Ewen Stewart on the real state of Britain’s economy and why redemption, not despair, is still within reach.
I’LL BE THE FIRST to admit I know very little about economics in the formal sense. I can’t quote Milton Friedman or explain bond yields, and if you asked me to interpret a fiscal deficit chart I’d probably use it as a fan. But I do understand something about living within your means. I’ve spent most of my life running a prudent household, no overdrafts, no borrowing for holidays, and no pretending the credit card bill is a suggestion rather than a commandment. You learn early that if you keep spending more than you earn, sooner or later the numbers stop forgiving you.
That simple truth which every sensible mother and father in Britain once knew instinctively is what makes me sympathetic to Ewen Stewart. He’s the kind of economist Christopher Hitchens would have respected, not for his ideology but for his refusal to varnish a hard truth. A Scotsman with the dry wit of a realist and the moral confidence of someone who believes this country is still capable of renewal, Stewart has spent decades in the City watching Britain talk itself into decline. Now a Growth Commissioner, he writes and speaks with the conviction that our crisis is not merely fiscal but civilisational. As he says: “You can’t tax your way to dignity, and you can’t borrow your way to virtue.”
His conversation with Peter McCormack, host of The Peter McCormack Show (formerly What Bitcoin Did), feels less like a podcast and more like a public reckoning. McCormack, the self-made libertarian from Bedford, plays the exasperated taxpayer; Stewart, the insider turned rebel, the voice of reason. Between them they perform a kind of economic exorcism of a state that spends without purpose, a bureaucracy that multiplies like mould, and a public too numbed by subsidies to notice.
Their episode, “Taxed to Death: Britain’s Economic Model is Finished”, is part sermon, part audit, and part rallying cry for a nation that once built ships and now builds PowerPoint decks about “equity, diversity and inclusion.” It’s the sort of conversation Hitchens might have called “impolite, unfashionable, and absolutely necessary.”
If Hitchens had lived to see the modern British state, he’d have recognised Stewart’s diagnosis instantly: that when a nation loses the courage to be serious about work, truth, and moral duty, it begins to die not of poverty but of self-deception.
What Stewart actually says:
1.Get the state back in proportion
Public spending now accounts for nearly half of GDP, the highest since the Second World War, yet services are worse. The myth of austerity, he says, is exactly that: a myth. Spending has risen by £300 billion after inflation since Blair’s time, with declining outcomes. The goal isn’t a crash diet but a steady return to a healthier balance, roughly a third of GDP, freeing the private sector to breathe again.
2. Rebuild a productive economy
Britain must rediscover what it’s good at, not imitate others. We still have strategic advantages, common law, finance, education, culture, technology, and language but we’ve suffocated enterprise beneath bureaucracy. Real growth means making things again: not “green paperwork,” but real production, exports, and pride in labour.
3. Simplify and lower taxes by cutting waste
Taxes are now at their highest level since 1948. Stewart isn’t promising giveaways, he’s saying tax cuts must follow spending restraint. Scrap stamp duty, abolish micro-taxes, and simplify the system to rebuild confidence. As he quips, “We spend £48,000 per household, for what?”
4. Sound money and fiscal honesty
Stop printing money, publish the real debt, and tie policy to tangible assets. Inflation, he says, is not an act of God but of cowardice.
5. End the Net Zero delusion
UK energy costs are four times higher than America’s, despite sitting on our own carbon reserves. Britain produces barely one per cent of global emissions while others expand theirs. Energy independence first, green virtue later. Nuclear, gas and innovation can coexist with conservation, if we get practical.
6. Reform welfare and restore dignity to work
The welfare state has “nationalised virtue.” Stewart calls for conditionality for all who can work and for policy that strengthens families, not dependency. On the NHS: decentralise, empower hospitals, reward outcomes. “An NHS badge doesn’t cure cancer; good hospitals do.”
7. Excellence in education
Forget prizes for all. Restore technical routes, grammar-style merit, and dignity in achievement. Education should be about excellence, not false promises.
8. Accountability and the quango archipelago
Let ministers hire and fire again. Every public body should have a sunset clause unless Parliament renews it. Bureaucracy without accountability is tyranny by spreadsheet.
9. Family and faith as the real welfare state
Family, faith, and community are the bedrock of social stability. “A nation that forgets family forgets the future.”
10. National renewal through moral and civic confidence
Our problem isn’t only fiscal, it’s spiritual. Rights require duties, freedom requires work, and prosperity requires restraint. Stewart’s message to McCormack: Britain doesn’t need more technocrats; it needs a statesman who loves the country enough to tell it the truth.
Where economists talk about fiscal discipline, I hear my mother saying, “Don’t buy what you can’t afford.” Where Stewart talks about sound money and moral duty, I hear my grandparents, who prized thrift, decency, and earning your keep over grievance and dependency. It’s not about cruelty or austerity; it’s about adulthood.
So while I can’t claim to understand the bond markets, I know exactly what he means when he says, “You can’t borrow your way to virtue.” Some of us already learned that at the kitchen table.
And crucially, Stewart isn’t a prophet of doom, he’s a believer in redemption. When asked what gives him hope, his answer was immediate: the people. Britain still leads the world in many aspects of culture, sport, education, finance, science, and language. Recovery could come swiftly if the government simply trusted the public and let them get on with it.
The choice, as he put it, is clear: do we wish to be a free, self-reliant people, or the brides and grooms of a state that saps both independence and moral authority?
If we choose the first, and we still can, Britain’s recovery might come faster than anyone dares to imagine. You can watch the podcast here.
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