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The fund reports that Britain’s finances are weaker than all other nations except Portugal, and says privatisation is to blame Columnists usually proffer answers, but today I want to ask a question, a big one. What price is paid when a promise is broken? Because for much of my life, and probably yours, the political class has made this pledge: that the best way to run an economy is to hack back the public realm as far as possible and let the private sector run free. That way, services operate better, businesses get the resources they need, and our national finances are healthier. It’s why your tax credits keep dropping, and your mum has to wait half a year to see a hospital consultant – because David Cameron slashed public spending, to stop it “crowding out” private money. It’s why
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The fund reports that Britain’s finances are weaker than all other nations except Portugal, and says privatisation is to blame Columnists usually proffer answers, but today I want to ask a question, a big one. What price is paid when a promise is broken? Because for much of my life, and probably yours, the political class has made this pledge: that the best way to run an economy is to hack back the public realm as far as possible and let the private sector run free. That way, services operate better, businesses get the resources they need, and our national finances are healthier. It’s why your tax credits keep dropping, and your mum has to wait half a year to see a hospital consultant – because David Cameron slashed public spending, to stop it “crowding out” private money. It’s why
Topics:
Mike Norman considers the following as important:
This could be interesting, too:
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The fund reports that Britain’s finances are weaker than all other nations except Portugal, and says privatisation is to blame
Columnists usually proffer answers, but today I want to ask a question, a big one. What price is paid when a promise is broken? Because for much of my life, and probably yours, the political class has made this pledge: that the best way to run an economy is to hack back the public realm as far as possible and let the private sector run free. That way, services operate better, businesses get the resources they need, and our national finances are healthier.
It’s why your tax credits keep dropping, and your mum has to wait half a year to see a hospital consultant – because David Cameron slashed public spending, to stop it “crowding out” private money. It’s why water bills are so high and train services can never be counted on – because both industries have been privatised.
From the debacle of universal credit to the forced conversion of state schools into corporate-run academies, the ideology of the small state – defined by no less a body than the International Monetary Fund as neoliberalism – is all pervasive. It decides how much money you have left at the end of the week and what kind of future your children will enjoy, and it explains why your elderly relatives can’t get a decent carer.
I don’t wish to write about the everyday failings of neoliberalism – that piece would be filed before you could say “east coast mainline”. Instead, I want to address the most stubborn belief of all: that running a small state is the soundest financial arrangement for governments and voters alike. Because 40 years on from the Thatcher revolution, more and more evidence is coming in to the contrary.
The Guardian