Ideology, NHS funding and money from nothing: Beware politicians bearing gifts

Under Theresa May and Philip Hammond, the Conservative government has continued on from where it left off under David Cameron and George Osborne. Austerity at the top of the agenda, with all else battered before it's ideological wake.

Which makes it all the more remarkable that the Prime Minister at the head of the party of austerity, this weekend, made a pledge to increase NHS funding by £20 billion a year.

How does this happen?

The Conservatives, for sure, in the majority these days ascribe to a "pro-business" ideology. A belief in private sector growth that boosts tax returns, that in turn cuts taxes, that in turn boosts private sector growth.

That is the ideological belief, at least. One that requires the market to play along with the ideal - particularly when the private sector is required to pick up the slack as the public sector is cut back by the government.

However, these ideological ideas must interact with the real world - and with one of the prime movers of compromise in the political sphere: the point at which politics as ideology meets politics as a competition with a lot riding on it.

The Conservatives in government and Labour on the opposition benches have differing ideologies - though the gaps between the two are at times and in places very narrow, and produce primary outcomes that are very similar.

That similarity comes from politics as a high stakes competition. Each party vying to shape public opinion, or to win over the electorate as public opinion stands - shaping what is called the 'centre ground'.

So even as the Tory government cuts with one hand, it looks to deliver a windfall with the other, to shore up electoral support. And, in this case, that means doing precisely that which the party accuses Labour - making large spending commitments, reckless in the absence of a clearly defined statement as to where the money will come from.

But ideology is never far away. Theresa May followed up her offer of new funding with a cautionary word that the health service much watch and account for every penny carefully. And others have pointed out that this injection of cash only brings the NHS back up to level of funding it had between 1948 and 2010 - when the Tories began imposing austerity.

So long as we treat politics like a game of win or lose in the pursuit of power, we can expect belief to be mingled with ambitious pragmatism. And we must remain wary that what we're being sold comes through layers of motivations - especially when it's a windfall of cash with no obvious source.

Little Victories: Tackling energy costs would be a small win with big consequences

Photograph: Power Lines from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

We're living in times of big conflicts. Fascism has reared it's ugly head (in various guises), there are big changes under way in international politics and for the first time in three decades, a nuclear war is again talked about as something that might actually happen. It can all get overwhelming.

If you're feeling overwrought, remember that the big problems are rarely overcome with grandstanding solutions. More often, they're broken down into more manageable problems with little victories adding up to a much more profound and lasting change. As Bobby Kennedy put it:

"Each time a man [sic] stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest wall of oppression and resistance."

That is the task ahead of progressives in Britain: to send out the little ripples that build into a wave. But where to start? One opportunity on the horizon is opening on the cost of living.

Over the summer recess, pressure has been building within the Conservative Party over the May Government's decision to drop promises of tough measures to tackle the energy sector. That pressure is mounting towards a rupture.

On Sunday, 53 Conservative MPs signed a letter to Theresa May that demanded a reinstatement of the energy price pledge - that promised to protect ordinary households from the 'Big Six' energy companies - which was dropped from the Queen's Speech.

This backbench rebellion won't be completely selfless concern. At the last election, Tory MPs caught wind of public unhappiness at the unfair burdens that are being piled onto them. These MPs have to act to save their seats.

But there-in lies an opportunity. 53 rebel MPs is a huge problem for Theresa May, who holds only a slim majority. If the opposition is united, the government will have little choice but to take action or face a possible defeat in the Commons.

In the short term, that might lead to a small material improvement for the most vulnerable households. That in itself would be a welcome and tangible help to people just trying to get by. A small win for a good cause.

Little victories, however, build into much larger ones. Changing the government's direction would also have a much wider and lasting impact. Acting to regulate the energy market strikes a blow against deregulation - the market fundamentalist belief that outcomes are better when oversight and rules are limited.

Acting to regulate the energy market admits market failures. Admits that, left to their own devices, companies in deregulated markets can fall into unfairness and exploitation that produce worse outcomes for the many to the profit of the few.

