Employment isn't a simple matter - the numbers hide complex picture of poverty, precarity and the need for opportunity

The government's favourite fallback when criticised is to turn to the employment figures. Theresa May pulled the figures out at last week's PMQs, saying that she noticed the opposition leader hadn't raised the subject with her.

But the government's excitement about those figures is hard to square with the reality of life in this economy for ordinary workers.

The fact that the dominant corporate culture in Britain sees it as a viable strategy to lay off thousands of workers in 'restructuring', explains a lot about how most of the people in poverty in Britain can be in work - suffering in poverty despite having paying jobs.

Employment may be high, but big questions remain about the quality of employment. Retail may not be work that produces the greatest satisfaction, but it does provide opportunities for those who need them most - like a ladder to management experience and the stability that can provide.

The latest threat to that slender social mobility ladder is the restructuring happening at Tesco, where unions are afraid that as many of 15,000 jobs are going to be cut, some two dozen per store - more job losses at the firm, that follow on from some ten thousand others lost in the last four years.

Uncertainty and precarity are becoming the norm. Average wages remain below what they were in 2010. Income equality in Britain continues to decline. And amidst these pressures, the welfare safety net has been diminished. This is the pattern that lies hidden behind the employment figures.

Over time, of course employment won't stay the same. Some kinds of work will disappear and others will replace them. Perhaps, over time, work itself will change beyond recognition - to no longer be the 'work to live' system we are familiar with. But it will change.

It isn't good enough for Conservatives to preach innovation, to preach flexibility. That approach is leaving people with no stability and rising anxiety. Trapped in a precarious working life that isn't rewarding people. There has to be a better way.

Brexit looms, hovering menacingly over everything, threatening to diminish workers rights and job security, ordinary people need reassurances about the future. The old ladders to prosperity for working class people are being kicked down.

It's no good talking up the figures when thousands are facing layoffs. What people need is to be able to depend upon practical support when they lose work, and the same as they try to develop the skills to find a new path forward. To know that there are paths they can take, opportunities for a stable life.

That means more intervention and more guidance. More communication, to let people know where the paths are and what people will need on those roles. This is only the beginning of what is needed, but in a time of crisis you have to deal with the emergency first.

The Alternative Year: Behind the facade, the reality of Conservative government is finally laid bare with smoke and mirrors dismissed

It seems each year in recent times seems keen to outdo the last for crises and calamity. It is a long few years now that progressives have been looking for the tide to change, for a chance to get Britain moving forward again.

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.

The disappearance of high street retail jobs hurts working class most, taking away crucial ladder to opportunities

In the year 2000, the European Union issued it's Lisbon Strategy.The plan, under then President of the European Commission Romano Prodi, was to prepare Europe for the 'knowledge economy', in which the continent was to be the skill and knowledge centre for the world.

The advance of technology on the high street is part of what that strategy was preparing for - to transition to a position where low skill work was done by machines, giving people more time, education and training needed  to prepare for more technical and high skilled work.

The problem across Europe, including here in Britain, is that the expansion of skills, education and the opportunities to exploit them - necessary to making this transition work for the working class - hasn't happened.

Low skill work is going away, but it's loss is only hindering the working class. In the past year alone in Britain, twenty two thousand high street retail jobs have been cut. Many more are planned. With them, crucially, goes job and income security for the working class.

And it's not just shop floor work. Management positions are being lost too. With them goes the ladder that working class people could, in the past, have climbed towards greater opportunities with more responsibility and higher pay - the entry level access point to a well paying career.

Now. The decline of any particular market sector is not, by itself, a disaster - so long as opportunities for people to make a living continue to appear to offset the losses of security of work & income, and that ladder to opportunity.

However, the stats do not look great. While unemployment is at a forty year low, working poverty is high. Child poverty is high. Precarious work is high. Security of income is under threat at a time when pay has not yet recovered from the long post-2008 slump.

Moving to a knowledge economy is the right direction. But only if it takes working class people with it. Abolishing entry level work to reduce corporate bottom lines at the expense of the poorest and most vulnerable is despicable.

Without a framework of education and training, and a responsive social security network - built around a reliable means of making a living and a flexible income guarantee for a volatile, and frequently 'gig' oriented, economy - the transition becomes a step backward, techology in the hands of business again reducing people rather than elevating them.

And elevation is the point. Liberation is the point. If technology is not going to free us, increasing our capacities and opportunities, then what is the point of it?

The Alternative Year: It's the little victories that keep us moving forward

Twenty Seventeen was... a year. While 2016 was always going to be tough act to follow, 2017 really did it's darnedest - and it was certainly eventful. Sequels are always difficult, but last year had turned many people numb.

