Issue 10

January 2012

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How Civilised Is Modern Britain?
Asks Andy Crow

 


 Jeremy Clarkson's much publicised suggestion that strikers should be shot would have already drawn far too much comment were it not that there seem to be a few people who don't think it outrageous. The shooting of social protesters in various Middle Eastern countries has been an everyday occurrence this year: the so-called Arab Spring. Here in the 'civilised UK' we ought to be able to take it as the joke I'm sure he intended it to be, but the outraged response to the BBC ( more than 20,000 to date) demanding his sacking indicates that Jeremy has struck a very raw nerve. We need to ask ourselves how civilised is modern Britain.
Local activists distributed leaflets around and amongst the public sector strikers marching in Whitehaven which say amongst other things that 'Fair is worth fighting for'. The cynics or realists will readily tell you that 'life isn't fair', it is one of the first and most painful lessons of childhood. But we aren't wild animals obeying the 'law of the jungle' we are members of a society which is supposed to have 'civilised' values. The objective of a society is that everyone benefits. A wolf pack is more civilised than the modern Britain. Wolves hunt together and share the spoils.
Margaret Thatcher was fond of saying that running a national economy was like managing a housekeeping budget. In principle that is probably true though of course the numbers are much bigger and it is massively more complicated. If we were to reverse the analogy and manage our household budget the way governments run our national economy where would we be? As a nation our main source of income (so we are told) is financial services. The City of London provides the income for our national 'family'. The City as we all know provides essential financial services for industry and commerce, insurance to offset disaster, mortgage finance to put a roof over our heads and fill-up our pension pots. Except it doesn't. It operates like a gigantic casino. So let's send father out to the casino to play roulette and blackjack. When father's on a winning streak everything is fine and there are little treats for the family. Father keeps the bulk of the winnings because the Ferrari is expensive and the steaks at the casino are expensive (and you wouldn't believe what they charge for the champagne) and he has to keep-up appearances. Mother can potter to work and make enough to keep the household fed in the little hatchback and do the school run until it all goes wrong and dad has a run of bad luck. Now we have to cut back our spending so the second car has to go because it will save all that travelling cost. Mother can't get to work, but that doesn't matter because she was only working in a care home and not very well paid and the kids are old enough to stop school ( who needs an education when there are no jobs). Since the other families are doing the same there's nobody to staff the care home and no money to pay the weekly fees anyway so Grandma will have to come and live with the family. She can share the dog basket, it won't be for long because she's outstayed her three-score-and-ten and the sooner she pops off the sooner we can have her savings. How long would a family survive if it organised its affairs like this? It isn't a viable, sustainable way to run a family. And it isn't a viable, sustainable way to run a country.
But that, in a nutshell, is what 'Plan A' looks like. The wider European strategy is very similar and that won't work either. And on the off chance that it does it won't fix the mess that we are in.
How can public service workers express their dissatisfaction with this state of affairs? They can lump it and watch their living standards go down the pan along with the services they provide or they can........ ? Ideas on a postcard please to E2D