Sir Michael Marmot, whose work I admire, has an article in The Guardian this morning, which he begins by saying:
What causes a famine? It isn't a lack of food. Nor does lack of food cause the kind of food insecurity, just short of a famine, that Britain is facing. In analyses of specific famines, the economist and philosopher Amartya Sen showed that social organisation and a lack of access to food for socially deprived people were the real causes of starvation.
As he then notes, the UK is not facing famine at present, but it does have one million children and well more than two million adults living in destitution, which means that they cannot afford at least two of these six basic necessities:
- Housing
- Light
- Heat
- Food
- Appropriate clothing
- Toiletries
Food is high on the list of things that people are going without.
As bad, many are getting their calories from food that has implicit within it long-term health issues because of the high levels of salt or sugar that they contain. Another Guardian article today highlights the massive potential health problems that might result from the growing dependence on so-called 'super noodles' around the world.
There is, as Sir Michael Marmot argues, no reason for this. We could feed the people of the UK and the world appropriately. We could take people out of destitution. We would end the threat to people's health from poor diets. We could save the cost of doing so in healthcare terms in all likelihood.
But we do not do that.
That is because big pharma does not want us to do so.
And it is because big sugar does not want us to do so.
And it is also because neoliberal politicians do not want to change this situation, which they helped create. George Osborne bears the greatest responsibility for destitution in the UK today because of his austerity programmes. The data is quoted in Michael Marmot's article.
The question is, are we happy to live in a world that deliberately creates destitution for some?
And what is Labour planning to do about this? So far, I have heard nothing at all from them that gives me the slightest bit of hope.
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For a long time I thought that Big Pharma, Big Food, and neo-liberalism were all just conspiracy theories. So I made the decision to read up about them all, and it changed my viewpoint.
The same advice was given to Roger Waters from his mother. I don’t necessarily subscribe to Joe Rogan, but Waters sums it up quite nicely in 2 minutes on his show:
Read, read, and read some more. And then read opposing and alternative views, so you can understand the other side. Then the rest is simple: you do the right thing.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntovT27d3Ew
Destitution?
The UK has some form. How about democide?
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/06/08/malt-j08.html
There is nothing the UK’s elite care for but their own wealth and privilege.
Has anyone seen this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
I saw it ages ago. The fact that a book written about the dangers of sugar seems to have disappeared from our book shelves is indicative of the fact that there are forces at work that are quite happy to ram sugar down our throats as well as others who are quite happy to see people starve – ‘Atlas Shrugged’ as Ayn Rand (their cult leader) said.
And all this – just like the closure of railway lines and tram routes in favour of the car and the road lobby – portrayed as a natural progression, ‘choice’ and marketed as such, even attempting to portray going without food and and other essentials as a ‘lifestyle choice’.
And these same people fund the politics we expect to adjudicate on these matters. Or Health Secretaries whose spouses head sugar corporations. Ha!
Yes some of us are unhappy about this but those who love it know how to work the system in their favour and always have. It’s all about money you see. Ours is now a period where this has been allowed to become rampant.
Fact.
It is tempting to see all this as ‘North American capitalism’ but the East India Company did not take prisoners either.
As one of my favourite novelists Milan Kundera said:
‘Modern stupidity means not ignorance but the nonthought of received ideas’.
Hannah Arendt – the human race’s sentinel over Fascism – would agree.
The onus therefore lies on us for much of what will hurt us is done in plain site.
It’s simply a question of what one should be interested in : Cute kitten videos, emojis, porn, celebrity ‘culture’ etc., or asking more questions.
I assure you that your answer may be fatal.
Truth.
Kundera again:
‘The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything.’
Thanks, as usual
the closure of railway lines and tram routes in favour of the car and the road lobby – portrayed as a natural progression, ‘choice’ and marketed as such, even attempting to portray going without food and and other essentials as a ‘lifestyle choice’.
I agree.
But not in Scotland.
