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LAST week, Labour leader Keir Starmer warned that Poland is set to overtake the UK’s economic growth by the end of the decade.

This claim isn’t just scaremongering. Since 2010, Poland’s economic growth has averaged 3.6 per cent per year compared to the UK’s measly 0.5 per cent. If this trend continues, the average Pole will be £500 richer than their British counterpart by 2030.

Poland’s economic transformation started with “shock therapy” as the Eastern Bloc started to collapse. The country needed a swift transition from a planned economy to one masked on free markets.

To grow Britain’s economy, we urgently need policies which prioritise spontaneous, bottom-up economic activity —rather than top-down state intervention. For all his talk, the Labour leader has shown little willingness to do so.

Starmer has vowed to support the corporation tax increase to 25 per cent — while Poland has signalled no intention of abandoning its 19 per cent rate. The

Harrison Griffiths

UK must do more to make itself an attractive destination for foreign investment and UK entrepreneurs, particularly as neighbours like Poland and Ireland intend to retain competitive corporation tax rates.

Likewise, the Labour leader led the chorus of criticism for reducing the top rate of income tax to 40 per cent last year. If he thought that proposal was radical, Poland’s 32 per cent top rate might blow his socks off. Although Starmer supported reducing the basic rate of tax by 1 per cent to 19 per cent, that is still a far cry from Poland’s 12 per cent rate on income below 120,000 Zloty (£22,400).

Poland’s competitive tax rates are com- plemented by its top ranking among all countries for ease of doing business across borders. Rather than emulating the Poles by promising to take advantage of new free trade opportunities, Starmer – like the Sunak government –has dogmatically insisted that British industry should be protected in future trade negotiations. This only serves to prevent Britons from enjoying the ease of trade across borders which has been a key feature of Poland’s growth.

As with the high-spending Conservative government’s of the post-Cameron era, Starmer seems to care little about reducing the national debt. In fact, he has pledged new spending commitments on clean energy, schools, and the NHS.

At just over 85 per cent, the UK’s debtGDP ratio dwarfs Poland’s at 46 per cent. Emulating the pro-growth Poles in this area would mean not only scrapping those commitments, but also embarking on billions worth of cuts to existing spending.

Of course, it would be inaccurate to paint Poland as some kind of liberal utopia. The governing right-wing populist Law and Justice Party’s attitude towards LGBTQ+ rights and judicial independence is a blight on Poland’s flourishing liberal experiment. EU investment in the country has been extensive and its tax system is overly complex. Nonetheless, we must learn from Poland’s friendliness to foreign and domestic investment if we want to kickstart our own economic miracle.

While Polish workers have long-sought economic opportunity in the UK, we may soon see Britain’s disenfranchised youth drawn to Poland’s bustling economy, cheaper cost-of-living, and less burdensome tax rates. Starmer is right to highlight Poland’s rapid rise, but if his vision is to emulate our eastern European friends, he must deliver the policies to match it. That means our own course of shock therapy, one which decreases the size and scope of government, and allows individuals to flourish.

£ Harrison Griffiths is a communications officer at the IEA

from Alzheimer’s and they weren’t able to care for her at home anymore. To pay for it, they had to sell her house - her total care fees amounted to over £230,000. She was never assessed for Continuing Healthcare Funding, despite her condition - and additional mental health issues.

Only years after, when they moved her to another facility, they discovered she met the criteria for funding. Kath passed away in December 2014, a few months after being moved to the new facility, so Paul and Jill tried to get retrospective funding. Jill describes that as a terrible time. “We had to relive the worst moments of our lives to get her money back”, she says. In the end, after tax and all expenses, they got around £32,000 back.

Many families challenge the integrated care boards’ decision through the courts. If they’re successful, they get some of the money back - a kind of reparation payment on which the NHS spends a lot of money. “If they made the right decision in the first place, the contract with the private care home would be lower than what they have to pay back to the families”, says Morgan. Making the screening process more efficient makes sense not only morally, but also financially.

“You’re fighting a system that’s telling you that your relative’s health needs are not serious enough to be eligible for care”, says Morgan. Perhaps if the assessments were managed by a central body instead of local care boards, it would be easier to come to a universal interpretation of the eligibility criteria. What’s sure is that reforming the system would ultimately save the NHS money - and save many families the distress.