A new report on Social Justice in the EU has just been published.
The message for the UK is not that good: we're 13th.
But if you're young we're 18th.
That's really not very clever. How can one of the richest countries in Europe do so badly?
Here's the start of the UK summary:
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Good.
I m not young . I m old . Hooray.
Keep paying my pensions and wiping my bottom when Im infirm and senile and terminate me when the pain becomes unacceptable.
Couldn t give a monkey s who s young . I m number one first last and inbetween.
As true today as it was when Neil Kinnock made the speech of his life 32 years ago (if not more so):
If Margaret Thatcher is re-elected as prime minister on Thursday, I warn you. I warn you that you will have pain — when healing and relief depend upon payment. I warn you that you will have ignorance — when talents are untended and wits are wasted, when learning is a privilege and not a right. I warn you that you will have poverty — when pensions slip and benefits are whittled away by a government that won’t pay in an economy that can’t pay. I warn you that you will be cold — when fuel charges are used as a tax system that the rich don’t notice and the poor can’t afford.
I warn you that you must not expect work — when many cannot spend, more will not be able to earn. When they don’t earn, they don’t spend. When they don’t spend, work dies. I warn you not to go into the streets alone after dark or into the streets in large crowds of protest in the light. I warn you that you will be quiet — when the curfew of fear and the gibbet of unemployment make you obedient. I warn you that you will have defence of a sort — with a risk and at a price that passes all understanding. I warn you that you will be home-bound — when fares and transport bills kill leisure and lock you up. I warn you that you will borrow less — when credit, loans, mortgages and easy payments are refused to people on your melting income.
If Margaret Thatcher wins on Thursday, I warn you not to be ordinary. I warn you not to be young. I warn you not to fall ill. I warn you not to get old.
And whilst the Neoliberal voodoo economics ushered in by Thatcher appears to be on it’s death bed, who knows what untold damage it could do in its writhing death agonies
Agreed
Considering one of the key arguments with a great deal of traction within Her Majesty’s loyal opposition is you cannot be allowed to tell any section of the electorate who harbour the delusional belief that, for example, the economy can and should be run like a household budget or that Trident is an independent and usable system that they are wrong, it is highly likely that anyone in the party who made such a speech today would be deselected on the spot and denounced as a terrorist throughout what passes for the media.
Labour still has too many management clones who have not got a clue about leadership and who have no skill set or expertise in that field. If a sizable proportion of the electorate believed the moon was made of green cheese they would be putting forward policy proposals to mine the stuff rather than telling them to grow up and get a grip.
In the meantime old ‘Kinnockio’ seems to have been a ready convert to voodoo economics and a dupe of Eurocracy. Emblematic of the failure of the left.
Richest countries in the EU? By what measure?
GDP
In terms of GDP per capita the UK is 8th (though 15th in terms of social justice) according to chart Page 15/ 15th in terms of poverty prevention (17)-certainly doesn’t look good.
Interesting to note in the methodology behind the SJI:
“Thus, within the scope of his or her own personal freedom, every individual should be empowered to pursue a self-determined course of life, and to participate in society more broadly…. By focusing on opportunities for self-realization, such a concept avoids the blind spots of an efficient market-driven, simply formal procedural justice on the one hand and a compensatory distributional justice on the other, and thus ultimately establishes a bridge between rival political ideologies.” (page 70)
I like the last line – ultimately, the battle is not between left and right, but between humanity and the forces that seek to undermine it. Neoliberalism contributes to the undermining of society because of the false ideological premises upon which it is based.
Further down, the report notes that discussions on social indicators have been in parallel with discussions on debt reduction and austerity measures, but media attention and public exposure has focused more on the latter. So they say:
“Raising awareness among the public of developments in social justice are
instrumental to creating genuine political leverage capable of affecting change.”
Which would hopefully lead to the UK being a better place to be young.