For those feeling overwhelmed in tumultuous times, this is a grounded cause. A small win for people trying to keep their living costs down, would strike blow against exploitative capitalism. One foot in front of the other, one step at a time.

Easter Recess: Time to take stock and give thought to rising uncertainty

Uncertainty is the new reality. With it comes rising anxiety and the prioritising of gain over wellbeing.

It's the Parliamentary Easter Recess and that means a chance to take a breath, and take stock of the present political situation. In short, uncertainty is fast becoming the new definition of life in Britain.

The formal process of Brexit has begun with the triggering of Article 50, which means the scramble to define the new UK-EU trade relationship has begun. The bill repealing EU laws, and replacing them with UK equivalents, has been announced in a white paper. And, another round of welfare cuts are set to begin.

Each of these, in their own way, is contributing to the rising sense of precarity. Each is serving to shape everyday life, and the grander framework it functions within, around the idea of uncertainty - and it is a deliberate ideological project.

Take for example the most pressing of these, the welfare cuts. Up until now, welfare cuts have been focussed on those at the very bottom, who have little voice and who the right-wing press demands be afforded little sympathy.

However, these latest cuts are going to thrust deep into the soft belly of the middle class. Restrictions to child benefit, to bereavement benefits, and to working age benefits will have real impacts even on people who have so far managed to skirt the impact of austerity (Butler & Asthana, 2017).

From those with a disability to young people, there is something in these changes that is, directly or indirectly, going to affect everyone (Cowburn, 2017). The safety net is being disassembled and the Conservatives are justifying it as a way to 'encourage' people 'back to work'.

The white paper for the so called 'Great Repeal Bill' - a name of unlimited pomposity - has only added fuel to the fire. Human rights groups, like Liberty, have already expressed deep concern at tremendous gaps it found in the paper (Liberty, 2017).

A particular controversy lies with the bill granting the government 'secondary legislation' powers - in theory, the executive power to implement and administer what is required by the primary legislation - over matters being transferred from EU supervision (Owen, 2017).

Critics are warning that this provision risks handing the government the ability to sidestep Parliament in altering legislation (Fowles, 2017). At the least, it will allow the government to shape and direct aspects of the law without proper oversight - a power of huge potential.

Those concerns will be hard to assuage, because the final bill will be so long and dense - "one of the largest legislative projects ever undertaken in the UK" (BBC, 2017). It could take years of Parliamentary time to scrutinise and this government has shown itself to be neither that patient nor transparent.

Conservatism, whatever Theresa May wants to preach about the return of Unionism, has long since given itself over wholly to an aggressive form of laissez-faire capitalism - and the sharpest lesson of that ideology is the belief that growth is achieved by rewarding energy and dynamism and punishing the 'idle' (George & Wilding, 1994).

In other words, to promote limited precarious rewards, directly at the expense of assurance. Through coercive uncertainty, to build profit on the back of anxiety - mistaking gain and accumulation for progress.

And understanding that should make any observer take a pause, consider and ask: what kind of trade deals the Conservatives are willing to drop the EU and the single market in order to negotiate?

The Conservative long term plan is now nearly fully realised. Uncertainty is the new reality. For an increasing number of people that means the life precarious, filled with anxiety about tomorrow, so some few other can exploit them.

What to expect from President Trump? To see how an opportunist backed by the far right will fare in government, look no further than Italy's Silvio Berlusconi

Silvio Berlusconi, through controversies and legal battles, held the position of Prime Minister in Italy for nine years out of seventeen on the political frontline. Photograph: Silvio Berlusconi by paz.ca (License) (Cropped)

If progressives are going to start building a meaningful opposition to the global rise of far right populism, seen most recently in the Trump Presidential Campaign, they first need to understand what they will be standing against. What will the representatives of the far right pursue when actually in office?

When considering what to expect, its important to look to history. For Trump in particular, there are obvious comparisons to Ronald Reagan (Rich, 2016) - though, it seems, except for those who really buy into the Myth of Reagan but don't like Trump, and so want to distance the two as much as possible.

But perhaps a better guide for expectations, both for Trump and beyond, might be the rise of Silvio Berlusconi in Italy in the early 1990s, out of the wreckage of the Italian political system that imploded with the exposure of  huge corruption under the Mani Pulite investigation.

