For most of humanity’s existence, economic concepts were a total irrelevance. The day to day challenge was finding enough food and somewhere safe to bed down for the night. If you failed, you and your family wouldn’t make it through the winter.

Then someone realised it was possible to grow grasses and domesticate animals. Now, one person could produce a bit of surplus to their own family’s needs. In return that freed up someone else to become a carpenter or a blacksmith. They could build better carts and ploughs so that the farmer could produce even more. Establish a credit system between them (money) and you have a basic economy which is the foundation for civilisation. It’s all based on value added.

In a blink of an evolutionary eye (200 odd years) industrial and technical revolutions have exponentially increased that process. We take power, cars, phones, foreign holidays etc more or less for granted. But it all depends on that fundamental value added economy.

Right from the start some of the surplus had to go to public services. Someone had to administer law and justice, soldiers had to guard the city walls, the sewage and rubbish needed to be cleared and clean drinking water provided if the citizens were to remain healthy. In simple terms a thriving economy needs well run public services, but those public services live off the surplus of the working person (or business) generating added value.

If we want our children and grandchildren to have better lives than we have had, and we want expensive services such as education, healthcare and pensions, then we have to keep that value added growing. But perhaps more importantly, we need to recognise how critical the relationship between public services and wealth creating business is. It can’t ever be one or the other; it’s the symbiosis between the two that matters.

Some people fall into the trap of believing that the public services should take control of the wealth generation. That’s called Socialism. In theory it can be made to sound attractive but in practice it always fails. Attempts to overcome that failure by more extreme socialism (Communism or National Socialism/Fascism) end badly and are surely best avoided.

Despite politicians of all parties recognising the need for growth, none seem to be able to pull the right leavers to make it happen. Liz Truss saw tax cuts as the way to go, but she wanted to borrow money to pay for them and the markets said no. Rachel Reeves believes that increasing funding for unreformed public services will do the trick; but her tax rises look to be achieving exactly the opposite and again the bond markets are getting nervous.

With some really big hidden bills (public sector pensions) coming down the track, like an out of control freight train, clear thinking and bold action is required. Otherwise we are living in a great big Ponzi scheme, which is another theoretical path to prosperity which always ends badly!

I don’t have a figure for Ceredigion, but across England and Wales one pound in every four pounds of council tax is going on staff pensions. If we finance that by overtaxing business then the symbiotic relationship is dead. Currently tourism and hospitality seem to be under the local cosh. In 2023, visitor numbers to Wales were down by 13 per cent compared to 2019 with revenues down by 11 per cent. Mind you, that is still a vital £458 million coming into Wales directly with a good deal more secondary spending. I appreciate that there is a downside to tourism, but we do need the golden eggs from this particular goose.

Now I appreciate that Ceredigion County Council can’t compensate for all of the bad decisions in London and Cardiff. But it wouldn’t cost a penny to change their mindset, and focus on things that they can do. “Working from home” doesn’t seem to be working very well and the optics are terrible; just bring it to an end guys for everyone’s sake including your own.

And for goodness sake sort out the planning process. Outsourcing this is an incredible waste of our money. Grip it and get it working. The target should be the shortest time in Wales.

There’s no better example of value added, and what should be the positive role of the public service than construction, be it a business or homes. A plot worth X and building costs of Y create a building worth Z. And Z almost always equals more than X + Y. A lot of tax revenue gets generated by Y and a new home pays council tax or a business creates tax paying jobs.

That’s the virtuous circle we need.