Austerity and Media Studies

 

The most obvious manifestation of the government austerity which has been imposed on us in the past quarter century is the potholes in the roads.

However, an article in last Friday’s (6^th March) Guardian by Aditya Chakrabortty claims that a much more serious consequence, largely ignored by the media, is a fall in our life expectancy. and especially our expectations of a health life.  He writes:

Our healthy life expectancy has been dropping for years; it is now the lowest since 2011, when records began.

For most of the past 100 years, the UK and other rich countries have made outstanding progress on life expectancy. Year after year, decade after decade, the outlook has just kept getting better. Whereas a century ago the average life expectancy was about 50, today you can hope to live into your 80s. And now in Britain one of the great success stories in human history is going into reverse. Over the past 15 years, improvements in life expectancy have essentially stalled, while our allotment of healthy life is getting shorter.

Mr Chakrabortty lays the blame firmly on the shoulders of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Coalition from 2010 and writes:

The fact our healthy lives are now  getting shorter is also a political choice.    Much of the choosing was done by George Osborne and David Cameron,  by Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander. . .Tory and Lib Dem policies  effectively killed ordinary Britons.”

Sadly, it cannot be denied.

However, what Mr Chakrabortty fails to mention is that their policy of austerity was also shared by the Labour Party.  Here’s a section of the Manifesto which Gordon Brown and  Alistair Darling presented to the electorate for the 2010 election

The Manifesto reflects the tough choices that we will make to secure Britain’s future in a way that is fair to all:

·       * Tough choices for £15 billion efficiency savings in 2010-11

  * Tough choices on cutting government overheads: £11 billion of further      operational efficiencies and other cross-cutting savings to streamline government will be delivered by 2012-13.

·       * Tough choices on pay: action to control public-sector pay including a one per cent cap on basic pay uplifts for 2011-12 and 2012-13, saving £3.4 billion a year, and new restrictions on senior pay-setting.

·       * Tough decisions on public sector pensions to cap the taxpayers’ liability – saving £1 billion a year.

·       * Tough choices on spending: £5 billion already identified in cuts to lower priority spending.

*T*Tough choices on welfare: our reforms will increase fairness and work incentives, including £1.5 billion of savings being delivered.

* *Tough choices on assets: £20 billion of asset sales by 2020.

*T•Tough choices on tax: a bonus tax, reduced tax relief on pensions for the best off, a new 50p tax rate on earnings over £150,000 and one penny on National Insurance Contributions.

If you don’t believe it see for yourself on the original: https://manifesto-cymru.cavendishconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/TheLabourPartyManifesto-2010.pdf

It’s on Page 0.6*

The truth is that the mistaken belief that “savage cuts” in government  expenditure  were essential was “group think” held by most of the political establishment and commentariat.  Cries of outrage from minor social liberals such as myself and even major voices  such as the eminent economist Joseph Stiglitz and others, that to cut public expenditure as we entered a recession was to ignore the teachings of Keynes (along with the welfare tradition of Beveridge) made no impression, and so we all suffer.

 Our problem is that we have a hugely biassed press, largely owned by the rich some whom don’t even live in this country, who find the neo-liberal doctrines of low taxation, low government expenditure, privatized public services  and minimum regulation highly convenient –  for themselves and their financiers. The pretence that that this will result in prosperity that will “trickle down” to the masses, goes unchallenged.

Which brings us to Media Studies, which that same media, and a large part of the political establishment, ridicule as a “Micky Mouse” area unworthy  of being  regarded as a serious  academic discipline.

 In his 2025 account of “Baltic: the future of Europe” Times journalist Oliver Moody points out that Finland, long subjected to “fake news” from the Soviet Union, takes a different view.

“ Finland was the first country in Europe  to introduce compulsory media literacy classes in schools, building on decades of experience. ‘It starts from kindergarten, and then it’s part of the official curriculum, first of all to learn how to use media and how to differentiate advertising  from other media content’  says Anneli Ahonen, a Finnish expert on information warfare . ‘Then in recent years concepts like fake news and disinformation  were added there as well.  I had it as a kid – I was born in 1981 – and now my kids have had it too, right from first grade.’  (Page 65)

Given that even the Guardian can’t be relied on for balanced reporting, and the party led by the gifted communicator responsible for most of our present  economic woes is stubbornly ahead in the polls, we desperately need it here.

