As The Guardian has noted:
Britain is on track to become a “National Health State” where half of all public spending is allocated to the NHS and social care by the end of the decade, according to a leading thinktank.
They added:
As the chancellor came under pressure on Thursday to defend her plans, amid warnings that tax rises could be required, the Resolution Foundation said health spending was set to increasingly dominate public spending.
They also noted:
While the health service is taking up a larger share of public spending, other areas have been steadily squeezed out, including budget cuts of 16% reduction in real, per-person funding for justice and a 50% decline for housing, communities and local government since 2010.
I note this for a number of reasons.
Firstly, because if the Resolution Foundation are right (and that qualification is appropriate) then this re-orientation of expenditure by the government is a staggering change of direction with enormous consequences, as the last paragraph quoted makes clear. The provision of this level of healthcare will come at a cost to other public services, and to the relief of poverty, as Liz Kendall's programme of supposed benefits reforms that attacks the well-being of many of the poorest people in our country already evidences.
Secondly, as the FT notes this morning, Labour's supposed overarching desire was to improve the living standards of people in the UK. This the FT measures by way of who benefits most from he spending package proposed by Rachele Reeves, the benefit of which they suggest is allocated as follows:
It would seem the least well off benefit most, but mainly through benefit in kind spending, such as that on the NHS.
Third, despite this supposed increase, the NHS is not getting nearly as much as it has historically required:
We might be spending a lot on the NHS, but maybe not enough to meet demand.
In that case, let me make the real point, which is that all of this data might be true, and we are in fact going to see an explosion in expenditure on the NHS, at cost to almost every other form of government supplied service, but this will not, I suggest, actually improve living standards. Instead, what it graphically demonstrates is that those living standards are being massively harmed by the neoliberal economy that is doing everything that it can to reduce that well-being.
That destruction in our well-being comes in three ways.
Firstly, it is becoming increasingly widely recognised, except by the government, that ultra-processed foods are exceptionally dangerous to our health. They undoubtedly promote obesity, which is leading directly to significant increases in the number of cases of Type II diabetes. They are also contributing significantly to the growth in many forms of cardiovascular disease, and now appear to be strongly linked to issues like cancer and dementia. We are, in other words, being poisoned by the food that we eat, and the additional expenditure on the NHS is not about improving our living standards, but about correcting the physical consequences of the appalling food that the neoliberal food supply industry is delivering to us, which is grossly detrimental to our health. We are not, in other words, better off as a consequence of this additional expenditure: it is happening because we are all very much worse off in real, physical terms and the impact that is having to be corrected for. There is, then, no net gain to our well-being as a consequence of this expenditure.
Secondly, the power structures within neoliberalism are also immensely destructive of our mental health. This is, in fact, glaringly apparent within our economy. It is said that economics is a study of scarcity, which supposedly affects everyone in society, but that is completely untrue. Neoliberalism does, in fact, guarantee that one part of the population knows nothing of any consequence about scarcity at all because they have the means to live at a level in excess of their needs. We know that because this 10% also the population save considerable sums, which is the clearest possible indication of that excess existing. The pretence, in that case, that scarcity is a condition from which we all suffer is yet another of the propaganda claims of modern economics that is wholly unjustified. The reality is that the beneficiaries of neoliberal economics have little or no understanding of the realities of scarcity, unless a difficulty with affording a second Range Rover can be defined as such. Instead, what this system of economics does is allocate a surfeit of well-being to a few, and impose deliberately created scarcity upon many when there are, in fact, sufficient resources to meet the needs of everyone, and some of their wants as well, if only resources were allocated appropriately. The resulting stresses give rise to an enormous mental health burden on society. This is, again, reflected in the cost of the NHS, but it is not reflected in real living standards.
Third, as is apparent from the third quotation from The Guardian noted above, as a consequence of the massive destruction in the value of life created by neoliberalism, and the management of its consequences, other sources of well-being are, in fact, being destroyed, because the government has, or thinks it has, insufficient resources to deliver them.
This is the real political crisis of our era that, as yet, our politicians are refusing to address. Their assumption is that all the illnesses in society that the NHS needs to manage arise because of factors exogenous to the economy, and which are, therefore, implicit within the human genome. This is false. What is, in fact, happening is that more and more resources are required by the government to counter the impact of the effects of the economy on our physical and mental well-being, none of which would arise naturally, and all of which are created by the wholly destructive economy within which we are living.
