I posted on Thursday about Robert Kimbell, who isn't an economist although he often seems to pretend he is. Today I want to focus on Julian Jessop who is an economist (he graduated with a first-class honours degree in Economics from Cambridge in 1987) so can't be accused of not being an expert. He supports Brexit and during the referendum was chief economist at the shadowy IEA. He has also worked for Roger Bootle at Capital Economics (who is also an avid Brexiteer) and at HM Treasury. He writes occasionally in The Spectator and The Telegraph and has his own website.
He, like Kimbell, is to be found most days tweeting something intended to convince us all that Brexit, while not bringing huge success, isn't that bad. This is an example from yesterday:
Today's final EU CPI data for July allow me to update a few charts 🤓Here's a reminder that "#BrexitBritain" is not the only European country where core #inflation is high and sticky... (1/2) pic.twitter.com/Dmbga8Ie9V— Julian Jessop (@julianHjessop) August 18, 2023
To state the obvious, this is definitely not what the population was told - by men like Jessop - the result of Brexit would be, but we leave that for another day.
In the pages of the Telegraph yesterday he also wrote: France has left Britain with some serious questions to answer. This was in response to an article on Wednesday about figures from a global wealth report by the reputable Credit Suisse bank showing that France now has more millionaires than the UK: France overtakes UK with the number of ‘dollar millionaire’ residents, with Britain dropping from fourth place to sixth.
France has around 2.8 million in 2022 compared to our 2.6 million, a reverse of the position in 2021. In 2000, the UK had 716,000 while France had just over 400,000. This is a very big turnaround.
Needless to say, this is not how things were supposed to be in Jessop's world after we left the EU.
Telegraph readers clearly want to know how this could have happened and Jessop is happy to try and explain it:
"The usual suspects will, of course, be quick to blame Brexit. Consistent with this, UK equities have underperformed their French counterparts since the 2016 referendum, which can only partly be explained by France’s greater exposure to the booming luxury goods sector.
"Nonetheless, there is clearly a lot more to the story. France has also been attracting investment that might otherwise have gone elsewhere in the EU, notably Germany. This reflects a mix of factors."
Somewhere in there I think is an admission that Brexit IS to blame, how is France attracting all that foreign investment for example? And how come Paris is rivaling and even exceeding London in the market capitalisation of companies on the French stock exchange?
He puts it down to Marcon's pro-business policies, low energy costs, and cuts in corporate taxes and in taxes on wealth in general. This may be true but it rather skirts over the big problem that he has. France is still a member of the EU, is one of the countries in the EU with what he would say are eye-watering levels of tax, and is one of the most tightly regulated economies in the world.
How is it possible that they could overtake Britain after Brexit?
He draws some comfort from the Credit Suisse report which forecasts Britain will once again have more dollar millionaires by 2027 (4.8 million compared to 4 million). I wouldn't be so sure about that and in any case, it is still quite unlike the position 20 years ago.
In fact, the news essentially destroys all the Brexiteers' arguments that if only we can cut taxes and slash regulations Britain will begin to prosper. It is obviously nonsense.
And bear in mind that Macron only came to power in 2017 and in six years has apparently boosted the French economy while inside the EU and with no diminishing of workers' rights (try that in France if you dare), consumer protection, food quality, or environment standards.
I suspect Jessop is an expert on the economy but knows little or nothing about the day-to-day running of a business or the thousands of decisions that are made every day which affect the future growth and prosperity of a company or an industry. More than that, he has no experience of why all too often French (or German or Italian) businesses make better investment decisions for the long term than we do in this country.