John
What do you mean by ‘not in Scotland’? I appreciate that the geography and population distribution is possibly not like that in more crowded England and that the railway development was sometimes more speculative than productive in the UK.
My opinion about our railways is driven really by three factors:
1. The illusion that car travel was a ‘natural progression’ – it was a natural choice (I don’t think so in all cases).
2. The environmental cost of road travel over time has been revealed.
3. Railway contraction – short sighted as it has been – demonstrates the havoc a state can do to any public service when captured by vested interests.
PSR
The problem is that “we” (as a society) ARE big Pharma, Big Sugar neo-liberals.
“We” DO have the power to change things – at the ballot box (even under the current system). So, it is incumbent on those that DO see the problem to campaign/educate/cajole those who (for whatever reason) do not see the problem.
Richard is at the forefront of this and I applaud him for that – PLEASE, PLAESE keep it up.
For the rest of us? To quote a man with great “quotability” but a poor track record on famine, we need to KBO (“keep buggering on”).
I’ll keep it up…
Do!
(And thank you)
“We” DO have the power to change things – at the ballot box (even under the current system).”
In theory yes, but as Richard noted:
“And what is Labour planning to do about this? So far, I have heard nothing at all from them that gives me the slightest bit of hope.”
So one can quietly forget about that lot, changing anything.
The LibDems – contentless, the Greens? hmmm.
The situation of no real choice recalls the period 1900 – 1914 – “liberals”, “conservatives” zero policy difference. Which suits the money men, big food & big pharma.
In theory, we can vote for (and elect) any government we want. In practice, at the next election, we are left with a sorry choice.
Your comparison with 1900/14 is scary… it took WW1 to deliver universal(ish) suffrage and a Labour Party that eventually (after another world War) delivered a serious progressive programme. Please, please can we get an equivalent programme for the 21st Century without such suffering!
So, in practice, we need to persuade Labour to do three things.
1) Embrace electoral reform.
2) Recognise that providing decent public services is the essential starting point for policy (not “we get what we can afford” nonsense).
3) Realise that without care of our environment everything is lost.
( I will claim that all policies that we want can be shoe-horned into one of those three.)
Mr Parry,
This is a good discussion. The problem is that democracy as we have constructed the system is a self-cancelling operation. It is almost wholly reactive and Parties live to retain power and cancel the effects of the opposition in first instance. Achievements in a major scale is beyond the system to deliver. The proof is in the failure to deliver. My argument here borrows from you and Mr Parr above. Major change in our democratic system requires an extrinsic, unlooked for typically adverse major event to achieve anything of real substance. Everything else is minor tinkering with a badly flawed system that doesn’t work for the electors.
“it took WW1 to deliver universal(ish) suffrage and a Labour Party that eventually (after another world War) delivered a serious progressive programme”.
It took the Great Depression to stop the worst of the financial disasters of an unstable financial system. Even then, and notably in Britain it took two world wars to make any attempt to fulfil the promise to the survivors of the fields of Flanders who managed to make it back from WWI, to offer a semblance of a land ‘fit for heroes’.
In 2007 the financial crash was met with just enough regulation to soothe the bankers injured feelings, and paint a smear of regulation and order over an endemically unstable financial system; without changing very much; or making any substantive changes to a weak system, still far too open to excessive risk.
The politicians we return are apparatchiks. machine minders; ludicrously, voting for blinkered apologists of a defunct conventional wisdom that is all political parties will offer, because the parties are wholly beholden to narrow vested interests that depend on the continuance of the continuance of the system that is designed, effectively solely to bleed the electors dry.
The problem is the Party System.
Labour has clearly decided that Britain is immovably Neoliberal Conservative, and there is nothing to be done. They must know that Scotland isn’t; but delude themselves that they can make Scotland vote Neoliberal Conservative, by wearing a Keir Hardie cap, in the form of Keir Starmer re-branding.