If this hypothesis of mine is correct, and I am sure that it is, then what we are seeing is the destruction of the state by the neoliberal economy in a way that not even its primary architects imagined to be possible, but which is nonetheless happening. Neoliberalism is consuming our well-being, our resources, and our capacity to manage the consequences in a way that is actually destroying the vast majority of what is of value within our society. That is how bad things have become.
The question is, which politician, or politicians, or political party, is willing to stand up and say this?
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Fourth: what proportion of the new spending will go to outsourced (i.e. privatised) services & has anybody taken a look at if these could be done more efficiently/effectively within the NHS?
Oh and with respect to Landrovers aka w.nks (cos.. w…’kers drive em): death machines for pedestrians as this report shows. Thus do w ‘kers & their toys increase load on the NHS.:
https://www.transportenvironment.org/articles/ever-higher-the-rise-of-bonnet-height-and-the-case-to-cap-it
which coupled to the point about food shows how laisse-faire approaches make a bad situation much much worse – cue handwringing for LINO.
I loathe them…
I loathe all SUV’s and I notice in the more affluent areas there is no cost of living crisis and the SUV’s are now not just land rover in name but Lamborghini, Aston Martin, Bentley SUV’s to drive little johnny to school that is 2 minutes away and do the daily Waitrose shop. Its crass in extreme.
In Germany there is even a mountain named after them (apologies – I felt we needed a bit of levity):
https://zugspitze.de/en/Our-mountain-worlds/The-areas/Mount-Wank
I have been to a place in Germany with that name – and was a little amused, as were my sons, aged about 16 at the time.
“what proportion of the new spending will go to outsourced (i.e. privatised) services”
It is unofficial policy. Starmer and Reeves both go to Davos, run by the unaccountable and unelectable World Economics Forum (WEF), who have stated that their global aims is for ALL government services to be private-public partnerships.
This why UK energy companies are privatised, and we have the highest bills in Europe (if not the world).
Starmer has already stated that he would choose Davos over Westminister, and that he favours private public partnerships. The government is in it for the Billionaires, not the public.
The most depressing part of all this is the paucity of unknown knowns in the debate amongst the media – they all without exception talk about tax rises or nothing when we here know what else could be done. This is a huge disservice to the public. Paul Johnson, Ebrahimi on C4, Davis on PM (he’s obviously had too many poppers and needs to retire, he’s lost it) and many more simply seem to have no clue. It is simply a conspiracy of ignorance. Shame on you all.
Agreed
Not many people are aware that many years ago, Davis of PM was one of that select band of backroom boys who designed the poll tax – that highly combustible device that, amongst other things, ultimately blew up the premiership of one Mrs Thatcher.
Frightening stuff……..
The most incisive summary of what is happening in western society, I have read.
Superb (but frightening) article Richard.
Thanks
I agree, one of your best ever and most succinct summaries of our predicament. (And as for W*** mountain, that is tame ! One hours drive from us in Galicia is the town of Cuntis.)
A major part of health service spending goes to private companies ( such as the US company that owns the GP practice I am registered with, as well as the dentist) , and as such a good proportion of NHS spending ends up as private sector profits. The private sector has been proven to cost more to do less and so by taking more NHS work in house this will reduce the cost of the NHS.
I also believe that the use of this kind of headline is designed to get the reaction that the NHS is costing too much, and soften people up to the idea of cutting health spending.
Thank you, Martin.
One can add vets and intermediary firms for adoption and fostering.
One of my daughters works in a charity shop for The Cats Protection League a day a week. If you want a cat, please consider going to them to re-home a cat.
Not just diet of course but including transport, housing both quantity and quality, poverty – I could go on………….
All have been tackled in the past but its certainly not happening now
I used to think that ideas like “neoliberalism” were conspiracy theories, or ideas without any backing. Not any more.
Recommended reading:
The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism (& How It Came to Control Your Life (2024) by George Monbiot. https://amzn.eu/d/8C2BupU
The Global Coup d’État: The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Great Reset (2025) by Jacob Nordangård. https://amzn.eu/d/0AX122y
I’ve forgotten where I saw this but it certainly resonated “Neoliberalism is the political ideology used to prevent democracy getting in the way of capitalism”.
As for our politicians inability to cope with a world increasingly descending into chaos I noted Aurelien’s Politics Without Purpose essay to provide some useful insight.
https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/politics-without-purpose?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=841976&post_id=165562203&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ssa6f&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
I like that suggestion.
