I’ve written many times in many posts on this old bloggy about the way the hard won, post-war rights of ordinary people in Britain have been eroded by successive governments since 1979. It’s almost as if those who have historically had everything couldn’t even stand to see ordinary families have the basics. Good education - a reliable, free health service - good policing and decent housing.
The tired pitch is always budget restraints. It beats out like a dull thud on a broken
drum. But oddly there is always money for the things they want. So – early in this election year let’s play the ‘What If
We Had’ game…
To kick off I might start with;
What if we had the £30billion (according to The
Resolution Foundation) lost to the UK economy when Truss’s catastrophic and
right-wing dogma driven autumn budget spooked the markets in 2022
You get the idea – so play along…
What if we had the extra £6 billion for the
underselling of the Post Office (JP Morgan said it was worth 10bn the
government flogged it for just over 4bn)
What if we had even the £1billion Theresa May paid
to the DUP in order to bribe them to help her stay in power.
What if (London) had the £53 million (£43 of public
money) Boris Johnson wasted on his vanity Garden Bridge project.
What if we had the £240+ million spent on the
useless/corrupt/unworkable Rwanda scheme.
What if we had the £22billion allocated to the
useless Test and Trace scheme during covid.
What if we had the £60million profits made by peer
of the realm Michelle Mone through covid profiteering sanctioned by Matt
Hancock.
What if we had the £140 billion (according to
Cambridge Econonometrics – Jan 2024) lost to the UK economy since Brexit.
And so on...
And remember – Osborne’s horrific austerity and the
misery it has caused ordinary working people was justified because of the
2007/08 crash – or banking crisis. ‘Banking crisis’ is another political euphemism
for the greed and mismanagement of fiscal bodies. The loss to the UK economy is
almost incalculable but you bet it’s the poor who are paying and not greedy
bankers or the ministers whose weak policies enabled them.
In 2021 the OBR reported that the cost of the
‘necessary interventions’ i.e. to save banks – alone cost £33billion. So – yes
– what if instead of justifying poverty and misery we had that £33 billion and
some of the very rich who caused that crash had been made to sort through their
off-shore accounts and pay something back…
On a minute scale – families supplementing their
survival with visits to the now ubiquitous food-banks might wonder how they’d
have spent some of the money used to fund Boris Johnson’s covid parities. A recent freedom of information request revealed the cost of alcohol for these illegal
events. According to The Mirror – the covid party drinks bill was £7,897. A tiny amount in terms of the money successive Tory governments have
squandered but possibly looks like a fortune to an ordinary family hit by the
cost of living crisis.
So just remember – next time some Tory twonk gazes into the middle distance and talks
about more and more cuts to public services being painful but necessary and how
they are ‘prepared to take the tough decisions’ it’s only the tough decisions
as relate to people not like themselves…
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