Economist article which indirectly explains why Farage & co are doing well.
"Police forces have stepped back from dealing with petty crime: shoplifting has octupled over the past decade; a well-oiled network ferries stolen phones to shopping malls in Shenzhen within a fortnight. Prosecution rates have plummeted and the prisons are full. The National Health Service (NHS) rations care, with waiting-lists running into the millions. Roads are crumbling faster than local councils can fix them. Behind each of these woes lies a shift in the priorities of the state, which has slowly been reshaped over the past decade or two. Years of feeble economic growth and yo-yoing austerity have led to a country-size triage operation. Urgent needs are still met, but only by neglecting the day-to-day basics that keep the governed consenting. This “state of last resort” stretches from the NHS to the asylum system, but is starkest in street-level services and policing." (£)
This very neatly summarises the malaise which is the ruins of Britain. We're still here, we're still going, but everything is tired and crumbling at best. Or broken and missing at worst.
For all that the remaining PB Tories will be on trying to defend and deflect, the buck really does stop with them. They have departed from a period of chaotic government having left the social fabric stretched and broken. Pick a service - criminal justice, education, health, transport, local councils etc etc etc - all left in ruins.
Labour have made stupid mistakes in their months in office but it is only months. They will get the blame for the mistakes not because WFA is seismic, but because it is totemic - a government who has no clue what to do about the buggered mess they inherited, left picking around the edges with yet more cuts to make things that little bit worse.
This is the rise of Reform. They may not have the answers to fix these broken communities. But unlike Labour and the Tories they at least recognise that they are broken.
It’s a simplistic analysis. A huge part of the problem goes back to Brown - his expensive PFI hospitals are coming to the end of term now when the repayments are highest. Sucking money out of the budget just when it is needed to repair the real estate. He also built in a massive structural deficit.
Cameron and Osborne didn’t fix it - didn’t have the courage to do what they said they were doing - and looked for politically easy (but damaging) cuts such as local councils.
I live in a very well to do part of the country and it is quite shocking that the Tesco Express in my nearest town now has the round the clock security and the check out is protected by floor to ceiling caging. I don't know if that is just a nationwide roll out by Tesco or that they genuinely think that things are so out of hand that they are in danger of getting stuck up like a cornershop in Baltimore aka The Wire.
It has yet to happen in Cannock despite the Tesco express in question being next to a very rough council estate.
I have a local Coop and Tesco across the road from each other (spine road into town through housing areas) - pre-bypass it was the A38.
The Coop significantly reduced their stock range last year they say due partly to shoplifting. Whilst Tesco don't have a cage like a USA penitentiary, they do have a door opened from the inside when it is dark and have a look at you before you get in - at the moment that is from perhaps 9pm to 10pm.
Causes? I think neglect of the public realm and of society. Cameron & co cut Policing expenditure by 20%, just as they did for Defence expenditure. Cuts to Council expenditure have been much more - you can see that just in Google Streetview by looking at the same piece of pavement in 2022 and 2008, and see how it has deteriorated.
As a Government, they lived off the capital from the past, and passed their costs on to the future, and did little or nothing themselves.
Here we had all our community policemen vanish in around 2015, and our local police stations (for a town of 30k, and another of 45k). And much real world police experience was lost with the 20% cuts.
The decision to tolerate petty crimes, and not act on them, have also been problematic. That is shop lifting, but also ASBO. I think County Lines are also perhaps a factor in towns and small cities.
The termination of many programmes such as Sure Start is also important - that was very good.
From a philosophical point of view I'd point to the loss of aspiration to a better society after the 2010 election, such as in the outright removal of any targeted commitment to improve road safety. We need the Kinnock-ish soundbite more firmly in Sir Keir's head: this Labour Government is a moral crusade, or it is nothing.
Economist article which indirectly explains why Farage & co are doing well.
"Police forces have stepped back from dealing with petty crime: shoplifting has octupled over the past decade; a well-oiled network ferries stolen phones to shopping malls in Shenzhen within a fortnight. Prosecution rates have plummeted and the prisons are full. The National Health Service (NHS) rations care, with waiting-lists running into the millions. Roads are crumbling faster than local councils can fix them. Behind each of these woes lies a shift in the priorities of the state, which has slowly been reshaped over the past decade or two. Years of feeble economic growth and yo-yoing austerity have led to a country-size triage operation. Urgent needs are still met, but only by neglecting the day-to-day basics that keep the governed consenting. This “state of last resort” stretches from the NHS to the asylum system, but is starkest in street-level services and policing." (£)
This very neatly summarises the malaise which is the ruins of Britain. We're still here, we're still going, but everything is tired and crumbling at best. Or broken and missing at worst.
