If you ever watched Alan Bennett's 'The History Boys', you will know that according to one of the characters, 'history is just one fucking thing after another'.
I am not wholly convinced by that argument. Bennett, however, had his character get into Oxford on the basis of it. I just happen to think it would be much more appropriate to describe UK political economy as 'just one fucked-up decision after another'.
This morning's news provides some evidence of that. According to the think tank, The Centre for Cities, as reported in the Guardian, the average UK person has lost out on £10,200 since 2010. These things are always estimates, of course, based on a massive range of assumptions, but is it plausible to think that austerity, driven by neoliberal ideology, badly failed the UK over that period? Of course, it is.
And then the Guardian also notes:
The UK's fruit and flower growers face an “existential threat” from new post-Brexit border checks that could damage business and affect next year's crops, the country's biggest farming body has said.
Apparently, vast numbers of the plants we think to be grown in the UK actually start life in EU-based greenhouses and are imported for onward growth here. And that is all at threat, and no one has reacted to this situation by creating new capacity here (so much for rational markets), so that we now face a food crisis, all thanks to neoliberal-driven Brexit.
And, according to reports in the FT:
A third of UK universities saw a decline in overseas non-EU applicants in 2023, almost twice as many as the previous year, according to a Financial Times analysis of data from the university admissions service.
The result is that UK universities are under serious financial threat of failure, not least because their fees from UK students have not risen for more than a decade, and inflation has resulted in universities now making a loss on teaching UK-based students. The consequence is that a massive UK export sector (which is what universities are) is under threat, and there is a very real risk that some universities may go bust - and by no means only those that are educationally marginal. This is all because of failed decision-making coupled with the neoliberal demand that universities compete in a 'market' that is intensely wasteful of resources and totally rigged.
Just to add spice to all this, there is then talk that Jeremy Hunt has maybe £10 billion to spend in the budget. So, guess what? He is planning a tax giveaway even though there is obvious evidence that the national insurance cut this month has done nothing for the party's standing with the electorate. He should be spending either on benefits or the green economy - where economic multipliers would be best - but is instead going to waste this money on more tax cuts that will do nothing much for anyone. That is neoliberalism in action, again.
So, just one disastrous decision after another.
No wonder people are fed up with politics and politicians, most especially when Labour is offering more of the same.
How long must we suffer this incompetence?
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Hum,
Just nit picking the first item George Monbiot argued a long while ago now for a ban similar to that applying in Australia & New Zealand on importing plants for biosecurity reasons.
In the event however we simply get the usual train wreck.
It is not really nit-picking considering that chalara (ash die back) , phytophera (larch) and Dutch Elm disease were either imported or spread through uncontrolled plant imports. Oak beetles, another import, are also on the rise…
This lack of market regulation is again proving hugely expensive in consequential damage to UK environments.
Externalities have never really been addressed have they ?
I have no problem with the EU applying their increasingly divergent and higher environmental standards in their encounters with the UK.
We are back to being the Dirty Man of Europe since Brexit.
About another ten months then let’s hope the next party in power offers something different. It’s all we have.
Hi Darren
We can hope. But don’t hold your breath! The next lot may be nothing more than a slightly less dogmatc set of neoliberals as the current ones.
Hi Martin. I would say there’s a bigger question to be posed. Why do we continue, as a population, to accept that these neo liberal parties are our only choice. If our only available choices are between horrible and slightly less horrible maybe it’s time we look at that and see what could be done about it. Maybe it’s time for a new political entity to emerge and push for real change in the politics of this broken island, one which values compassion and social good more than the protection of the rights of corporations and the rich.
The current political parties and governments only govern with our implicit consent to accept their power over us. Could it be that the time for that to change is finally upon us?
I hope so
At the expense of banging on about things, you end up with the issue firstly of the competence of the UK Managerial and Political class.
Then we have to face up to the issue that the Conservative Party and it seems Labour if it gets in as well is in power for the sake of being in power, not for either some moral cause – for example the 1945 Labour Government or The Wilson Administration and/or because it believes that it can run the Country better.