 *Full disclosure: The original has only (sic) seven “bullet points” itemising the areas destined for Labour's “Tough choices.”  The “cut and paste “ device I used to transfer them to this blog  has translated them into eight.  I don’t know why and can’t manage to correct it.

Gorton and Denton

 In his "Brexit Blog" last week Chris Grey referred to the "giggling fatuity of the BBC's political editor Chris Mason."  There has been plenty of fatuity, by Mason and others, in the media's reporting of Thursday's by-election in part of Manchester and I suppose this post may only add to it. However, here goes....

To me the most striking part of the result is that the Conservatives received only 1.9% of the vote, and the Liberal Democrats even les, 1.8%.  Who alive a hundred yeas ago (and there are still some) could have foreseen  that these two great parties, led respectively by the massively authoritative Disraeli and Gladstone among others, and which had vied for power for most of the previous century, could possible be reduced to such insignificance?  

 So lesson one is that the structure of British politics can change.  But lesson two is that it can take a long time.

 Lesson three is that there are many false alarms  in the process, at least a couple of dozen in my politically active lifetime. Torrington (1958) and Orpington (1962) spring to mind.  Although Gorton and Denton may be more than yet another flash in the pan, I don't see the Green Party forming the government any time soon - though they could, along with the Liberal Democrats, soon be part of one.

Not before time. 

 Two pieces of good news are that neither Reform nor Labour won.  

A Reform victory wold have been most unfortunate.  We can see in the  United States the horrors which their bigoted, divisive, racist, sexist and scapegoating politics can produce and it is a relief to know that they are, as yet, far from mainstream here.  In spite of all the ballyhoo, Farage's charismatic communication skills, press support and foreign funding, along with  people's bitter discontent with the "established system" Reform received only 29% of the vote.  This,  given the turnout of just short of 50% (good for a by-election) amounts to fewer that one in seven of those entitled to vote.  Farage has borrowed  from  Donald Trump;'s playbook and blamed fake voting.

 A Labour victory would have given Sir Keir Starmer’s government an excuse  to carry on as usual, trying to match the far right at their game.  

Sadly from the yesterday's announcement of Shabana Mahmood's proposals to further harass  present and  future migrants, it seems the lesson has not yet sunk in. But surely Labour MPs will ensure  that it does and Sir Keir's government wilt start doing the things a Labour Government is excepted to do: higher but fairer taxation to improve the lot of the weak and vulnerable, and repair the public realm.  

The reforms will be top-down rather than the bottom up initiatives we Liberals would  prefer, but, as a recent letter to the Guardian pointed out, Starmer's approach may be clumsy but his intentions are good and he has as yet done nothing like the damage wreaked by Thatcher and Cameron. 

 A third piece of good news is that the successful Green candidate, Hannah Spencer, is a qualified and practising plumber, gas engineer and plasterer  It  is  a great achievement, even in these enlightened days, for a woman to achieve success in these trades and we must wish her well in her parliamentary career - an MP who,can actually do something useful as well as talk about it.  That must have been part of her attraction as a candidate.   

But she also has the eye for the telling phrase, as her victory speech showed. "We defeated the parties of billionaire donors."  We need more of that frank speaking.

 It is galling that, in spite of our record number of 72 MPs, the third largest party in parliament, we Liberal Democrats hardly get get a mention nowadays when the future of British politics is discussed. 

But, rather like the swans floating serenely on water but paddling furiously underneath,the party is quietly working  hard at improving the lives of constituents where we have the opportunity.  

 Measured by real polls rather than opinion polls, since last May we have gained a further 54 councillors in major council by-elections.  That is more than Labour, the Conservatives and Greens put together.  By contrast, through resignations, defections  and defeats Reform has lost 61.

Liberal Democrats are firmly present and I  both believe  and expect  that our influence will increase in spite of, maybe even because  of, the neglect of the chattering classes  and their "giggling fatuity."

 I do, however, have a fear that there is developing  a political divide in  England, in which  in the affluent suburbs, prominently in the South,  the competition  will be between the Liberals and Conservatives (possibly allied to Reform), and in the Northern Heartland   between Labour and the Greens.

