Looking back over 2018, our focus was on laying bare the reality of a living under a Conservative government - and how the realities of that are finally becoming visible, released by time, escaping from behind excuses and scapegoats.
Here is our rundown of 2018 in British politics as we saw it and wrote it - and as we see it informing us for the new year ahead.
Ten Years of Conservative Government
The year 2018 marked ten years of Conservatives in government and what that really means is becoming all too clear. Hiding behind the fallout of the Financial Crisis of 2008 that happened on Labour's watch, the Tories always had a handy excuse to deflect criticism.
But it has been a full decade now - and for many, it will be marked as a lost decade. Child poverty and working poverty have risen, hand in hand. Homelessness and indebtedness have risen. Padding out employment statistics has been prioritised over wellbeing, as pay stagnates and precarity rises.
Furthermore, the privatisation and outsourcing drive is being exposed. Plush contracts handed out to private sector profiteers have done little for services, while greedy executives extract public wealth - even as the companies themselves fall apart in a poorly run shambles.
The structure of our services, both public and private, has been allowed to crumble to enrich some few well-connected individuals. The few who profit from hastily assembled companies acting as little more than a front to funnel profit - even as the work is done by largely the same people who have always done the work - before being left to crumble.
Smoke and Mirrors
What the crumbling reality of Britain under the Tories is showing us - beyond the poor state of things under their method and ideology - is how much effort is dedicated to surface phenomena. To keeping up a veneer, rather than dealing with the real, underlying issues.
The 'Northern Powerhouse' is one such issue. Funding shortfalls, cancelled upgrades, rail timetable chaos, entire rail franchises in chaos. The Conservatives time and again put their faith in an empty branding exercise - brands like the 'Northern Powerhouse', and the 'Midlands Engine'.
Empty words. Housing had faced the same trouble. Slogans like 'Right-To-Buy' and 'Help-to-Buy' are a temporary fix, meant to rally someone else to invest so the Tory government doesn't have to - temporary measures that often make things worse in the long run. Look at local government.
From the devolution to regional mayors, to housing policies, to social care, local government has been cut out of the loop and ended up with less funding, even as it has felt greater weight dropped on to it's shoulders - more burdens, more less power and money with which to act.
Too Much Fiction, Not Enough Fact
The Conservatives have hidden so much of this beyond a wall fact-less, and often tactless, political debates. Being well informed is crucial to making good decisions, but the media make that so much harder every day - itself embattled and feeling political and competitive pressures.
So we took to debunking a few of the best laid myths.
We looked at the far right, it's rise and how it has been pinned to the working class - of claimed to be some great movement of the people. The reality is exposed as the far right being a nearly exclusive middle class ideology - one rooted in the fear of the loss of privilege.
This was as true for Brexit as it was for Trump.
Whether those voting for Brexit could see what the future outside the EU would hold or not, you can see this privilege in what a hard Brexit would mean. We laid out the reality of 'WTO terms' as accelerating, not ending, the decline of UK sovereignty at the hands of globalism - for which the WTO was founded to be the point of the spear.
The poorest haven't been given share-enough of the spoils of globalisation and Brexit isn't going to change that. Nor, really will Remaining - not by itself. Without a radical will to reform, all we have in either scenario stagnation and inequality. But while Europe provides framework to try and build something better, Brexit strands us.
Looking forwards
There were hopeful sparks too, in 2018. As hard as that is to believe. The #MeToo movement, the Women's March, and other events, occuring so close to together have the makings of a pivotal historical moment - an expression of women's power, both resistence and progress.
Wars, cold and hot, that have been fought for decades also saw an interruption for peace. Historic cooperation in Korea, a peace agreement between Ethiopia and Eritrea, the Basque paramilitary group ETA finally dissolved, Greece and North Macedonia settled a naming dispute.
These events represent a cropped image of 2018. But what they also represent are slow burning, long negotiated, discussions finally bearing fruit. Hate produces only a brief flash. Rash action, the product of rash thought, puts down no roots. Hate only lasts if we embrace it.
The fight for justice and peace puts down deep roots. Even in a world on fire, there comes a fresh flowering. The New Year will bring opportunities to get back to looking after the common good. The first step towards that isn't a big one. All you need to do is care and get informed.
References
Ten Years of Conservative Government
'Wellbeing has been forgotten in the drive to improve employment statistics'; in The Alternative; 22 January 2018.
'Carillion: When private service providers keep proving so inept and unethical, how can we be asked to back privatisation?'; in The Alternative; 15 January 2018.
'The collapse of Carillion has thrown open the door to Municipalism, but there is work to be done to make it a success'; in The Alternative; 5 February 2018.
Smoke and Mirrors
'The Northern Powerhouse is a smoke-and-mirrors sales pitch to sell the North and it's assets. The North needs something real'; in The Alternative; 4 June 2018.
'Right to Buy is a deeply unequal stopgap, not a solution to the Housing Crisis'; in The Alternative; 11 June 2018.
Too Much Fiction, Not Enough Fact
'The Alternative Debunk: Populism, democracy and where it ends'; in The Alternative; 5 December 2018.
'The Alternative Debunk: Trade, sovereignty and the World Trade Organisation'; in The Alternative; 10 December 2018.
'The Alternative Debunk: Far-right populism, privilege and coming to terms with change'; in The Alternative; 17 December 2018.
No comments:
Post a Comment