Chickens home to roost

 

 

We are familiar with the more obvious manifestations of the devastation to the public realm caused by a government obsessed by currying favour with the electorate with tax cuts: potholes in the roads, lengthening waiting-lists in the NHS, crumbling schools and other public buildings, families in destitution.  

 Three less obvious ones have recently been highlighted.

 FLOODS:  Expenditure on flood defences has been cut back sharply since 2010.  I think I’ve seen the figure of 40% but can’t verify this.  However, we’ve all seen the consequences in the pictures on our televisions over the past few weeks.  After clearing up the physical consequences many households are now discovering their homes are uninsurable and their re-sale values  have plummeted.

Over the much longer term a town-planning cousine of mine who works in Canada has expressed disgust that the UK still has a single drainage system for both sewage from our lavatories and rainfall run-off.  Most developed countries, including Canada, have separate systems, so when there is excess rainfall at least the floodwater is relatively pure.  Not in the UK

COURTS:  One reason for the wholesale amnesty for  the victims of the  Post Office/Horizon scandal is that the judicial system simply does not have the capacity to  deal with the cases on an individual basis without further inordinate delay.  There simply aren’t enough judges, lawyers and other staff, and court-rooms.  There is already a serious backlog of other cases, which for those concerned are often as serious and distressing as the waiting lists in the NHS.

It may seem arcane, but for the legislature, on the instructions of the executive, to over-rule decisions of the courts sets a dangerous precedent.  If they can  do it for one, albeit popular, cause they may be tempted to try in a more  questionable area (eg the legality of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda.)

 

The ARTS:  Protestors are in the news for objecting to cultural institutions accepting sponsorship from fossil fuel extractors such as BP.  Quite right too, in my view.  But if government funding is cut, from where else are these institutions to gain the necessary funding?

 The US juror Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr famously defined taxation as “the price we pay for civilisation.”  With the Tories promising tax cuts and  Labour afraid to offer any alternative, our society is becoming less civilised, and in ways that affect far more than just the poor, the disabled and unloved.  It is time for the rest of us to wake up.