Both Liberals and Greens need to be active in all parts of the country, including Scotland and Wales, for a truly healthy democracy.

 That means PR.

 Maybe, just maybe, that is the direction in which enlightened Labour MPs will push their government. 

 

Why postpone elections?

 It can be argued that the Labour Government's decision last year to postpone the local elections due  next next  May was sensible. The councils concerned are to be reorganised  and their new councillors would be in office for only a year. Then the councils i would be abolished. 

Why waste money on elections when it could be better used for mending the potholes, as Labour's current response argues now that "legal advice" obtained as a result of protests by  Farage's Refom Party indicates that the move is illegal and will probably be reversed if it goes to court.

 Such an argument should not be taken to indicate agreement with the proposed reforms. In fact they are changes in quite the wrong direction. They take local councils  further away from the people they represent and thus make them even less responsive to our needs.  Before the  Edward Heath "reforms" in a similar wrong direction  in the early 60s there were around 75 000 councillors  serving the public.  If and when these reforms are implemented that total will be reduced to  around 11 000.

 It is interesting that today's  Guardian faces both ways on the reforms. On page one of the "Journal" section Polly Toynbee calls them a "botched plan."  On page two the Editorial says they are "a necessary administrative reform."  Take your pick.

 However, back to the rights and wrongs of the cancellation.  There is hardly any evidence of anyone ever cancelling an election they expect to win, and plenty of dictators and authoritarian governments which have cancelled election  which they fear they may no long be able to fix.  

Two-thirds of the authorities where the elections were to be cancelled are currently Labour-led, and the polls indicate that Labour is to receive a drubbing , and Reform make massive advances, in the elections next May. Would Labour have been quite so keen to cancel them had the reverse been the case?

 Whatever the truth It is easy to make the argument that the  cancellation decision was a cynical ploy to reduce the embarrassing size of the losses, and Reform and the Conservatives, probably the Liberal Democrats too, will not hesitate to make the most of it.

 We are in a period, not just in England but in the rest of the World, where what we took to be the democratic norms are becoming very fragile.  Tampering with the democratic process, for whatever reason, should be avoided at all costs.

 Labour has presented yet another open goal to the forces of reaction.  Oh dear. 

 

 

 

 

 

More about policies, please, and less about people

The past week has shown British politics and the appetites of the British public as mirrored by the media in a shameful light.  

 Acres and acres on the antics of the rich elite, including a prince of the blood, have flooded the prints and airwaves, with  very little on the conditions  that enable that elite  to prance around ignoring common decency and even less on the policies that might put those conditions right.

The Israeli government and its IDF continue to kill Palestinians in Gaza and steal the lands and interfere with the liberties of residents of the West Bank: Russians, mercenaries and Ukrainians  continue to battle in Ukraine;  and destructive civil wars continue in Sudan and elsewhere.  If they and similar obscenities are mentioned at all they are relegated to the middle pages.  They have become “boring.” 

Nearer to home an interview with Professor Kate Pickett about her new book “The Good Society” reminds us that spending on prevention services for families  declined by 25% in the decade from 2011; half the children born in Liverpool in 2009/10 have been referred to children’s services before the age of 5; England’s local authorities have only 6% for the childcare places needed for children with disabilities; 65% of prisoners released  from prison return within six months.

Yet it is not failure to deal  with these, and related  issues on the state of the roads, the financing of SEND, inadequate flood defences, interest on student "debt" to name but some, for which the Prime  Minister is desperately defending his “judgement” before  his parliamentary party this evening but this choice of Lord Mandelson as ambassador  to the United states.

The whole issue is massively hypocritical.  I have not personally kept a record, but rely on that  of Jonathon Freedland in  Saturday’s Guardian (7^th February) that “few protested [at the appointment] at the time. . .[O]n the contrary . . .the Westminster village, including Farage by the way, along with most of the media support[ed] the appointment, declaring it a masterstroke.”

Frankly, the Parliamentary Labour party, and party members in the field, should shut up and instead of personality battles,  concentrate on supporting  Sir Keir Starmer and the government in  getting on with what Labour governments are expected to do, not least , improve conditions for the less fortunate, not just in our society but in the world.