What we end up with is the worst of all worlds, a Government in power for the sake of being in power that cant run the proverbial whelk stall
The key to understanding how British Industry, British business and Britain in general works is how it is owned.
In the 1960s and 1970s the British car industry was the Tories favoured example for everything that was wrong with Britain, Strong Unions, Lazy workers, Resistance to change, Poor design, uncompetitive.
In the 1980s the British owned car industry died and Foreign owners moved in.
The only thing that changed was the ownership. Out went the short term City of London speculators and in came foreigners who understood manufacturing and how to make it profitable.
What stayed the same was Strong Unions, some of you may remember Len McClusky’s paean of thanks to Nissan, the same workers, the same middle management and in many cases the same designs and factories.
The result was some of the most productive car plants in the world and a very healthy UK car Industry.
George Orwell once wrote that the most of the problems of the UK came from being like a family with the wrong people in charge.
Or to paraphrase Bill Clinton, its the ownership, stupid. Apologies if that sounds bad mannered but until this country wakes up to the problem its disintegration will continue.
“At the expense of banging on about things, you end up with the issue firstly of the competence of the UK Managerial and Political class”.
It isn’t just a matter of poor competence alone. It is a matter of character, and the lack of it; and the pursuit of entirely the wrong people to lead.
Critically it is a matter of selection and succession management. Failure is designed into the selection process. Most obviously this applies to political parties and to the selection of MPs (the Conservative Party election of May, Johnson, Truss and Sunak are merely illustrative); but with equal force it applies to Corporate Britain. Our corporate institutions have effectively designed themselves to fail, but to enrich and celebrate the triumph of its leadership. We are trapped in a circle that turned out to be a spiral, an accelerating vortex of self-destruction.
So we totally change things.
From the bottom up.
Constituency by constituency.
A local candidate in every constituency, as you say, “who believes that better is possible and who is willing to talk about solutions that achieve that goal”.
“Branded” and coordinated as “thenew650”.
With a core, common prospectus that addresses the frustrations expressed here and round the country.
And what happens if a few hundred get elected?
Cooperation and collaboration.
The proper stuff of government.
Goals, strategies, implementation.
Facilitated by the Civil Service (some great folk there!!) .
I know, I know.
Idealistic twaddle….
But we could make it happen.
Who here is up for being the voice of your constituency?
They won’t get elected
The demand is not there yet
You are probably right.
But they might attract the “a pox on all their houses” vote.
And the “what’s the point in voting ” vote.
And if they are well know locally the “he/she understands us” vote.
But they need to be on the ballot paper to give folk the choice.
This campaign is going to be dirty and nasty and negative.
Given the right message, compellingly presented, these new 650 could be a beacon of hope and attract the votes of those who have given up on politicians to do us any good.
Labour is busy imposing people approved of by central office ie rightwing Neo-liberals.
Left wingers who have the interest of the whole population are being removed.
The Green Party is disappearing down a trans activist bitter hole.
I see no hope from the political class at all.
The thing is, neoliberalism is daft even in its own terms – even if you think capitalism and growth are good. Ha-Joon Chang has shown that the ‘success’ in these terms of the Asian ‘tiger’ economies like South Korea has been due not to unregulated markets, but precisely the opposite – government intervention. Singapore-on-Thames? They mean that Singapore where, in truth, almost all land is state-owned, 85% of homes are council houses/flats, and nearly a quarter of output is from state-owned enterprises. The fact is that even measured by its own standards, the only times and places capitalism has worked – at least for some – have been where and when it has been pretty strictly regulated, as it was in ‘the west’ before neoliberalism, when, in the aftershock of fascism, war and holocaust, most people recognised that it was uncontrolled capitalism that had led to social division, and ultimately to disaster, and democracies built welfare states with very high marginal tax rates.
South Korea built on the Japanese model. Japan was not colonised but modernised. The habit of the people taking orders without dissent, no doubt helped.
