I have to admit that I appear to be using the word 'depressing' quite often on this blog of late. That might, however, reflect my current sentiment about the state of the world. If that is apparent, I feel I should apologise, but it is hard to do so when so much of what is happening in politics and beyond can only be appropriately described in that way.
Yesterday provided further examples. The links to the stories are readily available in all media. Start with the Guardian.
Henry Staunton, who was recently sacked as chairman of the Post Office by Kemi Badenoch, appeared before a House of Commons select committee. The Tories on that committee sought to discredit him. What, however, became readily apparent was that he had come out of retirement to undertake this task because he saw it as being a social obligation to do so. In his mid-70s and with a good pension, he did not need the money. He took the risk of accepting the job to favour the government, and Badenoch had returned the favour by sacking him.
That was depressing enough. The attempt by Jonathan Gullis MP to then smear him was equally depressing. Henry Staunton's retort, which put Gullis very firmly in his place and cast doubt over both the ethics and truthfulness of Badenoch, was well worthwhile watching for both reasons.
Ultimately, though, what was clear from the exchanges with Staunton and others was that civil servants acting on the instruction of ministers were doing exactly what Staunton had claimed, which was to delay payments to postmasters who had been wronged by the Post Office. The weasel words of a senior civil servant clearly seeking to defend Badenoch's position only made matters worse for her.
Then, another select committee heard from David Neal, who was very recently sacked by Home Secretary James Cleverly MP as the UK's border inspector for telling the media about the fifteen reports that he had written on Home Office failings in managing that system, none of which had been published or acted upon. This, he had felt, left him with no choice but to draw attention to these issues if action was to be taken upon them. His evidence referred to the shocking leadership of the Home Office on this issue. His contempt for its incompetence was apparent, and rightly so.
Then, this morning, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee published its latest report on the failings of HM Revenue and Customs. As they note, for the fifth year in a row, its service levels have declined. The result is that taxpayers are unable to secure the help that they need to pay the right amount of tax.
As importantly, they question HMRC's figures within the tax gap and its use of that flawed report as a management tool, which is something that I have done, persistently, over many years.
But, for the purposes of this narrative, their conclusion that these outcomes are the consequence of deliberate action on the part of HM Treasury and the senior management of HMRC is what matters. Returning to the theme of depressing evidence of the decline in public services as a consequence of the deliberate policy of those put in charge of them by successive Conservative governments deliberately undermining the services the government supplies, this deliberate undermining of the tax system by those tasked with managing it takes some beating.
Is it any surprise that people are depressed about the state of this country when those tasked with its management are deliberately trying to undermine the competence of the government so that they might harm the well-being of the state that we live in? If that is not depressing, what is?
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So why there people trying to undermine the country? Why try and destroy the NHS and public services? The only explanation I can think of, is that they want to privatise public service.
This will divert £billions into private hands, who will claim they can use the money more “efficiently”.
The last 14 years demonstrates that privatisation of key services does not work. Schools are crumbling. We have the highest energy prices in Europe. We have the highest rail fares in Europe. Water companies are on the verge of bankruptcy and are pumping raw sewage into our rivers. The NHS has the longest waiting lists in a generation. Dentistry is unaffordable. Road a blighted by potholes. And so it goes on.
The one single thing that most depresses me is that Labour offers little hope of significant change. Every day we discover more things that need fixing, and every day we hear from Labour that they can’t or won’t make the changes that are so obviously needed.
I could tolerate Tory mismanagement for a few more months if I could see a brighter future, but as it is I mourn for my country.
Alas, both Conservative and Labour parties have adopted submerged policies, unwittingly to wittingly, which seek the gaining, for some, of a bigger slice of a smaller cake, ably assisted by the main stream media, not least the B. B. C.
Thanks to Mr. Murphy for demonstrating ways in which all in our society may obtain an equitable slice of a sustainable cake.
What puzzles and depresses me is the claim on the one hand that we are the most highly taxed we’ve been in a generation, yet all public services seem to be going down the pan for lack of funding. Can anyone explain to me how this can be?
I will do a blogpost on this, soon.
The Tories are deliberately destroying every institution in the UK. What’s worse is that they are trying to convince us wrong is right, down is up and lies are the truth. It’s nuts.
Nothing works, everyone suffers (except perhaps the rich) and Labour has made it clear they won’t do anything different to the Tory government.
“Depressing” is an accurate description of the situation the UK is in. It will be misery heaped upon misery until sanity is restored – by what means I couldn’t say – and that does not appear to be imminent.
I am sure that most of us would expect any Government to attempt to run a competent administration but sadly it isnt an option we are offered
I note that Byline Times now devotes a page (a PAGE!!) to good news stories in the acknowledgement that it can be a ‘heavy read’.
My view is that neo-liberalism has created a new class of super-rich and so all the old class based warfare has reared its ugly head, this time turbo-charged.
