Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Valmy]

Ah ok. It is all because of the financial crisis and COVID.

It is just so weird how it seems like we are so much more productive and have all this incredible technology compared to the old days yet we seem far less capable of solving problems and doing basic things like providing cheap food and housing and health care for our people that we have to keep slashing it...and never seem to reach a point where we can turn around and start trying to do something about it again.

Like we are here talking about cuts but I thought local government and important services are already in a desperate state in the UK.

It is like our global community is collapsing despite all of our advances. How? How is this possible? It isn't like what is happening in the UK is some isolated situation created by the unique incompetence of Tories and the stupidity of Brexit or whatever. This seems to be a common story everywhere to some extent.

[Jacob]

I think what has happened is that the consensus that something ought to be done "for our people" (i.e. cheap food and housing and health care) has eroded significantly.

[Grey Fox]

Ah ok. It is all because of the financial crisis and COVID.

It is just so weird how it seems like we are so much more productive and have all this incredible technology compared to the old days yet we seem far less capable of solving problems and doing basic things like providing cheap food and housing and health care for our people that we have to keep slashing it...and never seem to reach a point where we can turn around and start trying to do something about it again.

Like we are here talking about cuts but I thought local government and important services are already in a desperate state in the UK.

It is like our global community is collapsing despite all of our advances. How? How is this possible? It isn't like what is happening in the UK is some isolated situation created by the unique incompetence of Tories and the stupidity of Brexit or whatever. This seems to be a common story everywhere to some extent.

Immigration has killed and eroded the sense of community & Reaganomics has taken away the will of the government to tax rich people.

[crazy canuck]

It is like our global community is collapsing despite all of our advances. How? How is this possible? It isn't like what is happening in the UK is some isolated situation created by the unique incompetence of Tories and the stupidity of Brexit or whatever. This seems to be a common story everywhere to some extent.

De-regulation, or rather the belief that corporations would self regulate themselves appropriately in their own self interest.  Combine that with abandoning any attempt to appropriately tax, robbing the state of the resources to do its job, and you get what you see.  A world suitable only for the truly rich.

[Sheilbh]

It is just so weird how it seems like we are so much more productive and have all this incredible technology compared to the old days yet we seem far less capable of solving problems and doing basic things like providing cheap food and housing and health care for our people that we have to keep slashing it...and never seem to reach a point where we can turn around and start trying to do something about it again.

I'll come back on some other points soon. But to be clear. We're not so much more productive

The US is so much more productive. The UK's economic model blows apart in financial crisis and we have not yet found an alternative (as with everything I think this is actually a wider European story). The UK isn't alone in this, but it is more severe here than elsewhere (as I say, for now as I think the wider European story is still unrolling):


That's the core of the growth challenge. The US has had relatively robust growth. The UK and much of Europe hasn't. I think that productivity gap is really key to understanding politics right now.

Like we are here talking about cuts but I thought local government and important services are already in a desperate state in the UK.

As with your comment on health - I think this is reading Britain as America. And in part this is because the Labour and the Guardian would absolutely love to be running against Republicans - but they're not.

There is austerity which is differently distributed in different parts of government.

However, when the Tories left office in 2024 after fourteen years in power the fiscal situation they handed to Labour was the highest tax share of GDP since the war and the highest level of public spending as a share of GDP since the war. Part of that is obviously relatively low growth.

But the other bit is that austerity hasn't been general (unlike, say, Greece - or as RH says if we have another IMF program). Growth and demographics are key on this. Healthcare spending has been below the post-war long-term average growing at around 2.4% per year compared to 3.6% per year. But as a share of GDP it has significantly increased and as a share of the budget it's also increased - in part that reflects the productivity point that we've stopped becoming more productive as we used to (and America has continued to). But on the age point it's also because we have an older population with more healthcare needs. The consequence of New Labour's focus on improving the NHS in particular and then the continual real terms growth while other bits of government was cut means that as a share of the general spending by government the NHS has gone from 26% of the budget in 1997 to 43% in 2024. It is increasing again relative to other bits of the state. There is a degree to which we are, increasingly, a healthcare system with a country attached.

The other side of ageing is the other big protection from austerity which was the "triple lock" introduced by the Coalition. This means that every year the state pension will increase by the greater of: inflation, average wage growth or 2%. This has helped (with previous changes under New Labour) hugely reduce pensioner poverty in the UK since I was great - which is good. But it does mean a huge chunk of our budget is broadly at making sure the elderly have their needs met at the expense of the young, the working, the disabled.