Thanks for this Richard, in complete agreement regarding the harms of neoliberalism on society. To complement your hypothesis and criticism (well deserved) of UPF on harms to our health, I found this scientific review on the potential causes of an increased incidence in young people colorectal cancers, which you and your readers may be interested in:
Zhou Z, Kleis L, Depetris-Chauvin A, Jaskulski S, Damerell V, Michels KB, Gigic B, Nöthlings U, Panagiotou G. Beneficial microbiome and diet interplay in early-onset colorectal cancer. EMBO Mol Med. 2025 Jan;17(1):9-30. doi: 10.1038/s44321-024-00177-0. Epub 2024 Dec 9. PMID: 39653811; PMCID: PMC11730345.
Clearly, the westernised diet/lifestyle (high sugar, processed meat and high fat diet – I.e., UFP, lack of exercise and fibre) is a major cause.
Surely prevention is better than cure?
It has to be, hasn’t it?
On this, I have 3 concerns over UPF. The first is the health one, to which I can add nothing here, as it’s well-covered. The second is the dumbing-down. Being able to pick up food that basically has been prepped and is ready to put in the oven (conventional, microwave, air-fryer) is depriving us of basic skills in making meals from fresh ingredients – selecting, prepping, and cooking meat, veg, herbs, spices, fruits etc. This also plays into mental health – there is satisfaction in starting from scratch and producing food to share. The second is – and apologies for shouting – ALL THAT RUDDY PLASTIC PACKAGING!!!! Just look down the shelves of the chiller cabinets of whichever is your local supermarket to see all the trays, films etc.. This even applies to fresh ingredients – meat and fish, as well as many veg, are portioned and packaged. Grrrr….
The American food writer Michael Pollan, who I have heard several times on Radio 4’s ‘The Food Programme’, has these rules for eating: 1) eat food; 2) not too much!; 3) mainly plants. I understand 1) to mean one should prepare meals from fresh ingredients. He also suggests you should eat nothing that your grandmother would not recognise as food. I have also seen it suggested that you should not buy any prepared food that has ingredients you don’t have in your kitchen cupboards and can’t find in the supermarket.
How did it come to this? (Checks notes and contributions to this blog.) Oh yes, the overweening power and influence of Big Pharma and ‘Big Farmer’ etc., funding our politics, lobbying heavily etc. etc. We might have created a very sick generation!
Much to agree with
Pre grated cheese, pre shredded salad, pre chopped carrots… Aaaargggh!
Buy a knife & cheese grater why don’t you?
Grumble, grumble, HUMBUG!
Apologies for posting twice & a second apology wrt to yet again quoting “Late Soviet Britain”. Page 328.
2nd para noted that Pinochet’s Chile was the 1st neolib state (got economic growth anf kept the property owning classes happy). Also noted: democracies may not survive the damage caused by hegemonic neoliberalism.
3rd para: quotes Michnik: “no such thing as non-totalitarian ruling communism. It either becomes totalitarian or it ceases to be communism” She notes that in the UK, the longer the mainstream parties persist with neoliberalism, the more they confront the problem of political justification in the face of practical failure.
She also noted the difference between narrative & action: T.May and Johnson: big society, levelling up etc – whilst implementing policies of more exreme economic liberalisation. Truss being an end point in all this (Sunak as a more sane continuity candidate?).
Conclusion: neoliberalism will terminate democracy.
If it has not already
Neoliberalism will terminate democracy in the background, while continuing to present us with the Single Transferable Party’s imitation of democracy in the foreground. Its exponents think we won’t notice.
Correct
I saw that article and its source (Torsten Bell’s old employers) and wondered what they were up to.
If I found that, on checking my (non-existent) spreadsheet for “money spent on my house”, that the proportion spent on “scaffolding” and internal props and buckets for collecting leaks, was now the largest item in the budget, I could take two approaches. I’m going to use the household analogy so beloved of economists, but of course it doesn’t really apply to the government. Bear with me.
1 – conduct a study to find the cheapest way to hire scaffolding, or perhaps buy my own, or research the most cost-efficient forms of scaffolding (could I perhaps just prop up the worst parts of the house?), and take “difficult decisions” around painting, and preventive maintenance, which clearly would have to be reduced, and the new roof would clearly no longer be possible, nor would the repointing of the chimney, because I wouldn’t be able to afford them now that I was spending so much on scaffolding. As the house was no longer habitable (roof leaks, crumbling masonry) I would need to move out which means extra costs on alternative accommodation, but that’s unfortunately the result of 14 years of neglect and what else can I do? There’s a black hole in my spreadsheet! (Possibly mould).