This class war is based on the total fiction that the rich’s taxes pay for what the rest of society has, thus conferring ‘victimhood’ on themselves and the ability to sneer at those of us who work for a living or do not do what they do (they always assume that anyone can do what they do). We are ‘their’ burden apparently.
This is why combating lies like tax and spend must never stop.
Because now, there is so much money sloshing around that it is now deliberately making its way into our political and democratic systems.
The Tories are truly grocery clerks – all descended from the grocer’s daughter from Grantham and here they are, having delivered unfettered capitalism they now go out to collect the bill.
Ask yourself how else in a democracy is this supposed to work? You’ve created policies that hurt people and now there is the risk of voting you out. So, how do you deal with that? How do you keep your job in the face of your cruelty and indifference?
The answer? Money. Lots of money to fund your election campaigns- that’s how you deal with that. And good old fashioned fascist political technology as well. You divide and conquer and buy people’s acquiescence and confuse the rest.
That is why we need to nationalise party political funding.
But this also reminds us just how destructive the tax and spend trope really is.
And how stupid New Labour was in being relaxed about people becoming rich as long as they ‘pay their taxes’.
Because the British rich mostly do not like paying their taxes for exactly the reason above. They think everyone else is freeloading on them. Because we are still wrong about tax. And Starmer’s Labour is going to rely on these people to fund their programmes under such faulty thinking? Yeah right.
Israel and Gaza is bad enough, but the knots we’ve allowed ourselves to be tied up in here at home about tax are equally appalling because that is killing people too as well as creating huge stress.
We must now start to move towards methods of self-defence for the people.
Creating and offering some kind of self defense for the majority against these cruel ruling class ghouls is long overdue.
I do not know enough to fully comprehend the possible pitfalls in this proposal but could the recent example of Southwark Council crowdfunding their council be rolled out across GB via Sunak’s 86 Special Economic Zones ?
Jujitsu the legislation passed to allow them to be free of almost all state or legal oversight in order to attract short term corporate exploitation by enabling communities funded by crowdfunding to take back control at ground level.
You are over imagining the needs of these locations – which are private sector, not state, operations with ready access to money
For good or bad then UK tends does not have coalition governments. We have a first past the post electoral system to guarantee a strong government. When the government is strong it is clear to the public who is in control. It should be clear who is making the decisions and we can then hold them accountable. And we get good government.
This is obviously false.
Our institutions need saving but it is pointless to continue believing that the old model will suffice. It looks like the conservatives have chosen to save the broken model not the institutions. And if both fail in the coming years then the consequences for us will be catastrophic.
I have to disagree.
We had a coalition from 2010 – 15
And every government is a coalition – the problem is we have insufficient influence over its membership
I agree. In a fptp system there are seldom coalitions of parties, but each party itself becomes a coalition. However the public has no say as to the constituent parts of that coalition.
Arguably Johnson, Truss and Sunak all represent different parts of the coalition that is the Tory party. The public had absolutely no say about the latter two being prime minister.
I am looking forward to this happening.
https://labourhub.org.uk/2024/02/28/learning-from-the-socialist-league/
“This is the worst inheritance any incoming government will have had since the Second World War in terms of debt interest payments, growth, living standards and taxation.
George Osborne said in 2010 that they were going to fix the roof. What they’ve done is smash the windows, broken the door down and are burning the whole house down.
That is the reality for whoever is prime minister and chancellor after the next election – that’s the inheritance that whoever forms the next government is going to have to deal with;” (Rachel Reeves, 28th February, 2024; Sky News)
If this is now conceded as the worst since WWII; then the answer is not austerity and cuts, but investment to allow growth. We learned after 1929 and the Depression; you don’t leave the private sector to lead recovery (it runs for cover); and it doesn’t fix the roof; it isn’t its toof, and if it doesn’t own it the private sector isn’t interested, and feels no guilt turning its back. Only Governments can fix this scale of crisi; or they just aren’t up to it, or do not have people of the right character to face up to the task, and take the responsibility to fix it.
I totally agree – investment is now needed but the Tories have typically in my view decided to kick the man when he is down and just sense an opportunity to turn back the clock to BEFORE the creation of the welfare state.
And Labour seem to have conceded that those post war gains were an unsustainable mistake – and a lot of this has to do with lies about tax and spend.
The People’s first defence is to demand that the truth be told.
The second is to stop the back seat driving of politics through private funding.
There are clues all around that these fundamentals – presented as they are – are wrong. We ‘found money’ for 2008; we know something went really wrong in the funding and execution of the BREXIT vote; the huge PPE contracts for chums.
There are clues everywhere being ignored. Those already in the fray – like Lions led by Donkeys need to up their game.
It is the people at the top of the wealth indices who are no longer ‘one of us’.
Fact.
One has to wonder, when every “failing” public service has been handed over to their private friends, owned by corporations, what will we need a government for? What will they have left to manage? Is the ultimate aim of every Tory MP to do themself out of a job? Puts a whole new meaning on Great Britain plc.