The brits are in for a rough ride

[pmv]

Another illustration of the effect of 13 years of Liberal/Conservative rule on the NHS (should never be forgotten that the Liberal Democrats facilitated all of this)

Paramedics find woman, 44, dead at home 15 hours after she called 999 for help

Her death was 'contributed to by neglect'.

metro.co.uk

And another example of the system working as intended:

Union fury as figures show pay rises among top earners driving inflation

The best paid have had the highest wage hikes, but the majority of the workforce has seen salary growth fall, according to ONS data

www.theguardian.com

Pay rises for the top 10% of UK earners, including City bosses, have clearly outstripped those for the rest of the workforce and been prime drivers of recent inflation and soaring interest rates, according to new analysis of official figures.

 

[pmv]

I voted remain, but I am suspicious of those who try and put all the blame for the dire state of this country on Brexit, rather than what happened in the decades that led up to it. It's almost as if they needed Brexit to happen so they could use it as an excuse to ignore all the other problems.

Is it a coincidence that the most pro-EU party, the Lib Dems, is the same extremist neo-liberal one that gave us austerity (which, come to that, led directly to Brexit)?

 

[Indus]

Sad but true

 

[mikeymikec]

IMO the libdems' biggest mistake with the coalition was their naivety. When demanding for a referendum on alternative vote they should have known that the tories were going to go all-out to make sure the vote failed. Secondly they should have leveraged their influence in the coalition better (rather than thinking that they have to make this failed marriage work regardless). Thirdly they shouldn't have made a coalition with the tories; nothing positive would come of a coalition with ideological enemies. I think they went into it thinking that their (at the time) increasing share of the vote plus experience in government would make them seem a more viable choice for government in future.

 

[biostud]

IMO the libdems' biggest mistake with the coalition was their naivety. When demanding for a referendum on alternative vote they should have known that the tories were going to go all-out to make sure the vote failed. Secondly they should have leveraged their influence in the coalition better (rather than thinking that they have to make this failed marriage work regardless). Thirdly they shouldn't have made a coalition with the tories; nothing positive would come of a coalition with ideological enemies. I think they went into it thinking that their (at the time) increasing share of the vote plus experience in government would make them seem a more viable choice for government in future.

Without being an expert on British politics, both conservatives and Labour are just used to rule by themselves, so actually falling to be a viable alternative to the conservative for the lib. dems. are just as much the fault of Labour.

 

[pmv]

IMO the libdems' biggest mistake with the coalition was their naivety. When demanding for a referendum on alternative vote they should have known that the tories were going to go all-out to make sure the vote failed. Secondly they should have leveraged their influence in the coalition better (rather than thinking that they have to make this failed marriage work regardless). Thirdly they shouldn't have made a coalition with the tories; nothing positive would come of a coalition with ideological enemies. I think they went into it thinking that their (at the time) increasing share of the vote plus experience in government would make them seem a more viable choice for government in future.

It was more than naivety, though. The Clegg faction of the Lib Dems are basically Tories. They border on being Libertarians - socially fairly liberal but very right-wing on economics.
As they were in charge at the time the Lib Dems _of course_ sided with Cameron and Osborne, because they shared their politics (Cameron himself representing the Tories' shift to be a little bit more socially-liberal than previously).

I knew they'd jump that way, it was obvious, and anyone who voted Lib Dem in that election thinking it was an anti-Tory vote was an idiot.

The Lib Dems have always been an incoherent coalition, as they embody the ambiguous nature of the affluent professional managerial class, who can go either way, i.e. can side with those above or below them.

Under Charles Kennedy (who was the only Lib Dem leader I've ever found at all likable - it was a massive pity he had such a problem with booze) they veered left, but Clegg and the "Orange Book" faction were always hard-right. IIRC their most prominent internet blogger prior to that election was an open Ayn Rand fan.

Also not surprising Clegg then ran off to get a job with Facebook.

For some reason it seems impossible in this country to sustain a 'moderate left' party, like a genuine European-style social democratic party.

Something about the way things work means any attempt always ends up veering further-and-further to the right (it might be as simple as the electoral system, but I think there are deeper social/cultural/economic reasons than that).