Amidst massive political disillusionment and a global downturn, a seeming outsider, with business credentials, and in alliance with parties of the far right, put themselves forward as the champion of the populist opposition to the corrupt old establishment - despite plenty of their own legal battles, to which their support seems immune.

Sound familiar? Trump's rise mirrors Berlusconi's own route to power. The media chief, and chairman of football club AC Milan, began his long relationship with political power in Italy at the head of his party Forza Italia - named for a popular football chant.

If that does not say enough, as a measure of the man consider that Berlusconi once claimed, with extravagant outrage, that one of his longest running political opponents, Romano Prodi, called him a drunk during a 2006 election debate - and offered him a "no, you are" in return (Popham, 2006). What Prodi had actually said was:

"He uses statistics like a drunk uses lamp-posts, more for support than illumination."

For those who want decency and reason in the political arena, this level of obfuscating outrage is infuriating. When a political candidate is willing to twist anything, to play whatever role happens to be convenient to the relevant situation, coherency be damned, it makes it impossible to get to grips with what that candidate actually believes - and so to have a meaningful political exchange.

But whether that was what he actually believes is besides the point. What that exchange presented was an opportunity. And the seizing of such opportunities defined Berlusconi's career - as it does Trump's as well.

Silvio Berlusconi rose to power on the back of a career as a media personality, a celebrity, just as much as he did on his career in business. His media company took on the establishment and broke through the state owned monopoly on broadcasting - though in part thanks to his connections in that very same government establishment.

And when that - again, very same - government establishment collapsed amidst one of the biggest political corruption scandals ever seen, Berlusconi took to the political field - despite his own connections and the spreading of investigations into his own businesses (The Economist, 2001).

Berlusconi promised to keep Italy pro-Western and pro-Market, create a million new jobs and protect the country from the communists - the Italian Communist Party successor, the Democrats of the Left, were virtually the last party standing in the Italian political system after the corruption scandal.

The coalition he put together to achieve those promises - with the separatist Lega Nord in the North and the post-fascist Alleanza Nazionale in the South - backed by a massive publicity campaign on his own TV channels, received the most votes and seats in the 1994 Italian general election.

His first government collapsed after only nine months, torn apart by its own internal contradictions. Yet, though often with only a tenuous grip, Berlusconi returned to power time after time, with rebuilt coalitions that pushed the same mix of social conservatism and economic neoliberalism.

And he was never far from controversy. Berlusconi was accused of being sexism in Italy's most powerful apologist, as his personal life often spilling over into the political and even sparking protests (Marshall, 2016). His legal troubles also followed him constantly.

The same kinds of fate are now being predicted for Trump's Administration, as he tries to marry his misogynist and nativist support with the Republican mainstream - itself a contradictory collections of libertarians and nativist Christian nationalists.

Just as legal scandals chased Berlusconi throughout his career, they're likely also to follow Trump. With numerous cases still outstanding against him, some commentators are even predicting that Trump may ultimately end up being impeached by the Republican-controlled Congress (Oppenheim, 2016).

The election of Trump answered one question to which the answer was already known: that negative campaigning is used because it works - even, it seems, in its most extreme forms. It also drew parallels between Trump and Berlusconi, that suggest that far right populism is unlikely to hurt the Reagan-esque tax-cutting, laissez-faire, pro-business establishment.

But what about about in Europe, where far right parties have pushed their way into the mainstream with fewer compromises and mainstream alliances? As with Trump, promises of social conservatism, anti-immigration and harsh law and order policies have abounded. Yet on economic policy, the stances of far right movements have been inconsistent.

Trump's one elaborated economic policy was for a massive tax cut. That matches up with UKIP's policies, which have historically leaned toward less compromising version of Conservative manifestos, with tax cuts, especially for those at the top and large amounts of deregulation.

Yet while Trump has hinted at protectionism, it has been more strongly pushed in Europe. For instance, Front National have travelled over time from aggressively, anti-welfare, 'parasite' opposing, Reagan neoliberals, to ardent advocates of state control and protectionism (Shields, 2007).