China has tried several paths but they have grown at a rapid pace. They also used the ‘Far East’ model. The state sets the framework and businesses compete within this framework. They did not use the de-regulation of capital. All banks ultimately have to obey the Bank of China. Michael Hudson thinks they have a model which will prevail over the current western model. Time will tell. The rigid suppression of dissent may well undermine the system.
Here in North Shropshire, Owen Paterson (thankfully) self destructed and we elected Helen Morgan (Lib Dem). What a breath of fresh air! She does her utmost for the good of her constituency. This is exactly what all MPs should be doing instead being concerned only with money and power. If only.
Whilst another headline in today’s Guardian reads ‘Homeowners who sold last year banked £102,000 profit on average, data shows’.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/jan/22/homeowners-england-wales-sold-last-year-banked-100k-profit-average
All I can surmise is that these enormous profits are being generated in a parallel universe; it definitely isn’t happening here in the North East.
My daughter selling a house, purchased as a new build about 14 years ago, might make some 40% ‘profit’, but it will be nowhere near £100k.
But I don’t understand it at all in view of the eye watering mortgage interest rates in force last year. Do people truly have the money to be able to finance big mortgages or are they just getting deeper and deeper into debt by buying other goods on credit?
The answer to the last is probably both, with debt financing the loans
Surely for the vast majority it was only “banked” in the sense that it enabled them to move to another house costing over £102k more than it did previously. Since the average house price was only £288k in October 23 (https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=average+house+price+uk&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8) clearly that £102k figure relates only to a very small number of people selling their houses for probably over £1mill.
Maybe it’s because the Tories came in just to destroy everything they hated whilst they were out of power, and having done that, they just simply have no ideas left to the contrary.
These people are not builders – they’re inveterate demolition experts.
I just hope that Labour are more than just site security, keeping the site in its demolished state for ever and a day.
We need to rebuild – big time.
Daily Mash.
When I say ‘will of the people’ I mean about 60 twats sitting behind me, explains Sunak.
https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/when-i-say-will-of-the-people-i-mean-about-60-twats-sitting-behind-me-explains-sunak-20240119244757
Will O Wisp more like.
Electronic Democracy By the People for the People.
Downgrades the executive power and puts the pols on a short leash.
How do you get decent people elected? Up until the 1980s in Toryland, by being a One Nation Tory who believed in public service; after that, by being an ardent Thatcherite. By mid 2000s a brain-free Brexiteer. Nowadays, just brain-free fascist or connected (cf Lee Anderson, Andrea Jenkyns).
What about Labour? In many constituencies, enthusiastic people elected enthusiastic people, despite the best efforts and dead hand of the regional and national Blairites. Since the Starmer coup, you don’t, unless a SpAd, nepo baby like Blair Jnr, coup contributor like Berger (Euan’s ex and witchfinder) or donor. Independents (genuine ones) will gain some seats, so will LibDems and even the odd Green despite the party imploding up indeterminate orifices. National pride will keep SNP in business.
You will get honourable, principled people despite all this, but they are now and will be a desperate minority.
The whole system is a mess. Starmer could make a difference, but I fear if he doesn’t (and my money is on a tied Parliament), there may be a ‘strong leader’ waiting in the wings.
The underlying problem lies in the fact that all the UK’s political parties still buy into the failed “market good/state bad” belief in one way or another. This results in a situation where the utterances of a party you’d expect to oppose such a failed belief like the Starmer led Labour Party have little value. Indeed it seems possible to now judge Brexit as actually being part and parcel of this failed belief. All those wonderful easily agreed trade treaties to replace EU membership have in fact failed to materialise!
Agreed
Off the subject but The Guardian’s comment on UK farming made me remember an antidote from the last season (series) of Clarkson’s Farm.
Mr. Clarkson and his advisor “Cheerful Charlie” decided to grow the type of wheat used to make expensive pasta. There plans were almost derailed as the “pre-paid for” wheat seeds were sitting in somewhere in the EU and could get not get to the UK and Mr. Clarkson’s farm due to some problem with some trade regulation.
