{"id":96473,"date":"2026-10-22T07:45:25","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T06:45:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=96473"},"modified":"2026-10-22T07:45:25","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T06:45:25","slug":"the-conditions-for-change-have-arrived","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/10\/22\/the-conditions-for-change-have-arrived\/","title":{"rendered":"The conditions for change have arrived"},"content":{"rendered":"

I looked at this morning\u2019s news, as usual, and much of it felt like the typical gloom, or the regular litany of neoliberal government errors (think the Jackdaw gas field).<\/p>\n

Two articles did stand out, however, and both support my video this morning, in which I suggest that neoliberalism has run out of road<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The first is an\u00a0FT article tha<\/a>t discusses a focus group event <\/span>they held in Sheffield. Those taking part were selected to be Labour swing voters, and as the article notes:<\/p>\n

Asked to sum up Britain in a single word, not one person had anything positive to say. Instead, the country was variously described as chaotic, crumbling, overcrowded, terrible, a mess, struggling, leaderless and broken.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There was no good news for anyone else in the report, either.<\/p>\n

Fewer of those taking part recognised Kemi Badenoch than Rupert Lowe, the leader of the far-right Restore Britain party, so little is her impact.<\/p>\n

Ed Davey was seen as someone who does silly stunts.<\/p>\n

Nigel Farage was thought to be past his peak, although the opposite was thought of the Greens, who did, however, still lag Labour in support.<\/p>\n

The key message, however, seems quite simple. As the FT noted, when asked whether Britain was going in the right direction, or down the wrong track, every member of the group questioned opted for the latter.<\/p>\n

They were not asked if neoliberalism had failed, but the message could not have been clearer. After 45 years in use, people think that our situation is little short of disastrous. It has clearly not delivered.<\/p>\n

The second article came from the New York Times<\/a>. It highlighted a recent poll showing that President Trump has the lowest approval rating of any president before a midterm election since the dawn of modern polling.<\/p>\n

This might sound disastrous for the Republicans, with the midterm elections now rapidly approaching. It suggests they will lose significant numbers of seats in the House, and the Democrats might even take control of the Senate.<\/p>\n

As the New York Times noted, the Democrats have a lot to be happy about in this poll, except for one thing.\u00a0 That is that it also reveals that just 28% of voters said they were satisfied with the Democratic Party, compared with 36% of voters who said they were happy with the Republicans. Even 43% of Democrats said they were dissatisfied with their own party. Trump may be terrible, and the Republicans may be bad, but the Democrats are no better.<\/p>\n

The reality is that people in the USA are being presented with a terrible choice. Strip personalities out, and there is a single transferable party in operation there, and no one likes it.<\/p>\n

In summary, people not only have had enough of neoliberalism; they know they have had enough of it. And even if they do not know what they wish to replace it with - and that is not their job, because politicians and thinkers have to undertake that task - they know they are looking for an alternative. Most people can be appeased no longer. The system is broken, and if they could get out of it, they would, as was indicated by the enthusiasm amongst those who were questioned in Sheffield for leaving the UK.<\/p>\n

The conditions for change have arrived. What we now need is the change in question.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I looked at this morning\u2019s news, as usual, and much of it felt like the typical gloom, or the regular litany of neoliberal government errors
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,204,35,16,147,118,174,224,106,223,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption","category-economic-justice","category-economics","category-ethics","category-inequality","category-labour","category-modern-monetary-theory","category-neoliberalism","category-politics","category-politics-of-care","category-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96473"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96474,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96473\/revisions\/96474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}