Meanwhile, in the strange fantasy world of 21st century Britain the BBC is already celebrating the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings. Yes, we are going to bathe again in the triumph of rescuing Europe. The ironies of this are so bizarre, they are mesmerising.
Brexit Britain remains the dependable rescuer of Europe. In spite of being run by a Brexit, Neoliberal Conservative Party and Government, dominated by isolationist neo-Chamberlainites. In spite of a major land war in Europe happening now, for the first time in almost 80 years. In spite of Russia invading Ukraine in 2022. In spite of the Brexit vote in 2016 flagging the first great assault on the unity of Europe, and the consequent political impact that would inevitably have on the sense of security of the EU project, and particularly for the more fragile, recent Eastern members of the EU, only rescued from the Warsaw Pact a decade or so before. In spite of the fact that Putin and Russia would inevitably explore the new weak points, and readily exploit the geopolitical potential that Brexit presented to him, not least in his dead-end war in the Donbas; stalemated, since 2014. Britain gave Putin hope; having already given the oligarchs a safe haven for their money.
And we even now hear Johnson applauded for backing Ukraine early; but long after the stable door was opened, and the horse had bolted. Perfidious Albion, confessed from the mouth of babes:
Mark Francois MP (then Conservative and ERG) gave a speech to the Bruges Group in 2019, in which he promised that faced with difficulties in negotiation to leave by the EU, Britain would become a ‘Trojan Horse’ in Europe (NB. It had been Mr Francois, almost since 1973; we were never sincere members of the EU). Francois continued: “If you now try to hold on to us against our will, you will be facing Perfidious Albion on speed. It would therefore be much better for all our sakes if we were to pursue our separate destinies, in a spirit of mutual respect”.
The Russians must have observed all this, goggle-eyed in wonderment at the opportunities dancing before their eyes.
And yet…………………..
…….. I do not know any more what to make of it all except that the people of this country DO know right from wrong.
They know that public services have got progressively worse, that ever more rampant profit making is self evident and that they have to keep up and do things that they are not happy about because wealth has become the only signifier of success and wisdom. They know this just as much as they know about what is happening in Gaza.
All this is exploited by wealth in the meanest most manipulative way – again read Clara Mattei.
The reason why the Tories have dominated our politics is because they have simply not played by any rules in their history but their own and have worked hard at making their own reality.
Neo-liberalism from the U.S. shares the same trait; but Neo- liberalism in the UK can be said to have existed since the creation of Parliament itself.
The Tories dominate not because they are right; they dominate because they know how to dominate.
I hope to God Starmer and his stymied party at least realise that and to which crowd they are really playing.
Yes, I think that people do know that public services have got progressively worse.
But we have all been gaslit by one organisation or another to such an extent, that people can not identify a cause.
Gaslit, yes.
But I think most people, now, can identify the cause (though it’s taken a while).
Thank you, John.
With regard to Russia and its designs, I used to work there, including far from Moscow, and in Kazakhstan for HSBC and Deutsche. I took care to learn the history and interests of these countries, not just to assess the credit, political and legal risks associated with doing business.
What happened to Ukraine was not a surprise and had been warned since the early 1990s, well before Putin was heard of. I suggest readers acquaint themselves with the works of US academic Stephen Cohen and retired British ambassador Tony Brenton and read Putin’s speech to the Munich security conference in 2007.
Would the US tolerate Russian or Chinese bases in Canada, Mexico or Cuba? Did England tolerate French activity in Ireland or Scotland? In Ireland’s case, would the UK have tolerated German activity there? Why would Russia in Ukraine?
I work in the City of London. The City’s reliance on Russian or even Chinese money is wildly overstated. The oligarchs who are here tend to be on the run from home and are dual, if not triple, citizens. With regard to Brexit, I suggest that the Tufton Street gang and their neo con allies led by MI6’s Sir Richard Dearlove, Colonel Richard Kemp, Field Marshal Lord Guthrie et al and neo liberal allies led by financiers Crispin Odey, Howard Shore et al are as much, if not more, responsible.