But a lot that happened in 2017 that was important - and some of it was even positive. So here's our breakdown of four of the big political themes in Britain, Europe and around the world this year as The Alternative covered them - and a fifth point, in spirit of the season, looking forward.

I. Election of Opportunity

Theresa May wanted to cement seven years of Tory government with the certainty of five more years with a majority and saw an opening when polls put her a long way out front. Luckily for anyone sick to their teeth with the Tories, the election didn't go the way she thought it would.

The unnecessary election backfired. Theresa May survived the blow but it very nearly knocked her out of 10 Downing Street. Over the campaign, Corbyn's Labour made up a staggering amount of ground and proved it could win. The rhetoric had been wrong, the Corbyn brand was electable.

Theresa May, now without a majority, clung on to power with a coalition deal with the DUP - the Democratic Unionist Party, of Northern Ireland. Gone were the frills of the manifesto and in was a billion in extra funding for Northern Ireland.

Facing her in May and June was a resurgent Labour, led by Jeremy Corbyn who was found to be more at home on the campaign trail than under the spotlights. But May also faced a patched up, locally-led, progressive alliance.

It wasn't the scale of cooperation that some hoped for (The Alternative, for instance), but it was a remarkable step that made a difference in a few of close battles. As a trial run, it showed promise for what alliance might achieve in the future.

Between Corbyn and the Progressive Alliance, it showed that the left had found how to win. But it was a beginning that needs an end. It's a job that needs finishing.

'General Election 2017: The Alternative guide to a critical general election for Britain'; in The Alternative; 8 May 2017.

'Election 2017: Is this the Progressive Alliance moment? It's up to you'; in The Alternative; 19 April 2017.

'General Election 2017 - A hopeful night for progressives: It's time to do opposition right'; in The Alternative; 9 June 2017.

'Queen's Speech: Theresa May has her DUP pact. What comes next for the Progressive Alliance in opposition?'; in The Alternative; 26 June 2017.

II. The Far Right Returns

Photograph: Bundestag by Hernán Piñera in 2011 (License)

And the left learning how to win again could not come at a better time, because the far right is back. It had been creeping up for years. UKIP. Brexit. That President. Cracks were appearing and the far right was beginning to slip itself through them. The presence of a far right party in the German Bundestag was only the latest warning.

In 2017, the far right began to win seats in European parliaments in earnest. And yet, everywhere they fell short of power. The far right failed to make the breakthroughs it was hoping for - despite apparently hefty backing from Russia, which was finally called out by leaders in Berlin and in Westminster.

In the Netherlands, in France, in Germany and in Britain, far right parties have not been able to breach a barrier at around 13% of the vote. For all the rhetoric of a 'far right surge', they're a long way from convincing the people of Europe to turn back the clock.

In these defeats of the far right, centrists and progressives were left with feelings of relief - and often proclaimed them loudly. But there is no future in that feeling. Progressives need real reasons for optimism, based on good ideas that take hold in the public imagination.

'Relief as Far Right falls short in Dutch election, but there's no future in that feeling: Progressives need reasons for optimism'; in The Alternative; 20 March 2017.

'French Legislative Elections: Macron's ascent asks a tough question of social democrats and social liberals'; in The Alternative; 20 June 2017.

'What next for Merkel and Germany?'; in The Alternative; 25 September 2017.

III. Neoliberalism Hanging On

Photograph: Emmanuel Macron campaign poster 'Macron President' in Paris by Lorie Shaull (License) (Cropped)

So far, the fact that far right has fallen short of power has been claimed as a victory for a certain kind of centrism and it's neoliberal hegemony - particularly in the case of President of France Emmanuel Macron.

But the yellow tide is not what it seems. Neoliberals are still winning the way they did in the 90s - by lethargy. With no better option, neoliberalism will continues to be the bitter pill that is accepted.

Neoliberalism is getting and staying in power aided by abstention as disinterest prevails and because the far right remains just repulsive enough that people are not persuaded by populist nationalism.

If neoliberal leaders are a bulwark, then they're a mossen edifice - an wooden post stood amid turbulent seas, sheltering a small pool of stagnant waters. It is the job of progressives to use the, relative, calm that this to come up with better ideas.

'The Yellow Tide isn't what it seems: The neoliberal centre has depended upon abstention and prevails amid disinterest'; in The Alternative; 10 July 2017.

'Macron and Popularity: The President of France has yet to win a sceptical public back over to the political process'; in The Alternative; 4 September 2017.

'German Elections: Angela Merkel will be the stern, bleak but sturdy breakwater people accept amidst interminable turmoil'; in The Alternative; 21 September 2017.

