Apropos nothing, here’s a by no means definitive list:
The biggest killer of young adult males is suicide
One million people used food banks last year
56,600 people are homeless, up 33% on 2010
The NHS is in crisis as it has to effect £22 billion of efficiency savings (that’s cuts to you and me) by 2020
4.7 million people live in fuel poverty in Britain
The rich are 64% richer than before the recession, while the poor are 57% poorer
ESA claimants are having their benefit reduced by £30 a week
The government has tried to fund tax cuts for the better off by cutting tax credits to the working poor and only last week the sick and disabled
It is becoming increasingly difficult for young people to get on the housing ladder
Young people are leaving university with obscene levels of personal debt through tuition fees and loans
17,000 police officers have been cut since 2010
Flood defence spending has been cut by £250 million since 2010
Funding for NHS trusts to provide mental health services has fallen by more than 8% in real terms since 2010
The UK has at least 40,000 carers aged eight or under
More than £1bn has been cut from social care services for older and disabled people in England in the last year year, leaving tens of thousands facing reduced help with basic tasks such as washing, using the toilet, dressing and eating
1.4 million workers are paid the minimum wage of £6.7o a week. Many millions more are paid no more than 50p an hour extra
How’s that little list, just for starters?
Do you remember back in 2010 when David Cameron was touting for votes? This was ‘Broken Britain’ he proclaimed and he was the man to fix it. He represented a more caring Conservative Party, you see, where he would go round like some latter-day Jesus, miraculously fixing things and curing people. Those without limbs would see them regrown, those who were blind would be able to see again. What’s more amazing is that some people believed him. But like Jesus Christ, the new caring, sharing Cameron wasn’t really there and it turned out he was merely a figment of our imagination.
I wonder how long this country will tolerate what’s going on. We show no signs of demanding revolution just yet, probably because most of us are mercifully not sick and disabled, we are not driven to suicide, we live in our own houses. And, perhaps, we remember Margaret Thatcher’s message which was, essentially, “Sod you, I’m all right jack.” The witch may be dead, but her terrible legacy remains.
I’m serious. We’re not turning into two different societies: there are numerous types developing, from one one side the abandoned underclass in what Cameron refers to as ‘sink estates’ and on the other the rich and powerful, who own and control our society. In between, there are plenty of others, some poor, some better off.
I’m not some Corbynista on the far left of politics. I’m a soft, cuddly, bog standard Labour man, steeped in the traditions of people like John Smith, Neil Kinnock and, not sorry if you don’t like this, Tony Blair. My politics have evolved with experience and time. I believe passionately in the NHS, of decent schools for all, better equality of opportunity by way of a genuine meritocracy, an independent well funded public service broadcaster, a genuinely free press, a more open and democratic country and countless other middle of the road things that I would have thought would unite everyone. But I live in a country where people are poor, where the sick and disabled are often abandoned and the politicians wish to compound despair by making them poorer, where a million people have to apply for food to eat, where we have 40,000 children aged 8 or younger who sacrifice their own lives to care for others.
It makes me really mad. I find it incredible that we still debate whether it’s right or wrong that there are 56,600 homeless people in what is a rich country. I am not interested in anecdotes about some individual homeless people: we are talking about a tragedy of catastrophic proportions. Imagine Anfield stadium, on a matchday. Then imagine all of these people being homeless. That’s hardly a few people, is it? If they were all in one place, we wouldn’t walk by, then, would we?
And there is nothing I can do about it, save to blog, to argue my case and to cast a worthless vote every five years (because that’s how it feels to me). I’d stand for parliament as an independent if I could, except that I very much like and admire Labour’s candidate Ian Boulton in Filton and Bradley Stoke and I don’t want to get in his way. Anyway, I wouldn’t really be that independent, at least for as long as Labour retains its current policies and doesn’t lurch to the far left. Of course, if that does happen…
But look at that list again. Doesn’t it make you angry? It’s not jealousy of people who have done well, it’s anger at a society that is able pretend all is well in our country, or worse still just don’t care. I don’t want the people to rise up if things get worse, but who says they won’t? Look at social networks now, where people have got very angry about rich Tory MPs, who have claimed vast sums on expenses and like George Osborne have flipped their first homes to cream even more money from us, but still voted to make the sick and disabled poorer.
If Britain was really broken when Cameron won in 2010, it lies in ruins now.
