For these of us pissed off that the UK chancellor Rachel Reeves has been providing the unsuitable resolution to the correct drawback, there has lately been progress, of a form: she is now providing the unsuitable resolution to the unsuitable drawback.
Considered one of Labour’s key coverage objectives was to “kick-start financial progress”, a purpose that might save a variety of hassle if they might obtain it, however one which was all the time going to be simpler to say than to do.
Maybe that’s the reason the chancellor has seemed for a fast crowd-pleaser. Her current announcement of “Nice British Summer time Financial savings” (actually?) guarantees to fleetingly lower VAT on youngsters’s cinema tickets, youngsters’s restaurant meals (a definitional headache) and visits to the zoo, together with free bus rides for under-16s and tariff suspensions aimed toward giving us cheaper chocolate biscuits. (Households usually tend to need assistance when the vitality disaster bites within the winter months, however it’s potential that the chancellor thinks that something that occurs after September will probably be someone else’s drawback.)
It will be giving this coverage an excessive amount of credit score to name it a sugar hit; it’s extra like a dusting of saccharine. A small, non permanent, slightly scattershot tax break is simply transferring small change across the financial system. If you’re affluent sufficient to take your youngsters to eating places and amusement parks, you’ll save a couple of quid at finest, and might sit up for the invoice sooner or later. Whilst you wait, you may ponder whether or not the chancellor actually has nothing higher to spend her scarce sources on.
A lot of the cash, in any case, is prone to be snaffled by the businesses in query, that are below no obligation to cross on the tax lower. These within the highlight could determine that it could be prudent to make a present of doing so. But many theatres, theme parks and museums haven’t any direct native opponents and can certainly be tempted to pocket this temporary summer season bonus.
And in the event that they do cross on the total profit to clients? Merlin Entertainments, which runs Legoland, Alton Towers and Thorpe Park, has promised to just do that. However have you ever been to Alton Towers in a college vacation? No matter households acquire in decrease ticket costs, they’re prone to relinquish in longer waits for rides. The one actual resolution is to extend provide — an intriguing thought, no?
Nonetheless, it’s good to see rollercoasters on the entrance web page, as a result of for an perception into what ails the UK financial system past the nearsighted unseriousness of successive governments, theme parks usually are not the worst place to begin. They might have little sensible significance however they make a positive image of the nation’s ills: the UK’s rollercoasters are underwhelming for a lot the identical cause that the UK financial system typically is underwhelming.
I communicate with some authority, because the proud dad or mum of a teenage rollercoaster addict. Harford Junior has sampled a lot of what the UK’s rollercoaster scene has to supply, and now has his eyes firmly mounted on a theme park in Stockholm, one other in Belgium, a 3rd close to Paris and a fourth close to Krakow. (He’ll be fortunate.)
This wanderlust speaks eloquently of the ability of rollercoaster influencers on YouTube, but in addition of the truth that the UK simply doesn’t have a lot to supply the connoisseur.
Thorpe Park has the extravagantly tall Hyperia and Alton Towers has The Smiler, in all its labyrinthine dystopian glory. Each are memorable coasters, however each have equally memorable queues.
Talking as a person who has been dragged to extra rollercoaster parks than you may think, my expertise has been that the European parks are merely extra nice experiences — shorter queues, higher landscapes and themes, nicer meals, longer opening hours.
Examine Alton Towers with Europa Park in south-west Germany. Alton Towers is cheaper, which suggests it’s overcrowded and the queues are absurd. A quick-track cross to skip them is offered — for thrice the value of admission, at busy occasions. Europa Park doesn’t promote a queue-jumping cross, and it has sufficient capability that in my expertise you don’t really want one.
These are subjective impressions, admittedly. However in keeping with the Themed Leisure Affiliation, not one of the world’s 25 hottest theme parks is within the UK. (There are 4 in Europe.) Just one UK theme park is in Europe’s high 10 — Alton Towers, in tenth place.
Why doesn’t Alton Towers simply broaden its capability? A great query. It could be one thing to do with the restricted competitors: the UK’s three hottest theme parks are all run by the identical operator. There are plans to construct a Common Studios theme park close to Bedford, however main theme park openings within the UK usually are not a frequent prevalence.
It could be a response to planning restrictions — Alton Towers rides are obliged to remain beneath the tree line, lest they annoy the locals. Alton’s inhabitants is just not way more than a thousand folks, whereas the annual attendance at Alton Towers is effectively over two million. As so usually within the UK, we let the planning-permission tail wag the financial canine.
The UK financial system has suffered a long time of under-investment from personal and public sector alike, and you may see that mirrored in our rollercoaster recreation. At the very least the fast-track passes function a shining instance of how one can revenue in a low-growth financial system: when life palms you lengthy strains, make lemonade by charging folks for the privilege of standing on the entrance of them.
So there we’re. The rollercoasters don’t actually matter, however what they symbolise does: a supply-constrained financial system, hemmed in by guidelines and habits that don’t simply make it laborious to construct one thing new and higher, however make it laborious even to think about what “new and higher” would possibly appear like. A quick, poorly focused and poorly timed tax lower isn’t any extra probably to assist than handing out fast-track passes is prone to scale back the common queue occasions at Alton Towers.
What would possibly work? Treating the tax system strategically as a income and an encouragement to productiveness would assist — slightly than utilizing it as a fun-house supply of distraction. Taxes are too advanced and don’t increase sufficient income to fulfill any current authorities’s spending plans, so chopping some randomly chosen tax charges for a couple of weeks is hardly addressing that drawback.
However the actual problem lies within the nation’s provide facet. Encouraging a couple of extra theme parks would do wonders to enhance the expertise for coaster followers in all places. And on the off-chance that we really get severe? Extra energy strains, homes, automobile charging stations, roads, railway strains and energy era could be good. I’ll cope with out the low cost on my chocolate biscuits.
Written for and first printed within the Monetary Occasions on 3 June 2026.