If I did all this despite also owning a super yacht and 3 golf courses, I think most people would question my sanity. (that’s my hint about money not actually being the problem…)
2. Or I could accept that I had neglected maintenance, and would now need to do both preventive maintenance, AND repairs, and produce a plan for doing things differently in future. Selling the golf course would easily cover the bill. (Again – the household analogy, actually gov wouldnt need to sell anything, it has or can create the required finance).
Now, here’s the question everyone except the chancellor, knows the answer to. What should I do?
What do YOU think Mr. McSweeney?
He says I should join him for a round of golf then go off for a round-the-world cruise on the yacht.
Thank you, Richard.
Richard and readers may be interested in: https://www.ftadviser.com/regulation/2025/6/13/cultural-change-needed-to-address-regulators-deeply-entrenched-risk-aversion/.
I have caught up with some compliance officers, often former regulators, this week. They report an increasing number of financial services executives being waved through, not interviewed.
Nikhil Rathi, ex Treasury and now head of the FCA, says the regulator’s new mission is to facilitate growth and help, not protect,consumers. It’s a change of mission and emphasis. Rathi is well aware of what recently happened at the helm of competition authority.
Many firms are scaling back compliance teams.
The compliance community reckons that we are back to the turn of the century and can expect scandals and a crash in a few years.
This is a staggeringly scary.
How long until a crash? One is inevitable.
I think individuals who have had dealings with the F(whatever other initials they have nowadays), would say that this just formalises what has been happening for some time – don’t protect the public, protect the finance industry.
It replicates what is happening in ALL regulators, they are NOT there to protect us, they protect the industry and advise on “compliance with neither cost nor accountability”.
(Rail, private information, medicine accountancy, building industry, housebuilders, fire, drug safety, you name it, regulatory capture has occurred).
We are already reaping the whirlwind in many areas.
@Col Smithers – my dad did a bit of RAF accident investigation at some point in his career. I remember him explaining it to me as a child
I had heard of ultra processed food (UPFs) but thought the issue unimportant until the BBC / Royal Institution Christmas Lectures for Children which were presented by Dr Chris van Tulleken. I was astonished. He has said: UPFs are now the leading cause (22%) of early death in the UK. [No longer tobacco.] At the age of 5, 10% of our children are living with obesity and are 9 cm shorter than the same groups in northern and eastern Europe. By the age of 11, 23% of UK children are living with obesity.
While UPF is cheap(ish) in shops, the results are frighteningly costly. Obesity alone costs the NHS a massive £6 billion annually and this is set to rise to over £9.7 billion each year by 2050. Industrially processed foods are designed to be addictive in order to maximise financial growth. For instance, sliced supermarket bread is energy dense and very soft. It can be chewed much faster than a traditional loaf so that people tend to eat more without noticing. Almost every food wrapped in plastic is UPF. Ultra processed food is engineered by thermal, mechanical and chemical processing. Unhealthy additives also drive consumption. Most fast foods and commercially prepared meals in the UK are now ultra processed – and addictive.
It is the marketing of UPF along with the marketing of gambling, tobacco and alcohol products that results in the harm. The British Nutrition Foundation, which advises the Government, is sponsored by Coca-Cola, Greggs, McDonald’s, Kellogg’s, and others. Their ‘experts’ offer opinions on ultra-processed food that, van Tulleken says are ‘not usually very useful’. “There is no justification for not having a warning label on fizzy pop.” As well as dangers listed above, teeth and bones may be damaged. Big, black octagons are used in Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Mexico ….
Dr van Tulleken asserts that: food production needs to be regulated and that the regulators must be totally independent of producer influence. It is really good economics when institutional food – in hospitals, prisons, schools, etc – is real food.
He concludes that poverty is the deep cause of a huge amount of the pandemic of diet-related disease. We could deal with about half of the problem if we dealt with poverty. Arguably, eventually there would be financial savings – as well as a happier and more productive population.
He is very largely right.
I could nit pick, and the scene r is not fixed (none ever is) but those lectures were great.
The trouble was, the people who needed to se them did not. Most people will not watch lectures.