Most people who comment about Russia, China and further afield know nothing about these places.
Very good posts & points by all.
One of the problems with the current UK situation, = lousy services, e.g.water & sewage, crumbling infra, crumbling health service – the list is long, is that, people tend to get used to it – they grumble and they (often) forget that, once upon a time things were different, things more or less worked. It is as if “the loyal opposition” recognises this and is happy (for whatever reason) to offer no remedies of any sort to the current Uk siutation.
Taking a Euro view, we seem to be entering a multi-crisis world, WW3 in the east, the middle east exploding and the climate disaster as a “threat multiplier” (the view of the US military btw, a POV they have held since 2010). Bolt into this the struggle of Western economies to maintain the infra that they have (crumbling German rail networks, motorways that require very expensive repair after circa 40 years etc etc) an attachment by ruling elites to neo-liberalisim (which is in no small way responsible for the dire state of the German/Euro defense industry & Germany army) and it would seem that at least in Western Europe there will be a gradual reduction in standards of living/infra and a semi-permanent war in the East a la 1984.
Ahistorical claptrap. British colonialism in Ireland long predated any influence of Britain’s enemies. But, hey, how dare the Irish ever have notions of self-determination?
Imperialism is wrong. Period. And the EU, happily for Ireland, constrains the vilest instincts of would-be bullies, some of whom would gladly invade and repeat past atrocities.
I agree with your take on Russia. The US (and the rest of the West) – and especially western media – seem to be incapable of seeing a security conflict from anything but their own point of view.
For anyone wanting a clear-eyed analysis of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, and also China-US tensions and the horrific situation in Gaza, I strongly recommend following the commentary of Prof. John Mearsheimer (currently free on Substack https://mearsheimer.substack.com) and his and Stephen Walt’s book: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374531508/the-israel-lobby-and-us-foreign-policy
This 27 December piece in Politico suggests the US is now, finally, gradually, accepting that defeat of Russia was at best an unrealistic hope: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/12/27/biden-endgame-ukraine-00133211
The view from Tallinn, Riga, Warsaw, Kiev or any of those states that have been regularly invaded and brutalised by Russia over the centuries I’d suggest would be rather different. Russia, or rather Muscovy (Moscow and St Petersburg) has progressively invaded and colonised its neighbours to the West, East and South whilst Western nations were colonising further afield. The populations of say Siberia are no more nationals of Muscovy than were the populations of say India or Kenya.
The difference is that Muscovy has clung on to much of its empire and colonies, despite losing many of them in 1989. Putin who is just the latest tsar has been quite explicit in his ambitions to restore the full empire. Using the same brutal methods as before as we have seen in Georgia, Chechny, Aleppo and now Ukraine. The Muscovites cheer him on whilst it is those from the colonies that are used as cannon fodder in the Russian army. 300,000 dead and counting. Stalin was no different.
And yet it is NATO and the West’s fault that countries want to join NATO? To protect themselves from yet again being invaded, their citizens slaughtered or deported? There certainly is a lot of ignorance of Russian history. As there is about those countries of Eastern and Southern Europe that have suffered over the centuries. I’m not sure the Holodomor gets a mention in Russian history books.
I’d suggest following Timothy Snyder’s lectures and podcasts on the history of Ukraine and Russia. Or Anne Applebaum. And spend more time in those countries who are blatantly, openly threatened by Putin. Funny that so many who are deeply critical of Western colonialism and imperialism (and rightly so), though it mostly ended 70 odd years ago, allow Russia’s imperialism to pass uncriticised.
Whilst I do agree with everything you say I SO hope that you’re wrong on
they can make Scotland vote Neoliberal Conservative,
If that’s true, we have no hope.