For all that the remaining PB Tories will be on trying to defend and deflect, the buck really does stop with them. They have departed from a period of chaotic government having left the social fabric stretched and broken. Pick a service - criminal justice, education, health, transport, local councils etc etc etc - all left in ruins.
Labour have made stupid mistakes in their months in office but it is only months. They will get the blame for the mistakes not because WFA is seismic, but because it is totemic - a government who has no clue what to do about the buggered mess they inherited, left picking around the edges with yet more cuts to make things that little bit worse.
This is the rise of Reform. They may not have the answers to fix these broken communities. But unlike Labour and the Tories they at least recognise that they are broken.
It’s a simplistic analysis. A huge part of the problem goes back to Brown - his expensive PFI hospitals are coming to the end of term now when the repayments are highest. Sucking money out of the budget just when it is needed to repair the real estate. He also built in a massive structural deficit.
Cameron and Osborne didn’t fix it - didn’t have the courage to do what they said they were doing - and looked for politically easy (but damaging) cuts such as local councils.
Economist article which indirectly explains why Farage & co are doing well.
"Police forces have stepped back from dealing with petty crime: shoplifting has octupled over the past decade; a well-oiled network ferries stolen phones to shopping malls in Shenzhen within a fortnight. Prosecution rates have plummeted and the prisons are full. The National Health Service (NHS) rations care, with waiting-lists running into the millions. Roads are crumbling faster than local councils can fix them. Behind each of these woes lies a shift in the priorities of the state, which has slowly been reshaped over the past decade or two. Years of feeble economic growth and yo-yoing austerity have led to a country-size triage operation. Urgent needs are still met, but only by neglecting the day-to-day basics that keep the governed consenting. This “state of last resort” stretches from the NHS to the asylum system, but is starkest in street-level services and policing." (£)
This very neatly summarises the malaise which is the ruins of Britain. We're still here, we're still going, but everything is tired and crumbling at best. Or broken and missing at worst.
For all that the remaining PB Tories will be on trying to defend and deflect, the buck really does stop with them. They have departed from a period of chaotic government having left the social fabric stretched and broken. Pick a service - criminal justice, education, health, transport, local councils etc etc etc - all left in ruins.
Labour have made stupid mistakes in their months in office but it is only months. They will get the blame for the mistakes not because WFA is seismic, but because it is totemic - a government who has no clue what to do about the buggered mess they inherited, left picking around the edges with yet more cuts to make things that little bit worse.
This is the rise of Reform. They may not have the answers to fix these broken communities. But unlike Labour and the Tories they at least recognise that they are broken.
It’s a simplistic analysis. A huge part of the problem goes back to Brown - his expensive PFI hospitals are coming to the end of term now when the repayments are highest. Sucking money out of the budget just when it is needed to repair the real estate. He also built in a massive structural deficit.
Cameron and Osborne didn’t fix it - didn’t have the courage to do what they said they were doing - and looked for politically easy (but damaging) cuts such as local councils.
Reeves has been even worse.
Blair buggered up the constitution, Brown buggered up the economy. And they both presided over a massive sell off of British family silver. It is remembered fondly as quite a pleasant time, because it was. We had all the riches accrued by a competent Tory Government but all the 'feelgood factor' of a snazzy new (New) Labour Government. But it was a primrose path.
Comments
Cameron and Osborne didn’t fix it - didn’t have the courage to do what they said they were doing - and looked for politically easy (but damaging) cuts such as local councils.
Reeves has been even worse.
The Coop significantly reduced their stock range last year they say due partly to shoplifting. Whilst Tesco don't have a cage like a USA penitentiary, they do have a door opened from the inside when it is dark and have a look at you before you get in - at the moment that is from perhaps 9pm to 10pm.
Causes? I think neglect of the public realm and of society. Cameron & co cut Policing expenditure by 20%, just as they did for Defence expenditure. Cuts to Council expenditure have been much more - you can see that just in Google Streetview by looking at the same piece of pavement in 2022 and 2008, and see how it has deteriorated.
As a Government, they lived off the capital from the past, and passed their costs on to the future, and did little or nothing themselves.
Here we had all our community policemen vanish in around 2015, and our local police stations (for a town of 30k, and another of 45k). And much real world police experience was lost with the 20% cuts.
The decision to tolerate petty crimes, and not act on them, have also been problematic. That is shop lifting, but also ASBO. I think County Lines are also perhaps a factor in towns and small cities.
The termination of many programmes such as Sure Start is also important - that was very good.
From a philosophical point of view I'd point to the loss of aspiration to a better society after the 2010 election, such as in the outright removal of any targeted commitment to improve road safety. We need the Kinnock-ish soundbite more firmly in Sir Keir's head: this Labour Government is a moral crusade, or it is nothing.