 

[pmv]

Thames Water has now gone bust, leaving the government to bail it out - after decades of acting as a machine to extract money from ordinary British people and give it to foreign capital owners.

Just as I get through the winter and there's hope for utility bills coming down, now they are talking about a 40% increase in water bills.

Seems as if every one of Thatcher's privatisations has ultimately failed - rail, water, gas, electricity, all dismal failures. Privatisation quiet obviously doesn't work (in Russia it led to Putin).

One could argue that state-ownership doesn't work either, hence the fall of the USSR, and that the only thing that works at all is a mixed-economy. Except that such a mixed economy is not stable, as the capitalist part always uses its financial and political power to undermine the socialised part, and grab all the wealth for itself - hence we ended up here. I really don't know _what_ works.

The wretched state of Thames Water is one of the best arguments for public ownership we have | Adrienne Buller

Water privatisation in England and Wales has achieved just one thing: the enrichment of executives and overseas shareholders, says Mathew Lawrence of the thinktank Common Wealth

www.theguardian.com

Since the late 1980s, water companies in England and Wales have paid out £72bn to shareholders. To help pay for this generosity, the water companies – which were sold off without debts – have borrowed on an exceptional scale, accumulating a debt pile of £53bn.

What has this meant for customers? In real terms, bills have increased by around 40% since privatisation, yet investment by the companies has gone down by 15%. The consequences are glaringly evident: up to 2.4bn litres of water a day (equivalent to nearly 1000 Olympic swimming pools) are leaked by English water companies. Every day, raw sewage is discharged into our rivers and seas more than 1000 times on average, for a total of over 9m hours since 2016. With this scale of neglect, it’s hardly shocking that just 14% of English rivers have adequate ecological status.

 

[sdifox]

Well since they went bust, write off all debts like the private sector does and make it public again.

 

[pmv]

Well since they went bust, write off all debts like the private sector does and make it public again.

Well, it's apparently "on the brink" of going bust, and they are taking it into "temporary" public ownership.

It's ridiculous though, as with the rail-infrastructure company, or air-traffic-control, the private sector is given it debt-free, they proceed to destroy it while sucking as much money out of it - and the captive customers - as possible and engaging in minimal investments, and only when it's a hollowed-out husk does the state take it over again. It's utterly absurd. All because of this zombie ideology that says 'private is always better than public'. An ideology which refuses to die, no matter how much the evidence says otherwise.

When will Thatcher be acknowledged as the total failure she actually was? She has benefited from the way it took a long time for her failures to become apparent.

 

[sdifox]

Well, it's apparently "on the brink" of going bust, and they are taking it into "temporary" public ownership.

It's ridiculous though, as with the rail-infrastructure company, or air-traffic-control, the private sector is given it debt-free, they proceed to destroy it while sucking as much money out of it - and the captive customers - as possible and engaging in minimal investments, and only when it's a hollowed-out husk does the state take it over again. It's utterly absurd. All because of this zombie ideology that says 'private is always better than public'. An ideology which refuses to die, no matter how much the evidence says otherwise.

When will Thatcher be acknowledged as the total failure she actually was? She has benefited from the way it took a long time for her failures to become apparent.

keep dreaming

 

[SMOGZINN]

Privatisation quiet obviously doesn't work (in Russia it led to Putin).

I guess that all depends on what you thought it was intended to do. If you properly understood that its purpose was to transfer billions from the lower classes to the upper clasess, and then leave the taxpayers holding the bag when it all went bust, then you have to admit that it was a smashing success.

 

[pmv]

keep dreaming

What's the "dream"? That people will ever acknowledge the reality, that neo-liberalism is a failed project? I think we'll get there. People tend to notice when they've gotten poorer and nothing around them works properly any more.

 

[pmv]

What's happened with the water companies is a complete scandal.

They just loaded themselves up with massive debt, in order to pay huge dividends to shareholders and paypackets to their management, while failing dismally to actually invest in the task they were supposed to be performing. Now people have noticed they haven't been doing their jobs, just dumping sewage into rivers and the sea, not fixing leaks, and failing to build reservoirs, and they are expected to actually start doing something, but having given all that cash away to foreign capital owners, they want to make their captive customers pay for it.