Mr Lawson,
If you are replying to me (the replies become tangled and hard to follow …) I did not make the supposed claim about the Scots voting Neoliberal Conservative in large numbers, but the contrary (I confess I thought i had written that quite unambigously):
“They…. delude themselves that they can make Scotland vote Neoliberal Conservative”. The important word is “delude”. I doubt if the core Neoliberal Conservative vote in Scotland is 30% of the electorate, at best (and is probably lower); and being markedly skewed to the elderly this constituency has a high, and growing attrition rate. After all, the world they built, and now defend is scarcely fit to recommend itself …. to anyone.
There is, however a very high proportion of conservative (lower case) Scots – with the ‘Left’ in Scotland being among the most conservative, and muddled – with a propensity in office to window-dress inertia in the rhetoric of radicalism, and kick the can down the road for a future generation to face, and fix. Thus change is invariably painful, and half-hearted. Thus, we are where we are.
This is a reply to John S Warren
Apologies John my reply to you was poorly / incorrectly worded.
I agreed with everything you said but I’m concerned that Labour may not be quite as deluded as we hope. I didn’t make that very clear at all.
Mr Lawson,
No need to apologise. I can understand your apprehension. Politics in Scotland is driven by long memories and an unforgiving mindset. It has a long, long history, predating modern politics and it is still with us; dormant, patient, predatory, and easily awoken. Labour has never recovered its self-esteem from over a decade of electoral drubbings by the SNP, and nurses an implacable resentment over a political authority and electoral entitlement overthrown. No doubt there are Labour members and supporters (including the few that can still be bothered to do any electoral legwork), that are far more intent on revenge against the SNP than on defeating the Conservatives, or actually governing Scotland. After all, they are Unionists; they do not believe that electorally they may ever have to die in the same Unionist ditch together, until they do.
Take nothing for granted. Trust nothing.
After all, it is Scotland we are talking about. Snatching failure from the jaws of success is a national pastime.
A related question is, are we happy to live in a world that has deliberately lifted millions out of destitution in the last 50 years? So much so that Oxfam feels it no longer needs to be an anti-poverty charity, and the United Nations is getting itself in a twist trying to weave famine into a western world story about what is actually poor nutrition, housing and parenting.
I’d rather live in this world than the previous one Marmot grew up in.
Wow – what a load of nonsense.
Oxfam is still an anti-poerry charity and the UN is still most definitely working on poverty related issues that really do exist.
As for grwing up in the early 50s or now – you utterly misunderstand how to make comparisions. Of course many are now better off, and have better health. That is indisputable. But then there was hope – in other words, the first differential of change was positive. What is more the second differential – the rate of chantge – was growing – so that things were getting better faster. Now, I suggest, both are negative due to corporate inspired fascism – and people like you.
I’m so glad you said that Richard.
I have no idea how I might have replied to Dalston.
I can relax now.
Sounds like a false dilemma. We don’t have to choose between this world and the previous. I choose “a better world”.
In response Ian to your comment about ‘gaslighting’ – I think that voters quite possibly understand that now, but what has looked to have happened is that the the Labour party has been nobbled by the same people who have time and time again supported the Tory party, if not the Tory party itself (think of the Osbourne / Ball axis and ask yourself what is going on there?).
So, even if the penny has dropped about the Tories, Labour has been for all intents purposes been ‘turned’ and even though money has been withdrawn from meeting society’s needs, even Labour do not see it as simply putting that money back.
One has to ask why something has been destroyed like that and seemingly cannot be remade? It seems to me that the political opinion is that we should never have tried – the likes of Daniel Hannan have said as much.
It is therefore the Labour party that may well be the impediment to a better world from next year. And that would be tragedy – even more so in that it would allow the Tory party and its Right wing to take a breather, regroup and sail in again under the banner of some new lie or other.
As Kundera said:
‘The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past’.
The Tories have been at this for years, and now Labour looks as though it is going to help them.
Dalston
I feel moved to respond……………
It is true that globalisation has moved lots of people out of lower living standards but this cannot be seen as a gain when you consider what is happening in the West where there are more negatives on the balance sheet.