'Argentina midterms raise the question: What's so funny about compassionate realism?'; in The Alternative; 13 November 2017.

'Italian Left: Upheavals reveal progressive cross-section - struggle between pro-European current and rejection of neoliberalism. Can they be reconciled?'; in The Alternative; 11 December 2017.

IV. Seven Years of Tory Government

Photograph: Theresa May in Estonia in September 2017, by Arno Mikkor/EU2017EE (License)

It seemed that when Theresa May took over, she was at least willing to acknowledge that raw austerity thinking was hurting rather than helping. She voiced her belief in the Unionism of Joseph Chamberlain and promised a shared society - social harmony with a square deal for those who mucked in.

There has been little evidence of it in policy and the facts tell a sorry story about the state of Britain. While the government scapegoats anyone it can find, lives are becoming precarious and uncertain. Vulnerable people are squeezed of their benefits and poverty, including child poverty, is rising.

Poverty, real despair and destitution, has returned to visibility on the streets of the Britain. Only this week, in the run up to Christmas, are exposes being run on just how widespread poverty is - even among the working people Tories call the 'deserving'.

A fundamental component of the social contract has been broken by the Conservatives. Even with their heinous rhetoric towards the poor, that tries to draw lines between the deserving and undeserving, they at least maintain the semblance of offering a square deal in return for work. So where is it?

Work is precarious and poorly paid. Homes are expensive and even renting is getting out of reach. Prices of even basic goods are rising faster than wages. Personal debts are getting higher. The poor - those considered by Tories deserving and undeserving alike - are paying a heavy toll for realisation of the Conservative vision. Where is the fair deal?

'Unionism: What is Mrs May pitching?'; in The Alternative; 16 January 2017.

'Conservative's callous attitude to disability benefits underlines the reasons to embrace principles behind universal welfare'; in The Alternative; 27 February 2017.

'Asylum distribution scandal less about immigration and more about inequality'; in The Alternative; 10 April 2017.

'Pay Cap: Hammond focus on 'overpaid' public sector workers is just a distraction from Tories failing those in private sector'; in The Alternative; 17 July 2017.

'The reality of austerity Britain: work and life are now poor, precarious and uncertain'; in The Alternative; 23 October 2017.

'Affordable Housing: That seven years of government was nearly reduced to a bitter meme reflects disappointment with Conservative broken promises'; in The Alternative; 27 November 2017.

'The government social mobility commission resigns in protest at lack of progress on 75th anniversary of the Beveridge Report'; in The Alternative; 4 December 2017.

V. Little Victories

Changing things for the better, in the long run will not be the result of grandstanding. It will be hard fought and hard won, by thousands of people on a thousand issues, little victories that add up to a much bigger sense of momentum.

At times, the forces arrayed against progress can seem overwhelming. But for progressives, it's how things have always been. All we can do is pitch in. Start small. Begin by making the little differences that are within our reach.

There have been small victories in 2017. For instance, in Barcelona the municipal government began fining energy companies for cutting off the supply to vulnerable households. It's a small change. But it could make a practical difference and in communities across Europe, there will be stories like this. Little actions that, together, can build into a bigger change of the tide.

At the end of our "The Alternative Year" for 2016, we said that the lesson for 2017 was that social progressives remain the majority, their ideas can win, can engage and can empower. 2017 was a step forward on that road. Let's hope 2018 sees these truths lead to breakthroughs and, as ever, The Alternative be back in the New Year doing the best we can.

'Little Victories: Tackling energy costs would be a small win with big consequences'; in The Alternative; 21 August 2017.

'World on Fire: This week just shows how important empowered local government and international cooperation really are'; in The Alternative; 14 August 2017.

The reality of austerity Britain: work and life are now poor, precarious and uncertain

People gather in Manchester to march against austerity past the Conservative Party Conference 2017.

The reality of the Tories' austerity Britain was exposed in the figures released last week. Those figures revealed that wage growth remains poor at 2.2%, barely above pre-crash levels and falling behind consumer prices rises, with inflation now at 2.9%.

But what do these figures tell us about the big picture of austerity Britain?

Consider Theresa May's response when confronted on issues like poor wages - unemployment is falling. Whenever the PM is confronted, she turns to the unemployment/employment figures. The trouble is, you can't just say that employment is in itself a fix.

Especially when it evidentially isn't the case. Britain might have it's highest recorded employment and lowest unemployment, but what do we know about the quality of life that is providing? What we know, is that working poverty is now very high.

There is no essential truth that employment fixes people's problems or empowers them. Work can only bring liberty under certain conditions.

