grufty jim
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Edited Jun 18, 2017, 21:45
An end to austerity in the UK?
Jun 18, 2017, 21:44
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This made me giggle. The UK has not been adhering to a policy of economic austerity under the tories. So claims that such a policy is ending amount to little more than hopeful rhetoric from the Right as a damage-limitation exercise.
Don't get me wrong... UK public spending has been cut. The welfare state, NHS, fire service and a thousand other items have been recklessly and viciously attacked by a tory government gripped by greed and ideology and the ordinary people of Britain are suffering as a consequence.
But it hasn't been "austerity". At least, not if you use the common economic definition of the term.
Austerity is supposed to be an economic policy whereby public services are cut and taxes raised simultaneously so that a nation runs a current account surplus which is then used to pay down the national debt. It's all about debt reduction. Nothing else.
However, a simple glance at the publicly available economic figures demonstrate that UK debt has risen every year the tories have been in power this century.
Why? Because far from cutting services and raising taxes to pay off debt; the tories have cut services and lowered taxes for corporations and the wealthy (and were talking about slashing those taxes again -- long before this talk of "dropping austerity" began).
"Austerity" is not an economic policy I agree with... but I can at least acknowledge there's a coherent argument in its favour when it's used to actually reduce debt. But don't get fooled into thinking that semi-coherent policy bears any relation to what the tories have been doing these last 7 years.
It hasn't been austerity. It's been wealth redistribution.
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Robot Emperor
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Re: An end to austerity in the UK?
Jun 18, 2017, 22:13
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Legal Aid is the biggy. It's absence has bought about the rule of wealth in place of the rule of law, or at least made the rule of wealth more transparent. Bloody idiots, too stupid to even cover their own tracks.
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Howburn Digger
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Re: An end to austerity in the UK?
Jun 18, 2017, 23:22
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Some people actually believe the propaganda that Austerity was to bring down the National Debt.
It was all about increasing the National Debt while cutting Public Services and Welfare Benefits.
The Tories have managed Austerity beautifully.
They have doubled our National Debt in just a few years while grinding on the poorest and letting the City, Corporations and Tax Dodgers get off scot-free.
Somehow Joe Public has this massive interest debt on money that was lent to the Government by private banks at who knows what rate of interest and who knows who brokered the deal.
Funny eh?
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Popel Vooje
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Edited Jun 21, 2017, 00:58
Re: An end to austerity in the UK?
Jun 20, 2017, 19:51
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Quite. There's a difference between austerity and selective austerity - what our last two governments have been practising is the latter, in spades, and you're right - it hasn't led to economic growth or reduced the national debt.
However, I'm starting to sense that this may be sinking in amongst large proportions of the electorate and that the backlash is beginning. Corbyn's unexpected surge in the polls and an increased turnout among young voters in the last election are positive manifestations of this.
I'm hesitant to predict that the Grenfell Tower fire might alert even more swing voters to the negative effects of cost-cutting and deregulation as the last thing I want to do is use a human tragedy to score political points - but it can't be logically denied that both were major factors in causing the disaster (as discussed in the "dangers of deregulation" thread.
It's just terrible that it took the deaths of 79-plus people to highlight the effects of the long-term erosion of social housing that was begun by the Thatcher administration but continued by successive governments both (New) Labour and Tory.
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Sueno
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Re: An end to austerity in the UK?
Jun 29, 2017, 21:33
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Always so sneaky, devious and devilishly clever. And the sheep still keep going, baa, baa....
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nigelswift
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Just sayin' ....
Jun 30, 2017, 08:25
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https://twitter.com/alanferrier/status/880173398462222340
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thesweetcheat
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Re: Just sayin' ....
Jun 30, 2017, 08:51
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Quite. They actually cheered.
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