence and Britain’s place in the world that politicians today do not?
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Tom and Henry are joined this week by pollster and strategist Scarlett Maguire, who explains the Wild West of British political polling.
Like the soothsayers of old, politicians use polling in all sorts of mysterious ways, making claims that may not always stack up with reality. This is how they can claim momentum even when their parties remain unpopular. In unrelated matters, they also discuss Kemi Badenoch and the wider challenges facing the Conservatives.
What are the limits of polling? In particular, what happens when policies that sound popular in theory crash into reality when put into practice?
In an ever more politically volatile world, we also now have increasingly idiosyncratic voters, whose views often cut across party lines. They might back Reform on some issues while favouring the Greens on others. What does that mean for modern British politics?
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May marks the beginning of summer, and this month Tom, Henry and Graham are here to talk you through May’s edition of The Critic, leading with the question of whether Britain has any vision left.
After months of headlines and mistakes, it is hard to understand where the Government might go next, or what it actually wants. Does it want to rejoin the EU, or is this simply a visionless pitch from a Prime Minister who is running out of steam? When did Britain lose its direction, and will we ever win the World Cup again?
Political editor Henry Hill discusses what could actually generate growth, why Britain has entered a period of cultural and economic decline, and how we have been living in a simulacrum in which people spend more than they have, while the Government appears unable to fix the broken system we now live under.
Finally, the hosts take a trip to Dubai, where Fred Sculthorp has been experiencing the world of influencers amid the blitz. Despite being a city full of self-employed entrepreneurs, Dubai also highlights the uncomfortable reality that, even during wartime, it offers more opportunities for young professionals than Britain currently does.
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This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.outpoststudios.net/subscribe Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.