It is time to break free from the long shadow of the financial crisis
The HFi's Chief Executive, Natalie Elphicke OBE, today wrote for Conservative Home on the need to break free from the long shadow of the financial crisis.
Natalie argued that growth is too low, our economy is too unbalanced and too often different groups in our society are set against each other in arguing over the slices of a cake that simply hasn't been growing fast enough. The next Government must seize the opportunities to rebuild the enterprise economy and to forge an aspiration nation.
According to Natalie, the scale of the projected failure could have all but overwhelmed the country's housing and social systems. Reviews of previous housing crises demonstrated the social and economic futility and destruction in the system of mass repossession, house price collapse and re-homing/re-jobbing/re-schooling. But bad debt is like a poison, it needs to work its way out, to wash through the financial system. The long journey over the last decade has been one intended to purge the system, but to do so through a slower and softer landing rather than a sharp and catastrophic one.
However, the cycle of economic shocks has also traditionally brought economic rejuvenation. Avoiding the worst of the shock has meant that the economic rejuvenation has been more muted than might otherwise have been the case. That is a problem that we are still today grappling with, where large parts of our economy remain subject to economic drift.
Natalie calls on the new Prime Minister to dream a dream for all of us, and then put in place the political measures to make it a reality. The re-birth of the enterprise economy and the aspiration nation. To commit to growth, prosperity and opportunity for all.
Click here to read Natalie's article in full.