Privatization was and is a complete racket. It's theft, pure-and-simple. As it was in post-communist Russia.

 

[SMOGZINN]

People tend to notice when they've gotten poorer and nothing around them works properly any more.

Try telling that to the American South. As long as they can blame their problems on someone else they are always happy to keep voting for the same garbage.

 

[pmv]

Try telling that to the American South. As long as they can blame their problems on someone else they are always happy to keep voting for the same garbage.

I guess that's in large part due to the issue of race. But maybe also because of the way class politics plays out. As a motivating force, class resentment seems to have been captured entirely by the Right over there. It may be going the same way here.

 

[fskimospy]

I guess that's in large part due to the issue of race. But maybe also because of the way class politics plays out. As a motivating force, class resentment seems to have been captured entirely by the Right over there. It may be going the same way here.

In the US it’s not as class based as in Europe although since 2008 the white working class has increasingly aligned with the ultra rich.

In America though it’s mostly about race. Obama being elected drove the right insane.

 

[biostud]

Sasha is not impressed.

 

[pmv]

In the US it’s not as class based as in Europe although since 2008 the white working class has increasingly aligned with the ultra rich.

In America though it’s mostly about race. Obama being elected drove the right insane.

From what I see (including on here) class does play a role, just an entirely destructive one. Basically, lower-class Americans are mad at professional/educated Americans for looking down on them, and as the latter don't like racism, the former decide they'll be all the more racist, just to annoy the latter. I notice there's a desperate attempt to encourage the same mentality here.

 

[pmv]

Sasha is not impressed.

This government couldn't have cocked up the economy any more if it had tried. I guess it _did_ try, it was the whole point all along. It's been a decades-long process to impoverish ordinary people and enrich the owners of capital (including foreign ones).
(And while Brexit was part of it, it's a factor that gets over-stressed by those who don't want you to notice their role in the bigger contributors of neo-liberalism and austerity)

 

[IronWing]

From what I see (including on here) class does play a role, just an entirely destructive one. Basically, lower-class Americans are mad at professional/educated Americans for looking down on them, and as the latter don't like racism, the former decide they'll be all the more racist, just to annoy the latter. I notice there's a desperate attempt to encourage the same mentality here.

We have billionaires telling the poor to watch out for those elites. Elites are defined as anyone with a regular work schedule, vacation days, and health insurance.

 

[Indus]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1674933348811022337

LOL.. sad but true!

 

[pmv]

Elites are defined as anyone with a regular work schedule, vacation days, and health insurance.

It's quite funny, really, how many "man of the people" "you could have a pint with them down the pub" populists went to the most elite educational establishments imaginable.

e.g. Nigel Farage, alumni of the super-posh Dulwich College.

(Dulwich itself is a very strange place - most of it seems to be owned by the College, that seems to own vast swathes of land there, and it pretends to be a wealthy Surrey village, that mysteriously finds itself in London, and sandwiched between the council estates of Brixton and Camberwell and Peckham.)

Or there's Nick Ferrari, radio host favorite of white-van man, went to Eltham College, another elite private school not that far from Dulwich.

Or Kelvin MacKenzie, former Sun Editor, and another blokey right-wing populist, went to yet another elite private school (Alleyn's college almost next door to Dulwich college, maybe for those who failed to get in to the 'real' Dulwich College?)

More distressing is how many prominent 'leftists' also went to the same handful of elite educational establishments. If there's ever a Bolshevik revolution here it will probably be led by someone who went to Eton. As would any potential Nazi regime.

 

[IronWing]

I had to look up Dulwich. The juxtaposition with Brixton is amazing.

 

[pmv]

I had to look up Dulwich. The juxtaposition with Brixton is amazing.

It's an astonishing contrast, given you can easily walk from one to the other. What struck me when I was last there was the big sign reading "property of Dulwich College - no right of way, no right of play" over some vast playing field. Don't know why they didn't just go with "plebs keep out".

 

[Indus]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1675081814006968320

Patriotism vs Reality