I'd add this is also a huge factor in local governments. The department that took the biggest hit in austerity was central government subsidies to local government. At the same time local government's statutory responsibilities grew - including, in particular, adult social care (things like care homes, looking after people with dementia etc). And with an ageing population that has become a bigger and bigger part of the pie. For the very good reason that councillors decide to protect the care budget over everything else - but everything else gets slashed to the bone (preventing homelessness, libraries, bin collection, road maintenance etc):

It is like our global community is collapsing despite all of our advances. How? How is this possible? It isn't like what is happening in the UK is some isolated situation created by the unique incompetence of Tories and the stupidity of Brexit or whatever. This seems to be a common story everywhere to some extent.

I mean my big picture on the global community is that the West built a world system based on American military muscle and Western economic muscle. The states that participated in the "global community" as opposed to those who were subject to it basically ran as far as NATO bases plus Japan and Australia etc. It was built on the lines of and entrenched post-war and colonial era hierarchies of the "West" in a particularly dominant position - which could be maintained (if not justified) with American unipolarity and Western economic dominance - but is now dead. We called that world order "liberal" and "rules-based" which it was, for us - but was not for anyone else. We didn't help anyone else develop and we did not democratise power to a more representative world. And that's over now - the world on which we built our comfort is dead.

And having said all that it was still a million miles better than previous eras of Cold War division and proxy wars or European imperialism - and may well be better than what comes next. But my view is that the big challenge is what comes next and building something (there is also the risk nothing is built and it is just more and more chaos).

At a more micro UK and Europe level (with exceptions of extremes like Greece which saw, for example, the funding for treating cancer cut by a third), austerity didn't cut the core functions of the welfare state. They've come under more pressure because we're getting older. But in the UK and across Europe we saved money by slashing capital budgets and investment. Whether that was capital spending in healthcare, whether it's physical infrastructure, but also whether it's defence infrastructure. Those were cut as part of austerity (for different ends) to preserve current budgets. We've taken a permanent hit to productivity growth, especially compared to the US. And in Europe we've now been hit by subsequent crises (covid, war, energy shocks) which have been intensified because of our lack of capital spending/investment and we're now still needing to run even more current spending (because we've been penny wise and pound foolish) while also trying to catch up on at least a lost decade of under-investment. It's not coincidental that Merz's proposal for massive capital spending in Germany is basically split 50/50 between the military and actual infrastructure.

But that decision to stop investing for a decade is huge. There's been, I suspect, a permanent hit to productivity and growth (which impacts everything else, including our budetary situation). It means we've not got the industry for defence or physical infrastructure capable of transporting arms (which is why we're using slow moving barges instead of trains and roads) when there's a war on our continent. We've lost the early European advantage of subsidising energy transition which means the need to move to net zero is actually going to also increase Chinese importance in Europe's economy and their own growth, but we also didn't even build up our own fossil fuels.

In the framing of austerity that's the challenge is that we went from slashing investment to balance slightly lower and unevenly distributed cuts to current spending (again there are exceptions which matter, like Greece). The challenge now is that it's really difficult to do the massive investment we need on infrastructure, defence, energy, while also not impacting current spending (and current spending needs to be higher to get the same output because of the last ten years of low capital spending).

[Sheilbh]

How do you even dig out of that as a sovereign nation? I'm assuming the UK isn't planning on defaulting anytime soon.

With a long enough view, it's really not that bad


But this goes to RH's point and what I was saying about productivity and growth (although actually striking that the immediate post-war there was a consistent surplus too). Those previous periods had it, currently we don't. And, as I say, I think this is a European problem. After the crash America did various forms of stimulus, China did massive stimulus that really helped the world keep growing and Europe - faced with historically low interest rates - tried to cut its way to growth.

[Sheilbh]

Really struck by the footage of Lammy getting heckled at the vigil in Manchester - and I can understand some of that anger.

I think there is a bit of a two-tier angle going on here. The statements from Labour leaders - including Lammy - are very generalised and vague. It slightly reminds me of the way Jeremy Corbyn would respond to allegations of tolerating anti-semitism in the Labour Party where he'd always say something along the lines of "of course I condemn anti-semitism and Islamophobia and all forms of racism." He was always very reluctant to call out anti-semitism specifically - it was a regular "all lives matter" drumbeat.

And I think there is something to that in the government's response here (and Labour politicians in general). Lammy spoke about standing in defiance of "terrorists who seek to divide us; who want to pit neighbour against neighbour; to weaken the bonds that bind us together as one nation". During Labour's conference when they were, rightly, aggressive against the far right, this wasn't the language they used. Shabana Mahmood (who I really rate) talked of "heirs to the skinheads and the Paki-bashers of old", Lammy said Farage "flirted with the Hitler Youth" when he was young. I think we are, again, a little in "all lives matter" territory here compared to the (correct) clarity some senior Labour figures have used in attacking the far right. Because to be clear the attacker was not wanting to divide or weaken bonds he was wanting to kill British Jews because they're Jewish.

