I have been listening to Nicky Campbell this morning, with the phone-in on the nurses' strike. I am not sure we are close to a tipping point yet because it seems clear that most of us don't understand the big picture.
I may be wrong but it has always seemed to me that if you have a State, and charge the State with provision of key services, then this has to be paid for from tax. With, indeed, a contribution from the return on investment of some of the money raised in tax.
It seems that the people expect certain core services to be managed by the State. The police. The military. The national health system. Education. Border control. The fire sevice. Social services. (Have I missed anything?). This is essentially 'one nationism'.
Not everyone agrees with this. There has always been an element among the right that the State should not provide any service other than the military to protect us from invaders. Possibly a police service, but that could be set up as a local militia. This is a common view in America. The rest of 'services? - well if you want health or education, just earn money and pay for it. It is a viewpoint, and it is coherent.
On the other hand, there is an element on the left who consider that not only key services, but most economic activity should be state owned and regulated. 'Top' salaries should not exist and we should all earn a 'living wage'. No profiteering, and a regulated economy. To keep all this together, tax should be high.
Here is the rub. What happens, here, now is somewhere in between. There is a large proportion of the electorate who consider that low tax, and systems that facilitate individual men and women accumulating wealth, should be the national priority. There is another large proportion, with considerable overlap between the two populations ironically, that expect a decent health service, short waiting lists, and excellent reliable public transport.
Neither labour nor conservative have hugely wavered from a policy of attempting to keep tax low while keeping essential services running, since the war (WWII). Neither party has said either "we MUST tax people more to keep the ship afloat" or "we must privatize everything to keep tax low". Some goverments have got close, but these goals have never been explicit or the main policy.
So we have a mess. This has managed to rumble on with 'one nationism' practiced by both parties, but Thatcher ended all that. Thatcher did not change society, but she changed the direction of travel. This was not reversed by Blair (I was hoping it would be, but instead he embraced public/private ownership - a horrible hybrid).
Now, the hard right among the tories have seized a series opportunity offered first by 'The crash', then Covid and Putin, to bring in austerity. What is this supposed to achieve? Shrinkage of the state, a shift in power from state owned enterprises to private. It has been a continuous sequence that involves underfunding state owned enterprises so people criticise them. So what is the end game? It has to be no state ownership and low taxes. But....we have not been told this, have we.
Listening to the 'national conversation' the sense seems to be that the NHS is ruined. And yet the nation is not screaming at the government, demanding money be made available (by increasing tax) to fix it. The understaffing is barely mentioned 'at large', and has been absorbed into the general 'woe is the NHS' narrative. Why is nobody demanding that we swap some Albanians with some Rwandan nurses (fair exchange is no robbery etc). I am being facetious of course. My point is that no solutions are being offered. Think of that!
There is one, of course. Put up tax, pump money into the NHS, and make it much easier for the stream of overseas nurses that used to supplement the workforce to settle in the UK.
Oh, but that means higher taxes and more foreigners.
We have not reached tipping point yet, but it may be just over the horizon. Perhaps if Labour grasp the nettle and offer a clear alternative, a brave one (it will require higher taxes, and also some 'redistribution' of wealth, windfall taxes etc.) there may be some hope. Labour are nailed on to form the next government so I can understand that, if they have a clear plan, they are keeping their powder dry. Any detailed policy announcement will be mocked and ridiculed by those willing to rush to the bottom and pedal any lie to keep the Tories in power. So I don't expect Starmer to reveal any detail till after he's in number ten. Risky.
But if there is a plan, a radical left plan, I shall rejoice. Because we cannot carry on like this, with the impossible fudge where tax is kept low and our institutions collapse. That is a hard right agenda, and one that has astonishingly been accepted as the only way of doing things. That (not cheese imports) is a disgrace.
I may be wrong but it has always seemed to me that if you have a State, and charge the State with provision of key services, then this has to be paid for from tax. With, indeed, a contribution from the return on investment of some of the money raised in tax.
It seems that the people expect certain core services to be managed by the State. The police. The military. The national health system. Education. Border control. The fire sevice. Social services. (Have I missed anything?). This is essentially 'one nationism'.
Not everyone agrees with this. There has always been an element among the right that the State should not provide any service other than the military to protect us from invaders. Possibly a police service, but that could be set up as a local militia. This is a common view in America. The rest of 'services? - well if you want health or education, just earn money and pay for it. It is a viewpoint, and it is coherent.
On the other hand, there is an element on the left who consider that not only key services, but most economic activity should be state owned and regulated. 'Top' salaries should not exist and we should all earn a 'living wage'. No profiteering, and a regulated economy. To keep all this together, tax should be high.
Here is the rub. What happens, here, now is somewhere in between. There is a large proportion of the electorate who consider that low tax, and systems that facilitate individual men and women accumulating wealth, should be the national priority. There is another large proportion, with considerable overlap between the two populations ironically, that expect a decent health service, short waiting lists, and excellent reliable public transport.
Neither labour nor conservative have hugely wavered from a policy of attempting to keep tax low while keeping essential services running, since the war (WWII). Neither party has said either "we MUST tax people more to keep the ship afloat" or "we must privatize everything to keep tax low". Some goverments have got close, but these goals have never been explicit or the main policy.
So we have a mess. This has managed to rumble on with 'one nationism' practiced by both parties, but Thatcher ended all that. Thatcher did not change society, but she changed the direction of travel. This was not reversed by Blair (I was hoping it would be, but instead he embraced public/private ownership - a horrible hybrid).
Now, the hard right among the tories have seized a series opportunity offered first by 'The crash', then Covid and Putin, to bring in austerity. What is this supposed to achieve? Shrinkage of the state, a shift in power from state owned enterprises to private. It has been a continuous sequence that involves underfunding state owned enterprises so people criticise them. So what is the end game? It has to be no state ownership and low taxes. But....we have not been told this, have we.
Listening to the 'national conversation' the sense seems to be that the NHS is ruined. And yet the nation is not screaming at the government, demanding money be made available (by increasing tax) to fix it. The understaffing is barely mentioned 'at large', and has been absorbed into the general 'woe is the NHS' narrative. Why is nobody demanding that we swap some Albanians with some Rwandan nurses (fair exchange is no robbery etc). I am being facetious of course. My point is that no solutions are being offered. Think of that!
There is one, of course. Put up tax, pump money into the NHS, and make it much easier for the stream of overseas nurses that used to supplement the workforce to settle in the UK.
Oh, but that means higher taxes and more foreigners.
We have not reached tipping point yet, but it may be just over the horizon. Perhaps if Labour grasp the nettle and offer a clear alternative, a brave one (it will require higher taxes, and also some 'redistribution' of wealth, windfall taxes etc.) there may be some hope. Labour are nailed on to form the next government so I can understand that, if they have a clear plan, they are keeping their powder dry. Any detailed policy announcement will be mocked and ridiculed by those willing to rush to the bottom and pedal any lie to keep the Tories in power. So I don't expect Starmer to reveal any detail till after he's in number ten. Risky.
But if there is a plan, a radical left plan, I shall rejoice. Because we cannot carry on like this, with the impossible fudge where tax is kept low and our institutions collapse. That is a hard right agenda, and one that has astonishingly been accepted as the only way of doing things. That (not cheese imports) is a disgrace.