A fluke of the electoral system has given them a massive majority and golden opportunity.  It is madness to throw in away.  The right wouldn’t hesitate (indeed they rarely have). 

True, not all a Labour government has done or will do  will please Liberals, (see last month’s post

https://keynesianliberal.blogspot.com/2026/01/this-labour-government-is-not-liberal.html)

The quality of government would improve if  the Labour big beasts had the humility to recognise that  they received the support of only a third of those who voted in 2024, which given the turnout amounts to only a quarter of those entitled to vote, but that an invitation to share government with the Liberal Democrats, Greens  and Nationalists would have the support of the majority and thus have the courage  to bring about the reforms we so desperately need.

Sadly these leopards are not yet ready to change their spots. When will they learn, and introduce PR?

Having said all that, and being only human, I cannot resist the temptation  of highlighting just one piece of the salacious gossip that has been floating around for the past week.

 Mandelson’s admission that he “couldn’t live by salary alone.” 

This man apparently received  “compensation” of  three months salary for getting the sack.  That was £40,000, equivalent  to £160 000 a year (plus, presumably, free accommodation in a posh embassy in Washington, on top of any parliamentary, other and Old Age Pension, bus pass and winter fuel allowance.)

The overwhelming majority of those of us paying for this out of our taxes would regard such a salary and perks  as riches beyond the realms of avarice. 

Thus it is not Sir Keir Starmer’s lack of judgement that has caused the political class to lose touch with the electorate, but the perpetuation of conditions which can make such outrageous claims tenable.

Holocaust Memorial Day

 From "If this is a Man", Primo Levi  (page 68, as he wakes from a recurring dream):

 "It must be later than 11pm,  because the movement to and from the bucket next to the night-guard is already intense.  It is an obscene torment  and an indelible shame; every two or three hours we have to get up to discharge ourselves of the great dose of water which during the day we are forced to absorb in the form of soup in order to satisfy our hunger: that same water which in the evening swells our ankles and the hollows of our eyes, conferring on our physiognomies a likeness of deformation, and whose elimination  imposes an enervating toil on our kidneys.

It is not merely a question of a procession to a bucket; it is the rule that the last user of the bucket goes and empties it in the latrines; it is also the rule that at night one must not leave the hut except  in night uniform (shirt and pants), giving one's name to the guard. . . 

. . .[T]he risk which hangs over us. . . when we are driven by necessity to the bucket every night, is quite serious.. .  [T]he night-guard  unexpectedly jumps from his corner and seizes us, scribbles down our number, hands us a pair of wooden shoes and the bucket and drives us out into the middle of the snow , shivering and sleepy.  It is our task to struggle to the latrine with the bucket  which knocks against our bare calves, disgustingly warm; it is full beyond all reasonable limit, and inevitably with the shaking  some of the content overflows on our feet, so that however repugnant this duty may be it is always preferable that we, and not our neighbour, be ordered to do it." 

 Having reminded myself of this, in future when I make my minimum of three nightly excursions from my bedroom to my bathroom, instead of regretting the inconvenience I shall try to be happy  that I do so in privacy and warmth and don't have to carry a bucketful of other people's issue

 All societies have their disgruntled, frightened and insecure members, who find it easy to identify some "other" as the cause of their grievances.   Through history Jewish people have been easy targets of this scapegoating and the holocaust is, to date, the most horrifying illustration of the depravity that can result when an entire society normalises the  treatment of one of its components as less than human.

There are alarming signs in our present-day supposedly liberal societies of the initial germs which lead to this depravity.  In the United States  ICE roams the streets arresting so called "undocumented immigrants" identified by their government as "the other" in a manner which calls to mind the activities of fascist mobs in 1930 Germany.  In In our own country we have, as yet, a long way to go, but our government has  placed restrictions on our democratic right to protest, arrested peaceful protesters and deliberately tried to create a "hostile environment" to immigrants whom it believes, often mistakenly, may be here illegally.

 Our prime-minister fears we may become "an island of strangers" (though he now regrets the phrase) the leader of the party at present tipped to win the next general election worries when he hears only foreign languages on a tube train, one of his recent recruits observes critically  that he doesn't see a white face in a suburb of a major city. 

 Just the tip of the iceberg, perhaps, but today is a reminder of where these small beginnings can lead.