In last week’s New Scientist there is an article by Graham Lawton about how scientists in the USA are fighting back against corporations.
The University of California San Francisco has recently created a Centre to End Corporate Harm headed by Tracey Woodruff.
The aim is to ” reveal the methods that companies employ to distort science in the interests of profit and that corporations should be regarded as a disease vector”.
For the food industry the thrust is you eat our products, but you the consumer must be responsible for your own health even if our products will cause you harm.
Essential work.
It’s a bit like a company making their complaints department bigger instead of fixing the products.
Agreed
A per the ‘Sirius Cybernetics Corporation’ maybe?
“SHARE AND ENJOY!”
I’m a Dolman Saxlil Galactic Corporation man (bird?) myself…
Are we approaching the shoe event horizon?
I am lost
What reference have I forgotten?
Richard – The Hithch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy. Apologies.
I thought it was, but admit I have forgotten that bit
On the edge of the town where I live is a large Tesco site that also has a drive through Macdonalds and drive through Pizza Hut. They are now building a drive through Greggs and drive through Starbucks. Doubly whammy, you dont even have to get out of your car and walk a few steps to get your fill of ultra processed junk food. Britain becomes ever more Americanised by the day. No wonder there is an obesity epidemic.
Agreed
What is the point of a drive through? Is there no time to stop and stare?
I don’t have a Range Rover but I do have savings. I am getting old and the staggering cost of residential care demands a pot of savings in addition to the absorption of all sources of income when the time comes. Carers are paid poorly and I believe council owned care homes are few and far between, so I believe that this is yet another instance of wealth flowing up the neoliberal chain.
Decent State provided universal care for the elderly would cost quite a bit, but much of the spend would come back to the Exchequer quite quickly in taxes, and if people stopped saving for care, and started spending at least some what they’ve already accumulated, the tax take would go up again. I’m not clever enough to do the sums, but I can’t help thinking that it would probably pay for itself, more or less.
Basically correct: savings are dead money until spent.
Thank you, Richard.
May I add this manifestation: https://prospect.org/economy/2025-06-12-dreamliner-gave-boeing-manager-nightmares-just-crashed-air-india/.
I was just chatting to dad, a retired Royal Air Force doctor, forensic science expert and aircraft accident investigator*. He thinks there will be a cover up and is increasingly concerned about the deskilling and politicisation of such services in the UK, a trend going back a dozen years.
*Including racing driver Graham Hill and Lockerbie.
Neoliberalism deals in certainties. That means it cannot embrace the idea that errors might happen.
Agreed.
The NHS is very good at keeping people alive, we are living longer. Quantity of life is one thing, quality of life alongside it is another.
On so many fronts, but especially the quality of life, the failures of neoliberalism are mounting up.
We need people in power who care about dealing with need and the quality of life.
Improve the quality of life for people, especially those at the bottom, and society as a whole benefits on so many levels.
Neoliberalism is the destroyer of quality of life for the majority.
I completely agree with your last comment.
I have bad news for you, the latest ONS data shows we are no longer living longer the long term trend of reduced mortality ended about 2011.
https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/documents/recentmortalitytrendsinengland.html
So the current projections are that children born in 20 years time will die younger than their parents. Currently we will probably die at the same age.
That trend started during the Victorian era, and accelerated post war with the health care revolution (antibiotics, modern surgery/ anaesthetics, new drugs…)
We look to loose antibiotics in my lifetime (I’m 70), new pharmaceutical advances are rare, and the rise of protocol driven care means none get properly tailored care anymore.
Degrowth will happen as the population shrinks and dies. The world will be grateful, but our children will curse us.
They will….
This is a powerful and uncomfortable truth that needs to be said: spiralling NHS and social care spending is not a sign of a thriving, compassionate state — it’s a warning light flashing red.
For over a decade, successive governments have failed to confront the root causes of ill health in this country. Instead of reforming a broken food system, tackling the housing crisis, regulating exploitative labour markets, or addressing the mental health crisis driven by economic insecurity, they chose austerity. And the price of that choice is now being paid in the form of soaring demand for health and social care — not because we are ageing gracefully, but because we are breaking down.
The NHS isn’t absorbing more public spending because it’s been reimagined or revitalised — it’s because other parts of the state that support health and wellbeing have been gutted. Housing, justice, education, community infrastructure — all sacrificed on the altar of fiscal “prudence,” with devastating consequences. We now treat the symptoms of poverty and inequality rather than prevent them.