I'd also add I'm uncomfortable with the number of emergency Palestine Action solidarity demos taking place. I don't think Palestine Action are terrorists or should proscribed. But if your first response to a British synagogue and British Jews being attacked is to organise a Palestine Action demo, then I think you're broken and probably anti-semitic.

Moving piece by Josh Glancy in the Jewish News that this is, as far as he's aware, the first fatal attack on British Jews since they returned under Oliver Cromwell (Cable Street repelled the fascists, there were anti-Jewish riots in 1947 and the Tredegar riots in the 1910s but no casualties, synagogues etc have high security, disgracefully, but have not been attacked until now). And I was struck by his sense of the war in Gaza and this attack in particular has seen an end to "the innocence of Anglo-Jewry".

I wonder slightly about my own two-tierness on the protests every week. I was thinking about this as Clive Lewis had a really interesting post over the Tommy Robinson riot. I have mentioned that I'm very uncomfortable with many of the slogans and even if they are not intentionally anti-semitic, British Jews have been clear for a long time that they make them feel unsafe and that far too much license is being given - and I think, as a society, we should take those concerns and fears seriously. But to go back to the Tommy Robinson point - I have certainly (and I suspect everyone on the left has) gone to marches even if I'm uncomfortable with some of the signs or slogans being chanted, even if I think some of the speakers are wrong or extremist or someone I totally disagree with. I have held my nose on demos. Maybe that's wrong but also maybe to the point Clive Lewis made that was also true of a not insignificant share of people on the Robinson march too and Lewis, perhaps, had more of a point than I thought (I thought he was interesting but wrong).

[Josquius]

I would think the Palestine action demos are more that they're quite paranoid. They've got this 3D chess game in their head where clearly this is going to be used against them.
Which to an extent I'd believe. No doubt the zionist lobby would try to do that.
But in being paranoid and reacting so quick they scored a massive own goal. They could really have done wonders for their PR with some statements condemning the attack, saying this is absolutely not what they stand for, and announcing a pause for a short time.
But then they are idiots. They couldn't even hold off for a few hours. Pfff.

On left wing demos having undesirables in general....
To me it's less about who is there - the guy with the Soviet flag, the little table selling the morning star - and more about who is leading it and the focal point.
The Yaxley Lenin march was a fascist march becuase it was for speeches about fascism.
Left wing protests I've encountered usually don't let the idiots in the crowd talk. They're just rattling along.

[garbon]

A woman to become Archbishop of Canterbury.

[Tamas]

I would think the Palestine action demos are more that they're quite paranoid. They've got this 3D chess game in their head where clearly this is going to be used against them.
Which to an extent I'd believe. No doubt the zionist lobby would try to do that.
But in being paranoid and reacting so quick they scored a massive own goal. They could really have done wonders for their PR with some statements condemning the attack, saying this is absolutely not what they stand for, and announcing a pause for a short time.
But then they are idiots. They couldn't even hold off for a few hours. Pfff.

On left wing demos having undesirables in general....
To me it's less about who is there - the guy with the Soviet flag, the little table selling the morning star - and more about who is leading it and the focal point.
The Yaxley Lenin march was a fascist march becuase it was for speeches about fascism.
Left wing protests I've encountered usually don't let the idiots in the crowd talk. They're just rattling along.

Maybe if someone is on the same platform as antisemites, and act like you expect antisemites to act in a situation (such as this) then they ARE, in fact, antisemites.

[Tonitrus]

A woman to become Archbishop of Canterbury.

Is she a socialite, or a socialist?

[Sheilbh]

A state school educated, libera Anglo-Catholic former nurse appointed by a Labour Prime Minister. I'd guess leaning more to the socialist wing of that spectrum.

[Josquius]

A woman to become Archbishop of Canterbury.

Quite the furore about sexism over the reporting about this.

I see they've changed it now.
https://news.sky.com/story/woman-named-as-new-archbishop-of-canterbury-in-historic-first-13443328

But originally mentioned her husband's name and number of kids but not her name.

Maybe if someone is on the same platform as antisemites, and act like you expect antisemites to act in a situation (such as this) then they ARE, in fact, antisemites.

Surely the antisemite side would be celebrating?
There no doubt are anti semites in their ranks. But I do think the evidence points more towards idiocy overall.

[Valmy]

She should be required to divorce her husband and have him beheaded to honor the founder of her church.

A woman to become Archbishop of Canterbury.

Is she a socialite, or a socialist?

See it is references like this that keep me posting on this board.

[HVC]

She should be required to divorce her husband and have him beheaded to honor the founder of her church.

She'd have to wait for the 2nd husband for that ( and a 5th one if she feels like a repeat)


I know it's a state religion and all that, but having a government minister submit someome to a religious position just feels so odd.