We need to take on our greatest enemy if we are going to fix this country.
What is the root cause of nearly all our problems today? Look no further than inflation.
Inflation is not just a monetary phenomenon. It’s a cultural one. It is eroding our education system, our political institutions, and our very understanding of value.
Grade inflation – devaluing education
Secondary and university education have been devalued by grade inflation. In 1997, around 19% of students achieved an A grade at A-level. By 2025, that figure had risen to 28% (A* + A). In 2018, 29% of university students obtained a first-class honours degree – up 13% from 2011.
Speaking to the BBC in 2019, Susan Lapworth, then Director of Competition at the Office for Students, said: “Worries about grade inflation threaten to devalue a university education in the eyes of employers and potential students.” Lapworth made this statement in the pre-ChatGPT era. As AI erodes entry-level roles, grade inflation becomes the falsest of false economies.
Population inflation – diluting citizenship
The value of a British passport is being eroded by population inflation. In 1997, approximately 66,000 people were granted British citizenship. In the year ending June 2025, nearly 257,000 grants of British citizenship were made.
The Edict of Caracalla granted Roman citizenship en masse to almost all inhabitants of the Roman Empire. This ill-fated decision is widely regarded as a significant contributor to the decline and fall of Rome. Citizenship was no longer highly coveted. Social cohesion was permanently undermined. Sound familiar?
Institutional inflation – expanding the political class
A twin evil has fatally undermined our institutions’ ability to solve problems: expansion of the political class and proliferation of quasi-governmental bodies.
Between the enactment of the Life Peerages Act 1958 and January 2021, 1,517 life peers were created by 13 prime ministers. Tony Blair alone created 374. Life peers can sit in the House of Lords. Supporters claim they add specialist expertise to lawmaking. Perhaps. Yet average attendance among life peers in 2023–24 was around 52–55%, with about 13% attending very infrequently. Some contribute even less.
Since the Blairite revolution, devolution has added 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament, 60 Members of the Welsh Senedd, 90 Members of the Legislative Assembly of Northern Ireland, 12 metro mayors (with at least six more to come), and thousands of functionaries supporting them.
The proliferation of quasi-non-governmental organisations, or quangos, has worsened this trend. In 2008, the TaxPayers’ Alliance estimated around 1,162 quangos were costing the taxpayer £64 billion – roughly £2,550 per household.
Quangos have existed for centuries (Trinity House dates back to 1514), but their explosion came under Thatcher and Blair. Politicians love quangos because they outsource decision-making and diffuse blame. When things go wrong, the finger can point elsewhere.
The state has swollen, yet what have we gained in return?
Monetary inflation – the root of all others
Yet none of these forms of inflation trump the most pernicious kind: inflation of the money supply. Without it, the state could not expand exponentially.
A stealth tax on our future, the government relies on fiscal drag to pull an ever-increasing number of citizens into higher tax bands. The personal allowance has remained frozen at £12,570 since the March 2021 Budget, and the higher-rate threshold at £50,270 since April 2021. No further increases are planned until at least April 2028 – conveniently, just before a General Election.
Since March 2021, the pound has devalued against gold by around 48%. A toxic mix of energy price shocks (aggravated by net zero policies), a growing trade deficit, and the hangover from loose monetary policy during the COVID era (0.1% interest rates and a binge of quantitative easing) has fuelled stubborn stagflation.
According to the Office for Budget Responsibility, total UK government borrowing stood at £87 billion in March 2024. By April 2025, it had skyrocketed to £148 billion. The cost of servicing this debt pile now hovers around, or even exceeds, the levels seen under Liz Truss. Ten-year gilts yield around 4.6–4.7%, while thirty-year yields are about 5.4%.
And for all that, there will be little to show. Much of this additional tax burden will feed the machinery of government rather than fix the nation’s problems.
Tackling inflation in all its forms
Whether in education, politics or money, the pattern is the same: expansion without restraint. A gold standard once enforced monetary discipline. Today, we must find modern equivalents. Reform UK’s policies are developed in the spirit of that golden age – to restore discipline across public life
Restoring the Value of Education
- Limit undergraduate places and enforce minimum entry standards to restore rigour in higher education.
- Scrap VAT on independent schools to relieve pressure on the state sector and promote parental choice.
Protecting Citizenship and National Identity
- Raise the British citizenship qualification period to seven years and abolish Indefinite Leave to Remain.
- Establish a Department of Immigration headed by a minister responsible for deportations.
- Require five years of employment and residency before migrants can access full benefits.
- Withdraw from the ECHR and legislate a new Bill of Rights to restore domestic legal sovereignty.
- Introduce an Acute Skills Shortage Visa (ASSV) only where critical domestic shortages exist.
Slimming the state and ending institutional bloat
- While we are seeking to remedy our current exclusion from the red benches in the short-term, our long-term goal remains the abolition of political appointments and complete democratic reform of the Lords.
- Abolish unnecessary quangos and merge overlapping bureaucracies, saving billions in public spending.
- Ensure local government auditors are properly empowered to root out inefficiency and waste.
- Commit to cutting 5% of total public sector spending without harming frontline services, saving an estimated £60 billion annually.
Fighting monetary inflation and restoring sound money
- Raise the personal tax-free allowance to £20,000 and the higher-rate threshold to £70,000 to reverse fiscal drag.
- Abolish the requirement for the Bank of England to pay interest to commercial banks on QE reserves, saving £30–35 billion per year.
- Scrap the net zero commitments and related subsidies, which are contributing to some of the highest household energy prices in the world.
Together, these reforms would restore value to our money, our citizenship, and our national confidence.
Are you better off?
Southampton Itchen’s Labour MP Darren Paffey recently claimed that Reform UK is “all complaints, no answers.” In response, I take inspiration from Ronald Reagan’s 1980 debate with Jimmy Carter, when he asked: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” This simple question is credited with winning Reagan the election.
So, I ask:
- Do you feel better off?
- Do you feel more secure?
- Do you have confidence in our educational and political institutions to solve our problems?
Until we confront inflation in all its forms – economic, institutional, and moral – Britain will continue to decay under its invisible weight.
Dr Alexander Culley
Secretary, Reform UK Southampton
