BRITAIN must learn lessons from film classic The Wizard of Oz if it wants to survive the recession, former Scottish Secretary Lord Forsyth has said.
Forsyth claimed that the much-loved story is an illustration of the triumph of human spirit over the failings of politicians, which serves as a reminder that the country can get out of the financial crisis.
The former Conservative Scottish secreta
ry drew the analogy at a Scotland on Sunday lecture sponsored by Fleishman Hillard at last week's Tory Conference in Perth.
He said The Wizard of Oz could be interpreted as an allegory describing a failure of monetary and government policy, released in 1939 as the world was coming out of the depression caused by the great crash ten years before.
The twister, which saw Dorothy whisked off to Oz, represented economic collapse following a boom. The wicked witch of the East was the eastern bankers, whose demise freed the Munchkin, a hard- working people.
The yellow brick road was the gold standard and Oz was the abbreviation for ounces, the unit of measurement of gold and silver. The Wizard was the US president and the Emerald City was Washington.
He continued the analogy by suggesting that the tin man symbolised industry and the scarecrow represented agriculture.
"(They) do everything that is asked of them by the Wizard, but he fails to deliver and when challenged turns out to be a fraud," said Forsyth.
"The Wizard may have turned out to be powerless, but on the journey the lion had shown fearlessness in great danger and found his courage. The tin man had displayed great kindness and shown he had a heart and the scarecrow showed great ingenuity and shown he had a brain," Forsyth said.
"They had possessed the courage, the intelligence and the compassion they were seeking all along... the moral is clear. Put not your trust in governments. A political failure had created the whirlwind that changed everything and threatened everyone."
He added: "The remedy lay not with government, but with the people themselves through their courage, innovation, enterprise, determination, hard work and the strength of their families and communities."
Forsyth said the allegory of The Wizard of Oz could show Britain the way forward for overcoming economic gloom.
He said recovery would come with a Conservative Government "unleashing the enterprise, energy and talents of the British people".
"By encouraging growth and employment by removing the burdens of excessive red tape, waste and taxation. By living within our means as a country."
But earlier, Forsyth – who has had a successful banking career with JP Morgan and Fleming and Co – had warned that getting out of the recession would prove difficult and costly.
"We have entered a brutal recession, which will add to mortgage and credit card default as people lose their jobs and incomes. It will be a slow and painful climb out of it."
Forsyth criticised the Labour Government's approach to tackling the financial crisis.
"Even now, the Government doesn't seem to get it," he said. "You cannot solve a problem caused by excessive borrowing by borrowing more money. It is like applying for another credit card to pay off the others.
"In the end, it makes things worse not better. It might buy you time, perhaps until after a General Election. But the pain and the cost of addressing the problem will be greater."