Jobs lost.
Wages stagnating.
A gradual reduction in pensions, healthcare standards and public services (living standards).
More reliance on credit and credit cycles and the financial sector (boom and bust).
A failure to manage the global financial system leading to more risk and instability that affects places like China (the ultimate joke played on globalisation).
Environmental degradation – manufacturing is too often off-shored, but not improved.
On the whole, I don’t think your assertion stands up to scrutiny.
The real fault lies in capitalism itself and reluctance to try something new or revert back to what has worked. We live in an age therefore of so-called ‘capitalist realism’ – an attempt to ossify and entrench a system that for some time we have been aware has failings – one of which is how easily it can absorb authoritarianism.
That is why we have starving and malnourished people in the UK Dalston, because they are being ‘nudged’ into complying by denying them money to eat because they do not comply to the capitalist realist specification of a worthwhile person (those who created ‘nudge’ psychology by the way have disowned the way in which the Tories put it to work – it’s actually not a nudge that is being used by the Tories, its a big stick).
Ergo ‘It is easier to imagine the end of the world itself, than imagine the end of capitalism’ (Mark Fisher) – that is where we are really and apparently there is no alternative.
Capitalism in the end is turning into the communism it said it was fighting. It does not believe in pluralism. The handmaiden is Fascist political technology. This is capitalism’s final ignominy. And it seems we must all bear witness to it.
(I was bought Aaron Bastani’s ‘Fully Automated Luxury Communism’ (2020, Verso) for Christmas by my daughter – I’ve just started reading it – seems interesting).
I have known Oxfam well over many years, through better times and worse, from the inside as well as being a long-standing donor, and poverty and social justice are at the very heart of them. Is now and always has been. That means challenging the causes of poverty and injustice through campaigning and advocacy. Extremes of wealth and inequality. Abuses of power by states and individuals. Corporate misbehaviours. For that they get attacked by those who do not like those causes being highlighted. They would rather organisations like Oxfam just ‘minded their own business’ and just did a bit of charity work for poor folk.
Right now they are being attacked for providing aid to Gaza. Many workers for Oxfam have been killed there by the Israelis – these days most Oxfam staff in countries are locals. They have worked there and in the West Bank for decades and know only too well about the abuses that the Palestinians have suffered.
Agreed
And right wingers just lie instead
I’d recommend Nina Teicholz’s book The Big Fat Surprise. An interesting review of big pharma/food industry. A lot of the tactics of big sugar are just the same as the tobacco industry.
Another reading suggestion is Gary Taubes book “The case against sugar”
The final sentence is particularly appropriate in today’s conversation.
“At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,” said the gentleman, taking up a pen, “it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, Sir.”
“Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge.
“Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
“And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”
“They are. Still,” returned the gentleman. “I wish I could say they were not.”
“The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour then?” said Scrooge.
“Both very busy Sir.”
“Oh! I was afraid from what you said at first that something had occurred, to stop them in their useful course,” said Scrooge. “I’m very glad to hear it.”
“Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,” returned the gentleman, “a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time because it is a time of all others when Want is keenly felt and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?”
“Nothing,” Scrooge replied.
“You wish to be anonymous?”
“I wish to be left alone,” said Scrooge. “Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas, and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned—they cost enough—and those who are badly off must go there.”
“Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”
“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides; excuse me. I don’t know that.”
“But you might know it,” observed the gentleman.
“It’s not my business,” Scrooge returned. “It’s enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people’s. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon gentlemen!”
Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labors with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him.
[…] The question is, are we happy to live in a world that deliberately creates destitution for some? Richard Murphy […]
Wrong question.
The right question is, is the ruling class happy to live in a world that deliberately creates destitution for some?
The answer is yes.
Ultimately the system of government is not very important. Almost any political or economic system can be made to work, more or less, if the elites care about the well being of society as whole. If that core issue is not addressed and fixed, everything else is just flapping your gums.