Other far right parties in Europe, such as the Freedom Party of Austria and the Party for Freedom of the Netherlands, or elements of the Five Star Movement in Italy, have expressed a kind of national liberalism, to which the French Front National seems aligned.

The parties are standing, ostensibly, to 'protect' their 'national values', which have over time extended to include liberal tolerance, particularly of native homosexual and Jewish communities; and attempted to reconcile what amounts to 'national welfare', claiming to expel outsiders from the system, with the neoliberal capitalist system.

These positions express profound contradictions: between the rousing of intolerance and promises of social protection, and between deep connections to the low tax, low regulation and big business neoliberal order and promises of economic protection.

Berlusconi showed that these contradictions can be maintained, though not without difficulty and obvious fragility, over a long political career. So whichever way these parties break, caught between intolerant, nationalist and statist demands and their neoliberal connections, progressives need to have a strong argument that counters the flaws of both. And that argument needs to bring together radicals and moderates, democrats and liberals.

Justice, Liberty and Progress; equality, cooperation and sustainability; these values drive progressives. The far right stands opposed to them, picking and choosing between them as it suits their cause. Progressives need to unite around them - whether against neoliberalism or nationalism, as both are disastrous.

Petty squabbles are the opportunities that the Berlusconis and Trumps exploit. They disillusion the public and open the doors to opportunists and extremists. That pattern needs to end, in the name supporting those made most vulnerable by the rise of such forces: women, minorities, refugees, immigrants and the impoverished.

Britain's tented Hoovervilles show the reality of the humanitarian crisis behind the debt and deficit obsession of the Great Recession

Desperation, in the time of recession and austerity, has led to tented encampments springing up across the UK. This one lies a stones throw from Manchester Piccadilly station.

Iain Duncan Smith framed his resignation as the drastic last straw of a reformer, who's efforts were curtailed by the Chancellor's obsession with austerity (Asthana & Stewart, 2016; Peston, 2016). Whatever the true conviction behind the claim, it highlights something incredibly important.

The economic crisis, to which the Conservatives have ever been keen to keep the eye drawn in the last six years, has masked a wider humanitarian crisis. Only one small moment of the Chancellor's budget statement was devoted to it. He told Members of Parliament that:

"Because under this Government we are not prepared to let people be left behind, I am also announcing a major new package of support worth over £115 million to support those who are homeless and to reduce rough sleeping."

The government tried hard during the election the evade the issue, despite attempts to confront the PM directly with the fact that rising numbers of people were using food banks (Channel 4, 2015; Worrall, 2015). Yet the fact remains that homelessness is still rising (Gentleman, 2016).

In his response to the budget, Jeremy Corbyn welcomed the Chancellor's package of assistance, but stressed that rising homelessness was the result of desperate under-investment by the Conservative government (BBC, 2016{2}). A lack of investment which had starved local government of the resources to help and housing associations of the capacity to offer shelter.

While the Chancellor's budget did offer some funds to 'reduce rough sleeping', it was in reality much less than he previously cut from housing support - estimated at only "£1 in every £5" by Shadow Housing Minister John Healey (Healey, 2016).

It is, however, something more than the approach of some local councils to rough sleeping, which has been less than humanitarian (Ellis-Petersen, 2015). Yet even harsh measures haven't been enough to stop the emergence of small, and not so small, shanty towns springing up in places like Manchester, like the Hoovervilles of the 1920s and 1930s.

Europe and the other half of the crisis

The living encamped amongst the dead, along the Rue Richard through the Cimetière du Montparnasse, in Southern Paris, where tents line the road.

On the face of it, the fact that this is as much a broader European as a specifically British problem, may seem to exonerate the Chancellor and his policies. After all, it would be unfair to blame Osborne for the living lodging amongst the dead on the Rue Richard, at the Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris.

Yet while Osborne has no part in French system - where, in response to their own crisis, supermarkets are no longer being allowed to throw away surplus food and must donate it instead to help those in need of handouts (Derambarsh, 2016) - he does have a role in the other half of the crisis.

