All parties are uniting behind a stultifying, statist vision for Britain

The tragic reality today is that supporters of real, free-market capitalism are politically homeless

It doesn’t matter what the question is, or who you ask, the answer is always the same. Spend more, regulate more, tax more: it’s UK politics’ stultifying new orthodoxy. Its proponents, a Left-right mixture of statists and social democrats, control our political parties and cultural institutions. They set the parameters of our increasingly narrow national conversation. Their prize, now in reach, is ideological hegemony – when we no longer ask what we can do for ourselves and our family, but merely what our government can do for us, paid for with other people’s money.

There is no longer a debate, merely a relentless assault on capitalism, led by the stormtroopers of Momentum and amplified by “centrists” who keep conceding to the Left. The Conservatives are in office, but conservatism isn’t in power. When was the last time a Government figure made an impassioned moral defence of capitalism and lower taxes, explaining why entrepreneurs are at the source of social progress? Or explained, clearly and without sounding like an accountant, why all economies must live within their means? Or called for a smaller state and bigger, empowered individuals, families and communities? I almost miss the Big Society; I certainly pine for the Tories of yore, who knew that there are compassionate and effective free-market solutions to social problems, not merely statist ones.

On the face of it, our politics is bitterly divided over Brexit, the role of nation states and how to manage immigration. But when it comes to economics, and the role of politicians and officials in shaping society, it is uniting in the worst of all possible ways. We are rightly breaking away from the European Union, but, absurdly, are becoming more French and Italian in our economic thinking.

There are still a few Thatcherites, including in the Cabinet – brave souls who believe in the awesome power of liberty, responsibility, commerce and voluntary action – but they are in hiding, squeezed between a Mayite, anti-market Conservative Party and a socialist Labour Party. The tragic reality is that supporters of real, free-market capitalism are politically homeless, as they were in the 1970s, waiting desperately for a Tory saviour who shows little sign of turning up.

If you think I’m exaggerating, consider the news flow of the past few days. We saw the Prime Minister launch a vitriolic attack on the pay of business leaders, even though FTSE 100 chiefs’ compensation fell by 17 per cent last year. Corporate governance is a headache, but a generalised assault on business merely plays into the hands of the Corbynites and further shifts the culture Leftwards.

Two other major surrenders are likely: the public sector pay cap – admittedly an imperfect and crude measure – may be lifted even though similar private sector workers still earn less overall, and university fees may have to be reduced. It would make sense to reform our broken higher education funding, with its warped incentives, mass defaults and ridiculous interest rates, but the answer cannot be to force those who don’t go to university to pay for those who do. In every case, the assumption is that others should pick up the bill, that the government has limitless resources (in fact, it has nothing that taxpayers haven’t given it) and that the Tories’ only real problem is that they are not similar enough to Labour.

The Government is no longer interested in deregulation or shrinking the state. Every announcement is about a new initiative, tax or spending commitment. There is no attempt at trying to work out how increasing competition or tearing down barriers to entry or even – shock, horror – trusting individual initiative could solve a problem. The assumption is always that we need more heavyhanded, top-down intervention, regardless of the fact that this never works. This applies to immigration also: the UK needs a new, controlled immigration policy post-brexit – the public will no longer tolerate the status quo – but that doesn’t mean that we need to try and centrally plan the flow of labour in the minutest of detail.

The Tory betrayal has encouraged everybody else. Sadiq Khan, the supposedly “open to business” Mayor of London, wants new taxes on empty properties, despite the fact that Britain has far fewer vacant homes than other countries and the number in London has collapsed since 2010. The SNP is considering introducing a guaranteed minimum income – using English subsidies to pay people to do nothing – and a land value tax, in effect robbing people of the ability to own a home. Bad ideas developed in Scotland tend to be adopted across the UK, like when George Osborne imported the SNP’S double-digit stamp duty rates.

Not to be outdone, the Archbishop of Canterbury has piled in, calling for even higher taxes – including, it would seem, on wealth and capital – on those “who benefit most”. It was a tragic intervention: for decades, the Church has attacked governments from the Left, yet this has done nothing to stem the collapse in its membership. Just 3 per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds describe themselves as Anglicans, a truly shocking statistic. If they want socialism, they will join Momentum, not the Cofe’s ersatz version.

Michael Howard was the last Tory leader to extol the virtues of enterprise and self-reliance; his party gave up the fight in 2005, when it accepted Gordon Brown’s views on public spending, tax, the environment and foreign aid. The financial crisis – largely caused by misguided governments and central bank interventions – heralded a more extreme shift, and Theresa May, who remains brilliantly steadfast on Brexit, has formalised the Tory rejection of free markets in every other respect.

So there is a vacancy in British politics. We need a pro-capitalist, pro-enterprise Tory party, and a new generation that can find contemporary ways of articulating and selling old truths. The disruptive, explosive process that is Brexit will be key: it will soon become apparent that our future is economic liberalism or bust. In 1950, Singapore’s average income was 48 per cent of the UK’S; today, Singaporeans make 94 per cent more than the British, as the Human Progress website reminds us. At some point after we leave the EU, there will be a new Tory leader, and he or she will have to draw the obvious conclusions from this devastating fact.