And let’s be clear: this isn’t just about the Tories. Labour, too, has consistently shied away from challenging the neoliberal orthodoxy that treats public investment as a cost rather than a foundation for national prosperity. Even now, as the scale of damage becomes undeniable, there is a deafening silence about the need for structural economic reform.
We’re not becoming a “National Health State” — we’re becoming a National Triage State, managing decline instead of investing in resilience. Until a political party has the courage to break with the failed economic model of the last 40 years, we’ll keep throwing money at the consequences and pretending it’s progress.
Thanks
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/22/uk-ban-on-junk-food-adverts-targeting-children-is-delayed-until-next-year?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
There have been a couple of pieces about the food industry lobbying to government over UPF . They seem to be quite successful at strangling the government’s plans to ensure healthier food is available to all.
I have noticed recently that most supermarkets have increased the number of aisles dedicated to processed and pre-prepared foods, reducing the amount of space for raw and fresh food. It’s sickening.
Agreed
Cooking is a dying art form
Thanks Richard…..a really illuminating, thought provoking piece. It highlights that the NHS is well downstream in the economy. It struggles manfully, and with sincerety and integrity by all those involved, with scarcely adequate appreciation, to ameliorate all the considerable failings induced by neoliberalism further upstream in the economy, along with attending to the natural failings of the machine we humans call the body.
It would be invaluable, although I doubt the data yet exists, to know just how much of the NHS budget neoliberalism consumes.
That would be a big research question…
Bit it is relatively small – most goes on wages still
Because care ( health and social) relies on human beings to do the work, the economic multiplier of investment in staff wages, is probably the wisest investment any government can do. As the money is spread primarily into deprived areas the funding goes especially to such deprived areas.
Instead governments, have ignored Royal Commissions, and kept staff wages artificially low.
Agreed
Agree
Multiple points to exploit and extract.
Selling the food that makes us sick.
Then selling us the drugs that keep us alive enough to keep them in profit.
There’s no profit in healthy independent people.
The state of Britain
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj427p80vvxo
Tens of thousands in poverty and the HoL get a new front door for close on ten million quid. Wonder how much the Lords will contribute !!
I groaned on hearing this.
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/06/13/neoliberalism-is-consuming-our-well-being/#comment-1025527
@RM “What reference have I missed”
That well-known galactic economics, philosophy, politics and towel handling publishing phenomenon known as The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (and sequels) by Douglas Adams. Later volumes contain vital information on galactic economics, lift engineering, AI and corporate ethics. Also contains valuable information for philosophers wanting to clean up on the galactic chat show circuit.
Richard, good blog and some equally great comments.
We already know from previous reports by the great and the good that the NHS is a downstream way of tackling some issues best tackled elsewhere. Eg Lord Winston’s review.
So what?
Our way of governing ourselves isn’t capable of dealing with/tackling such complex issues though we are capable of doing the research and writing the reports.
The british people are not going to see on the ballot paper a party up for tackling such issues as UPFs, poverty, health in a joined up way. Even though some will provide word salads on such issues.
The level of sustained abuse such a party would get from the media, existing political parties on funding, taxes, etc would be so great that people would be persuaded otherwise and vote accordingly.
Only a revolutionary change in thinking by an elite that has run out of self serving ideas completely will lead to change.
What events could cause this revolutionary change? Every time I think about it the usual suspects, deep recession, war, climate change catastrophe, pandemic come to mind.
I also think most people are just not in our space. They are unconvinced by the arguments for making large scale disruptive changes which others will quickly point out will unaffordable, etc.
Govt ends up fudging the issue. I think our govts regardless of political colour are into fudging the big complex issues while claiming to have made some incremental improvements.
Depressing really but perhaps inevitable when political change processes are not dominated by the needs of the people.
How to make governance changes that would embed the needs of the British People first and foremost would be a good topic to dwell on.
[…] could discuss the deliberately manufactured health crisis that is threatening to overwhelm the […]
On the subject of diet, but not UPF, for once, last night’s episode of Radio4’s The Food Programme was very interesting. It explored what is known about the importance of seafood and fish in the diet. The link is here (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002dc8w), and it is worth listening to.
What is horrifying is that this knowledge has been around since the early 1970s, and neither back then nor in the intervening years, has it acquired any importance to governments, nor has it been fully accepted by the medical profession, despite many studies and good evidence.
That is true of so much food knowledge Mike.