From all I have read regarding agriculture in the UK, it seems the UK farmers are as we say in the USA “shit-out-of-luck’ with respects to the current government. It seems to me that the UK policies should do ALL that is possible to encourage as much arable farming as possible and see that it is profitable to encourage more farming. Is it not true that all higher level societies must have a surplus of agriculture to ensure food security and allow for diversification of labor?
The Centre for Cities ‘think-tank’ (surely by now a term that requires junked, it has become so discredited), a City/Local Authority/Property driven operation as far as I can see; and not especially reformist, has concluded that:
“A comparison of disposable incomes in the UK’s 63 largest cities and towns over time reveals that every place is out of pocket – both North and South, and from former industrial towns to innovation superstars.
Gross disposable income growth per head was £13,590 lower in London than it would have been if it had grown in line with 1998-2010 trends, while Middlesbrough and Sunderland in the North East experienced similar average shortfalls of £13,200 and £12,730 per head respectively, and people in Cardiff were £13,080 worse off on average” (Extract from Centre for Cities Press Release, today).
This government has nowhere to hide. It has trashed Britain.
If I add every year what I lost in 2010 in terms of wages (and why should I not?) my cumulative loss since 2010 is well over £14000 and that does not include the wage increases I was denied in successive years, changes to public sector national insurance or inflation. I think the figure maybe some like £18000-£20000.
My pension reports a 25% drop in my income.
Just what do the Tories think they have been doing – and the Lib Dems who joined them in the early years?
Very similar here PSR. Until recently I worked in Public Sector. With time on my hands in the first lockdown (so April 2020) I calculated years of pay freezes, or minimal 1%, against the CPI for each September since 2010. I was £12,800 down in lost pay.
Basically, left wing organisation full of people with predominantly public sector backgrounds compares a decade which saw record (unsustainable) growth due to a decade of cheap credit and banking largesse with a post global credit crisis decade which much tighter credit lending and increased backing constraints accompanied by a massive economic downturn.
And pretends that the original period was somehow less ‘neoliberal’ than the recent one?
And The Guardian laps this up because they know the readers won’t actually bother to read any further than the headlines or wouldn’t understand the flaws even if they did?
You think there was cheaper crddit before 2008 than since?
That is quite amusing
You might need to rethink that.
I’d ask you about bank lending standards and how these change pre and post crisis, but I remember you don’t have a clue about banking, so I’d be wasting my time.
Feel free to have a go though.
Do you want to know why I won’t bother?
It’s because you can’t even post twice using the same details and only trolls have that problem.
“Basically, left wing organisation full of people with predominantly public sector backgrounds compares a decade which saw record (unsustainable) growth due to a decade of cheap credit and banking largesse with a post global credit crisis decade which much tighter credit lending and increased backing constraints accompanied by a massive economic downturn”.
I spent my whole life in the private sector. I was then and am now deeply unimpressed by the period pre-crash; because it, close up from a private sector perspective. Both periods were relentlessly neoliberal. Both were ruinous; but we are now simply living through the inevitable denouement to decades of gross neoliberal economic incompetence. The comic stupidity of the Conservative neoliberal failure is that with every disaster, the attempt is made to recalibrate the ideology; the government wasn’t neoliberal enough (Johnson); still not enough (Truss); and now we have the crackpot splinter movements playing in the rubble of what is laft of the country; the ERG, the New Conservatives; NRG; Common Sense (!); Growth Group (seriously?); One Nation (!). Meanwhile every Conservative of any substance at all was kicked out of the Party by Johnson, or left because of the squalid, tawdry nature of it all.
What is left, and what you are defending “True Blue”, is simply the dross, the sediment; fit only to discharge as waste.
You are a splendidly over-ripe exemplar of why we are here.
Well said john Warren.
You know, the Tories would need to get rid of Councils, the NHS – all remaining public utilities/services and even then there is the possibility that they would still fail to realise that the fundamental flaw in market fundamentalism is GREED.
Not government intervention, or government money: GREED.