War on Europe's borders has led to a second element of the humanitarian crisis: an influx of refugees, for which Europe was not necessarily lacking in resources to tackle, but certainly appeared unprepared. With the British government unwilling to take on the burden of the refugees, a camp sprang up on the British border at Calais.

That camp grew to become a large slum town, administered by aid workers running soup kitchens and handing out charitable donations. But even that temporary solution could not last and the camp is now being broken up, by force, in order to disperse the refugees (Weaver & Walker, 2016).

Hoover and the Great Depression

As President, Herbert Hoover oversaw the Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression. Photograph: Herbert Hoover by Opus Penguin (License) (Cropped)

Osborne's approach, pulling back the state and public investment and looking to free markets and civil society to step in to the breach, has made him seem like a man more concerned about balancing his chequebook than acting in the face of a crisis. With that image, he risks receiving the same reputation that marred President Hoover during the Great Depression, as a 'do-nothing' (Leuchtenburg, 2009).

It isn't hard to draw comparisons between some key aspects of the approaches of George Osborne and Herbert Hoover. As US Secretary of Commerce, for two administrations between 1921 and 1928, Hoover was a follower of the efficiency movement - pursuing the ridding of inefficiency and waste from the economy (Hawley, 2006).

As when Osborne's Conservatives came to power in 2010 advocating for a 'Big Society' (Rigby, 2016), Hoover believed that the means of achieving his economic aims was 'volunteerism', as opposed to direction from government - trusting to, and nominally supporting, individual initiative, typified by his role as director of American charitable relief efforts in post-war Europe, particularly in Belgium.

His subsequent time as President, from 1929 and 1933, was however overshadowed by the Wall Street Crash and the beginning of the Great Depression that saw the poor of New York living in Central Park in tented encampments - one of many American shanty towns that became known as 'Hooverville'.

Hoover made more effort than previous Presidents to arrest the severe economic downturn, including some public works projects. And then (Gray, 1993), as now (Pidd, 2016), civil society stepped up to provide aid and relief. Yet when the election came, Franklin D Roosevelt won, and with his New Deal coalition led the United States for four terms, with a comprehensive and interventionist plan to support and rebuild.

While Osborne avoided the stigma of the crisis hitting on his watch, he has also avoided intervention. Instead he has cut public spending - saying that the roof must be fixed "while the sun is shining". Amidst years of economic turmoil and cuts to social security, while statistics say homelessness has continued to rise (Gentleman, 2016), its difficult to see an application for his maxim.

The cracks and those slipping through

The advent of these modern day Hooverville encampments suggest that there is an unacceptable break down in the welfare safety nets in Britain, in France and elsewhere in Europe. Not all of this can be put down to the pressures of the refugee crisis. There are cracks appearing and people are slipping through.

Throwing money at suppressing the symptoms is not enough. It won't tackle the core problems. As much as the Conservatives want the focus to be on the public debt, in order to justify their agenda, private debt is just as large of a problem. Individuals are hanging on by their fingernails, stretched thin by the high cost of living.

Housing is prohibitively expensive. The cost of energy needs to come down. Work for the lowest paid is too insecure and the safety net too full of holes. George Osborne doesn't have to become a believer in a big  interventionist state overnight to help. At the very least something might be done with small reforms, aimed at properly regulating the energy and housing industry to prevent anti-competitive behaviour and price gouging.

Above all that, Osborne might benefit from accepting a single simple lesson, one that most austerians should take note of: the bad times inevitably end up costing far more than the good.

In Argentina, Macri's broad Centre coalition secured the Presidency. Yet the question remains: when can the Left cut ties with neoliberals to pursue truly radical reforms?

Mauricio Macri, pictured casting his vote in the August primaries, united the Centre-Right and Centre-Left opposition to defeat the Kirchner candidate and become the first non-Peronist, non-UCR President. Photograph: Mauricio Macri vota by Mauricio Macri (License) (Cropped)

After twelve years in power, the Kirchnerist faction of the Peronist movement, in the form of the Partido Justicialista, lost their grip on the Presidency of Argentina (Watts & Goni, 2015). In the second round of voting Mauricio Macri, leading the broad centre coalition Cambiemos, defeated the Justicialista, and former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, backed Frente para la Victoria candidate Daniel Scioli (BBC, 2015).

