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Reading The Right Way, it’s impossible not to think of Canada during the Trudeau years, when all the syndromes Badenoch warns of were on full view virtually daily. Unlimited demands on government. Endless lists of official priorities. Ministers, including a prime minister, who revelled in announcements but were bedevilled by delivery. A willingness to say no only to the standard bogeymen of the left: hydrocarbon producers, Big Pharma and Tech, right-wing provinces, Republican America and Netanyahu’s Israel. 

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Canada actually figures twice in The Right Way. Though Badenoch doesn’t credit Pierre Poilievre, she promises, referring to the U.K.’s carbon tax, to “Axe the Tax,” a construction used to great effect by our Conservative leader on the Canadian version of that tax. 

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And she mentions Mark Carney outright, though only to disagree with him — which many conservatives will consider further evidence of wisdom. In her section on foreign policy, she writes that “Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney recently argued that today’s world is multipolar, with ‘middle powers’ all enjoying a good deal of agency and influence. I am not so sure.” And she goes on to paint the picture of a world of two superpowers, though that “does not mean every other country is condemned to irrelevance.” Britain — others, too, presumably — can yet remain “a great power,” though this will require “small but excellent armed forces,” as well as the ability to “sustain a major war.” 

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That Badenoch or her speechwriters can craft a clear, sharp, clever critique of modern governmental bloat obviously does not mean she will necessarily win power or, having won, reshape Britain on Thatcherite lines. 

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But — Canadian conservatives, take note — the smaller-government ideas she favours are serving her well at the moment.

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Nota Bene: The hard part of government is saying no

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These are excerpts from The Right Way, a pamphlet recently published by British Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch:

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Faced with almost any problem, the easy answer is to demand government do something. I want to see proper questions asked first. As an engineer, my training forces me to start with the simple ones: such as what is actually causing the problem? What incentives have previous decisions created? How will people change their behaviour in response? What’s missing? Which costs are visible and which ones aren’t? Is government genuinely the institution best placed to act? …

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Growth in the size of the economy has too often been mistaken for growth in wealth and prosperity. But a larger population can increase total output even when output per person barely changes … We should not have stagnation here, but too much time, too much talent and far too much capital are diverted or driven elsewhere by the conditions government is creating …

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If we want to get Britain hiring, employers need to see a new worker as an opportunity, not a liability … Yet successive governments have treated profitable businesses and high earners as cash cows to be milked for revenue, while making it more expensive and riskier to employ people by increasing taxes on jobs and introducing legislation that makes it harder to sack poor performers …

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An individual tax or rule may appear tolerable, but the cumulative burden of payroll taxes, business taxes, reporting requirements, employment rules and regulatory uncertainty changes behaviour. Investment is postponed or, worse, happens elsewhere. The government then observes weak growth and responds with another scheme intended to encourage the very activity its own policies are discouraging …

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New regulation is easy to add and difficult to remove. Each rule acquires a constituency of vested interests. Regulators are criticized for the failure they permit, but seldom for the enterprise they prevent. Ministers can claim credit for action by announcing a new power, while the slow, expensive work of enforcing an existing rule or simplifying a system attracts less attention …