The search continues
Apparently there is something rotten in the state of the UK. Schools are falling to pieces, the roads are chaotic, dentists vanishing, hospitals are jam packed and as Yul Brynner puts it brilliantly in The King and I “etcetera, etcetera etcetera”
But the search for how this could have happened and who caused it continues. The right wing commentariat are united in their discovery that something is wrong, that something must be done and that someone has to get a grip.
But how standards could have slipped in the last 12 years is beyond them, how spending could have been slashed is a mystery, how the country has been crumbling around their ears, is beyond them.
Their reaction is to blame “wokeness” or working from home or striking unions, or lazy civil servants.
This is only possible if you are wilfully blind to the world around you, your own policies and their obvious consequences.
Austerity destroyed growth, destroyed investment, destroyed wealth and destroyed the ability of the state to manage the country.
Brexit made it worse.
But the solution is apparently tax cuts, yes let’s fix dentistry with a tax cut for the wealthy, let’s build schools with a tax cut, let’s rebuild the NHS with a tax cut.
You can almost see the dawning light in their eyes, even though they cannot yet admit it to themselves. They have been in power for 12 years and their policies caused this.
But that light is still for the moment, as my father used to say “As dim as a Toc H lamp”.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.