Macri's victory has been received positively as, possibly, the beginning for a new moderate Argentina (Cottle, 2015). And yet, while neoliberals, in particular, rejoice in a pro-market victory, Macri's Presidency has only come with the complicity of the centre-left, specifically the Union Civica Radicale (UCR, Radical Civic Union).

That tentative alliance raises the question of whether, sooner or later, those with Left-wing tendencies, particularly within UCR, will feel the need to go their own way - though there is a lot of work ahead before a progressive slate could win without some sort of agreement with, or against, the Peronist movement.

Not the least consideration is that the election of the conservative liberal Mauricio Macri will not, alone, be enough to change the direction of Argentina. Although, the defeat of Kirchner's populist Peronist candidate - which has brought a positive response from neoliberal pro-market voices - has been regarded as a new turn for Argentina and, possibly a little optimistically, the overthrow of populism (Rodriguez-Brizuela, 2015).

While the Peronists are still the largest group in the Congress, that may shift over the course of Macri's term as half of the Chamber of Deputies is elected every two years in legislative elections. And the efforts already launched by Macri at tackling Argentina's immense economic challenges have received praise (The Economist, 2016). So, for the moment, the momentum is with Macri.

However, Macri's support came from a coalition primarily divided between the Centre-Right party Propuesta Republicana (Republican Proposal, PRO) and the Centre-Left party Union Civica Radical - backed by a mix of supporters from across the centre (The Argentina Independent, 2015). So what of Macri's Radical partners?

Despite the party's name, the UCR is a moderate centre-left party, seen by the harder Left as bourgeois, that has for decades been caught between other factions. The traditional opponents of the Peronists, some internal and breakaway factions such as the Radicales K have nonetheless found themselves sometimes allies with Peronist factions, in pursuit of reforms that promise social justice and improvements to the lives of citizens (La Nacion, 2006).

Yet the authoritarian character of the Justicialista - with fears ranging from electoral fraud to intimidation and suppression of the press, along with policies like the confiscation of pension funds to plug financial holes (Marty, 2015; Crandall, 2012) - seems to have helped align the UCR with the opposition. That has led the UCR on the path joining Cambiemos, despite its mainstream, globalising, neoliberal approach (Rodriguez, 2015).

Now, it would not be a surprise to see the election of 2015 presented as a contest between the market and the state. Yet in reality, it was more after the fashion of the statist, populist and nationalist Peronists, holding a long-term authoritarian grip on power, versus a broad opposition, that Macri has succeeded in rallying around his open and 'neoliberal' way - that embraces the global system.

That is a story replicated across Europe in different shades - liberals and social democrats shackled to the neoliberal mainstream, in the face of rising fear and nationalism, rallying to protect positive gains embodied in the the establishment institutions. So why, the question might well be asked, would or should the Centre-Left consider breaking away from the Centre-Right? It is certainly clear that the global economic crisis is not over and that populist nationalism has not retreated - even in Argentina after its defeat.

The answer is because, ultimately, neoliberalism is no friend to social progress.

For all his moderate liberal credentials, as Mayor of Buenos Aires Mauricio Macri behaved in a typically neoliberal way - defunding social programs in search of competition at the expense of social security (Esperanza Casullo, 2015). And Argentina's Macrinomic path out of its present crisis will likely follow the same austerian path as many countries in Europe - particularly the UK under George Osborne Chancellorship.

But that doesn't mean that some overnight, clean break is imminent. Progressives in Argentina must build gradually towards an unshackling, because the election demonstrated that there is not yet much of a political space for a radical alternative to Peronist statism or the neoliberal market. Yet Macri's election has levered open the door and progressives must step into that new space to develop a fresh consensus around a just, sustainable and liberating alternative, amenable to the building of broad Left movement.

Junior doctors strike ballot exposes reality of human cost behind Tory laissez-faire

Junior Doctors at Castlefields Arena in October, taking part in the People's Assembly Take Back Manchester protest march that was held in parallel with the Conservative Party Conference.

