Until that point, there’s a good stretch of high but not impossible spending to get through, which we’ll be expected to fund. And thanks to our population structure, it doesn’t really matter which party is in office: with the over-55s quite possibly already accounting for a majority of votes cast, the weight of demography is on the side of draining the taxpayer further.
The NHS, the state pension system, and state-funded elderly care are all but untouchable – turkeys don’t vote for Christmas – and those nearing retirement don’t vote to reduce their own entitlements when there’s any other option available. Unfortunately, spending on these three items also accounts for an additional 10.5pc of GDP by the mid 2070s. Add on the interest on our expanding debts, and that’s effectively all fiscal wriggle room erased.
Taxes and borrowing will rise until they can rise no further, and somebody will be left standing when the music stops.
Back in the present day, Reeves isn’t going to stand at the despatch box, lay all this out to the public, and then seek a mandate to reshape the state entirely to avert a crisis in the future. Then again, neither was Jeremy Hunt. Last time I looked, the Conservative offering for young people was corvee labour in care homes and the delight of funding a quadruple lock.
On this issue, the parties are united: kick the can down the road, and hope like hell the job of sorting it out lands with someone else.
It was partly these pressures that led the Conservative Party to turn to mass migration on an unprecedented scale, bringing in everyone from doctors and nurses to teachers and care workers in an attempt to hold down the cost of government services, and flooding the economy with cheap labour in an attempt to stimulate activity.
The long run effect of this sugar rush, however, may well be to make Britain even less attractive to home-grown talent. The OBR believes each low-wage worker will cost Britain £151,000 by state pension age, £500,000 by 80 and £1m by 100. In other words, the “migration” strategy simply shunts the costs of today’s retirees into the future – and into the period where state spending is already unsustainable.