Understanding UK's strange Singapore envy

A PRO-BREXIT argument that always makes me giggle a little is that leaving the European Union (EU) will allow the UK to become the new Singapore. That's right - the land of hope and glory, home to the world's fifth-largest economy, wants to emulate its steamy little former colony, population 5.4 million.

When you look at the per-capita income data, though, you can kind of understand it. Once-poor Singapore passed the UK in 2006, and the income gap has grown to almost US$3,000 a year since then: When you adjust for what a person can actually buy with that money, Singapore looks even better: Singapore was the world's fifth-most affluent "country" (there are two special administrative regions of China included on the list) on a purchasing-power-parity (PPP) basis in 2015. The US was 11th, at US$57,540 a year. The UK? It came in 26th place among the countries (and parts of countries) for which the World Bank has data, at just US$40,900. Even the long-suffering euro area did better than that, with a PPP-adjusted income of US$41,179 in 2015.

So yes, a bit of Singapore envy is in order. Still, it's worth asking which part of Singapore's recipe for success the UK would need to follow. Is it . . .