Not usually ones to blow our own trumpets, we nevertheless don’t plan to let the world forget we were well ahead of the game in predicting the current jobs crunch.

But, as we have also said before, it was blindingly obvious this was going to happen.

Yesterday*, Britain’s Prime Minister, David Cameron, said his government was doing everything possible to create jobs.

This is, of course, a lie.

(In the Prime Minister’s defence such mindless exaggeration has become a quasi figure of speech and few take it literally. Nevertheless, it behoves politicians to be accurate with their use of language.)

There are many things the British government could do, some of them cost free, to boost employment.

The two most obvious are the abolition of jobs taxes (Employers National Insurance) and the abolition of employee rights legislation.

The first of these raises a lot of cash for the Exchequer and its doing away with would be seen as dealing a very substantial blow to Britain’s already parlous financial circumstances.

However, there is a fiscally neutral way of getting rid of it: simply convert this from an employer to an employee contribution, while at the same time imposing a time period during which employers must increase employee gross salaries by the equivalent of the National Insurance payments they would otherwise have made.

This would protect employees from being out of pocket, but would also avail them of the knowledge of just how much their job actually costs and how little of their 'hard earned' they get to see at the end.

It would not save employers a penny from existing employees. However, it would pave the way to reducing substantially the costs of new jobs created. Those who are currently unemployed might well prefer a lower salary than no salary.

But, the really big fish to fry is the abolition of employee rights legislation. This wouldn’t cost the government anything but would make British companies far more competitive. They would grow, new ones would start, and employers would no longer be fearful of hiring.

It’s not that the government doesn’t know this. It will be blindingly obvious to them. But they find it just too politically unpalatable to take action.

The Conservative Party is still trying to detoxify its brand, and shake off the image of being the nasty party: hence seemingly obscure obsessions with promoting gay marriage and ring fencing the overseas aid budget (one of only two areas of spending so protected).

It is the same fear of being seen to be nasty that obstructs the political will to tackle the uncompetitive employment burdens Britain has shackled itself with for the last 15 years or more.

So, though received wisdom says “it’s the economy, stupid” really “it’s politics, stupid”.

But, in time, the economic argument and the political argument will converge. Democratic governments pursue paths of least resistance and there will come a day when there is more to be lost politically by keeping these employment burdens than by getting rid of them.

Employee rights and jobs taxes are not the only barriers to economic growth but they are huge ones and their removal would certainly be a big step forward.

Sadly, as the drastic austerity measures now being imposed in Greece suggest, things have to get very bad indeed – which means much more unnecessary suffering for us all – before politicians find the political courage to do what they knew, deep in their hearts, they would need to do all along.

* This blog post was first published on 13 October 2011

The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, has promised to declare war on the “enemies of enterprise”.

Well, if he is indeed fighting a war – and there is little sign of it – the enemies of enterprise are winning and he is losing.

The bureaucratic burden on small business is increasing rather than decreasing. April 6^th is one of two “red tape days” – the other being in October – when new regulations come into force. According to the respected Financial Times, no less than fifty additional obligations are being imposed on business.

If Mr Cameron is serious about fighting the enemies of enterprise, he should stop employing them. Those who make the lives of entrepreneurs unnecessarily difficult should be told, “You were employed to make the economy fairer and more efficient, but you have done the opposite. You have put a burden on your fellow citizens when you should be relieving them of it. Your services are no longer required. Since you are being dismissed for cause, you should not expect any public honours, or any lump sum or pension beyond the absolute legal minimum”.

These words could and should be applied to a very long list of bureaucrats.

It is, of course, impossible to disagree with David Cameron, the UK’s Prime Minister, when he says that supporting Britain’s entrepreneurs is the only possible strategy for growth.

He has come out to declare war on the ‘enemies of enterprise’ ... but with a classic bit of blame shifting.

Entrepreneurs are currently even more important to their countries than usual. Governments like those of the UK and the USA are now being forced to cut state spending after years of extravagant expenditure and dangerous deficits. They have no choice but to rely on private sector growth to take up the slack, and small and medium-sized enterprises generate most private sector growth.

Britain’s previous government was also full of warm words about entrepreneurs, but it is difficult to recall a single occasion when, given a straight choice between enterprise and ideology, government backed enterprise. OK, they did reduce the rate of capital gains tax but the politics of envy won out and a ridiculous cap was placed on lifetime gains.

Cameron has yet to prove he is any different. Though what he says is obviously true – any economy is only as strong as its entrepreneurs – he has put all the blame on bureaucrats.

Though bureaucrats have been, and remain, the source of much needless grief and forfeit of economic opportunity, the more pressing problems are the regulations governments have given them to enforce and the burdens of tax all businesses face.

After the best part of a year in power, Cameron has done nothing substantial to reduce these problems.

On the contrary, the first time he was offered that choice between enterprise and ideology, he went the same route his immediate predecessors would have gone, when he decided to implement their notorious Equality Act despite vigorous protests of the whole business community.

It was the only real test to date of his seriousness about business – and he failed it.

We are not asking for government handouts or special treatment or gimmicky programmes. All we want is to be allowed to do what government is asking us to do.

Alas, though, the government has tied its own hands. It has made foolish policy announcements in support of tax rates that penalise success and ‘family friendly’ policies that translate into anti-business employee rights legislation. Added to that, it continues to support international treaties its predecessors signed that do little more than make our economy uncompetitive.

Mr Cameron’s words are still welcome, though he has a long way to go if he wants to prove that they are any more than just words. He has told us the forthcoming budget will be the “most pro-growth [Britian] has seen for a generation".

Somehow, we know we’re going to be disappointed.