Last week ended with news that ballots had been sent out a for vote on whether doctors should go on strike (The Guardian, 2015). The decision follows the latest developments in the dispute between junior doctors and Conservative Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt (The Economist, 2015).

With Prime Minister's Questions as a back drop, Hunt attempted to see off possible strike action with an offer of higher pay to junior doctors (Campbell, 2015). Yet his offer of an 11% rise was heavily criticised for being massively offset by the redefining of working hours to run longer into the evening - cutting what could previously be defined as out-of-hours pay during anti-social hours.

A vote for industrial action will surely reignite the tense clashes between government and unionised public servants that have been so much a feature of the Cameron ministries. As with the tube strikes, fears over long shifts worked during anti-social hours have led to stand offs and tense meetings between public sector union leaders and Conservative government ministers (BBC, 2015; Cooper, 2015).

For the Conservatives, their response has been consistent. They have refused point blank to see the human impact of political and economic decisions. The approach of the Right over the last five years has been to simply dismiss or condemn public servant strikes as "irresponsible" and inappropriate (BBC, 2011; Wardrop, 2011; Evening Standard, 2015).

Yet Conservative decisions are having profound affects upon the lives of many people, not least public servants. There have been public sector and private sector job losses, a more frightening prospect for many as unemployment support has also been cut and restricted, and invasive pressures have been put upon public servants.

From doctors to tube workers, to low pay workers, the balance between work and life is being drastically tipped by a lurching grasping attempt by the market to snatch up the personal time of citizens (Jeffries, 2014; The Guardian, 2015). Hours are running longer and later, more temporary and more insecure. Refusal runs the risk of dismissal in favour of someone who will accept the conditions.

On the Conservative part, there is a denial of responsibility. As Conservatives shift the duties and burdens onto the individual, they stand by their laissez-faire position that it is not the place of the state to 'interfere' with how markets are shaping people's lives.

Yet the Conservative use of the laissez-faire approach does not seem to reflect its liberal origins. The difference between laissez-faire in the hands of the Liberals of old and the Conservatives of today, is that the Liberals saw work as a means to personal self-improvement and liberation.

In pursuit of those aims, of ensuring that "individual men and women may have life, and that they might have it more abundantly", Liberals moved away from laissez-faire - towards a more interventionist approach - when the realities of exploitation and poverty where exposed. The ideological and economic ground they abandoned has been occupied by the Conservatives.

In Conservative hands the high aims of laissez-faire look more like propaganda. The economy, as they're managing it, is hugely unequal. Their 'apparent' prosperity is built around the statistical distortion caused by the concentrated wealth of the 1% - through property and other assets holding inflated value - and through "competitiveness" - where investors and employers can be guaranteed cheap labour, from workers who live increasingly fragile and temporary lives filled with stress and anxiety.

This is laissez-faire within a strictly hierarchical, deeply unequal, conservatism organisation of society. A society where free time is treated as the privileged reward of success in a system based around wealth, assets and property. That system locks out the poor and the unfortunate, who have no chance of owning property at grossly inflated prices and for whom social progress requires some combination of debt, nepotism and extreme good fortune (Mason, 2015).

What the junior doctors are campaigning for affects all citizens. Safely run services and respect for the rights of citizens to lives outside of work. It isn't unreasonable to put alongside to those demands the right to some sort of security & consistency, and a guarantee against poverty, as demands on workers become greater and the safety nets to protect them become thinner.

The market may have competition but it is not fair, particularly in a society suffering from massive inequality. For a government to choose to stand by as people are stretched thin, used up & exploited, or cast recklessly adrift by market forces is for it to neglect its duty to social welfare. Whether they like it or not, Conservatives have to face to fact that the state has a duty to interfere and that it can do so for the common good.

Intervention doesn't have to mean state ownership. There are decentralised alternatives like co-operatives and a citizen's income that could empower workers and make them more secure. But what it does mean, is that a government has to be prepared to act and to look beyond the appearance of prosperity, as reflected in short term profits, to find better alternatives.