🇳🇴 Norway took its oil wealth and built the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund — investing in pensions, healthcare, and the future.
🇬🇧 Britain sold ours off in the 1980s, handed control to private corporations, and spent the revenues on short-term tax cuts.
🔴 Today, Norway has one of the highest standards of living in the world — while the UK is stuck managing decline.
🔵 Thatcher’s Conservative govt was responsible for handing over control of North Sea oil to private corporations, dismantling public ownership, and prioritising free-market policies over long-term public wealth.
Thatcher forfeited long-term public income from oil in favour of short-term privatisation proceeds and tax cuts.
🔴 Norway, by contrast, retained public control and built up the $1.6 trillion Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund from its oil wealth. The UK spent most of its oil revenues on general government spending during the 1980s, with little legacy investment.