And austerity Britain is a land of precarity, where social security has been replaced with - or perhaps, outsourced to - uncertain and scarce low paid work. All of which is now threatened by automation, and pits ordinary people against each other in long applicant lists.

This is only heightened by the flaming wreckage of the welfare system. People in need are left without support, and in mounting arrears, for a month and a half when claim out of work support - a situation the government are struggling to even convince there own party to support.

Inevitably, Brexit comes into this. It is important that the ideological case behind leaving the European Union was never made clear. But it's argument for 'freer trade' and less regulation, is a pitch to go further down the road on which we currently travel - to a place of permanently less surety or stability.

But why would those who have campaigned so hard for Brexit want this?

Pete North, Editor of LeaveHQ, blogged how - what he himself described as - the long, painful years of austerity still to come, will in fact be a price worth paying (by ordinary people whose lives would be left in tatters) to accomplish a kind of vague social change, that displayed for more ignorance about young people than any comprehensive thought on the subject.

The governments of David Cameron and Theresa May have pledged a more compassionate conservatism, that takes care of those most in need, while being responsible with the public finances. They have been failures on both fronts.

None of their measures have delivered on even one of these aims. The debt continues to climb. Meeting deficit targets is still delayed. All the pain of austerity and ordinary lives dropped in uncertainty, and the government has nothing to show for it - neither in the public finances or in producing a compassionate society.

Seven years of Conservative government has been a diastrous experiment. It's time to get off this road and find a new way forward.

Pay Cap: Hammond focus on 'overpaid' public sector workers is just a distraction from Tories failing those in private sector

Photograph: NATO Summit Wales 2014 by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (License) (Cropped)

After a month of being pummelled over the issue, the Chancellor Philip Hammond tried to reframe the issue of public sector pay cap debate. The core of Hammond's approach was to draw a comparison.

That comparison says that workers in the public sector have it good compared to what those in the private sector were dealing with. Don't be fooled. The Tory angle on public sector pay is a distraction. One that covers for the party's failure to deliver for private sector workers.

In the private sector, low pay and precarity prevail. Working poverty is a reality in 2017.

And the Tories response is to using poor conditions in the private sector to justify undermining conditions in the public sector. And, in time, be sure that pitting workers against one another in envy will be turned back to the further diminishing of the conditions of those in the private sector.

The Conservatives do continue to speak of these restraints on pay, and low pay, as if they are temporary. A part of a restructuring process. But their intended solutions stink of permanence or a lack of vision that narrows their view to piecemeal policy solutions.

For instance, when Justine Greening, the Education Minister, addressed a social mobility conference. She told them that the government's plan was to tailor education towards giving people the high-level skills they needed to achieve their own advancement.

She promised a meritocracy. A system that rewarded hard work with advancement.

But that pledge is belied by the economy under the Tories. Yes, unemployment is down according to statistics (with some glaring flaws). But it isn't a coincidence that unemployment is down while self-employment, second jobs and precarity are all on the rise.

It is something that can be seen clearest in those places where Thatcher's dismantlement of the public sector industries hit hardest. Having skills and the will to work hard isn't enough. Social mobility begins with money. With huge, long term investment.

It isn't enough to pursue personal empowerment, expanding knowledge and skills, if they're are rendered impotent by their environment. Putting achievement down to personal work ethic is an evasion. An excuse not to reform. There can be no piecemeal solutions.

Only holistic, joined up approaches will make a difference. Only coordinating trade unions and worker's rights, a universal welfare settlement that counters precarity, and tackling the cost of living - and many other aspects - will address the deep problems in Britain.

And the Conservatives that have shown this is not, and will not, be their approach. To them, it appears, the struggle - held at bay by 'dependence creating' community support - carries a moral worth.

The world of work is changing. Perhaps even making towards its end. For progressives, an ideology that praises an anxious, desperate struggle for being a test of moral character is not a safe framework for ushering in that future.

It is even less so in the hands of a party that excuses how it has failed private sector workers by stirring up discontent with public sector workers - and who wish to further deconstruct safety nets even as working poverty spreads still in 2017.

Hammond's distraction just papers over the cracks. Punitive action against public sector workers does nothing to improve the conditions in the private sector. The problems of the day call for progressive solutions, with long term investment backing efforts to fight anxiety and build far more life security into working life.

Working Poverty is appallingly high and social care is in a funding crisis - the 'Big Society' was a cloak stolen by a wolf

David Cameron deftly altered the image of the Conservatives and his success has left us with a society in crisis. Photograph: Prime Minister David Cameron - official photograph by Number 10 (License) (Cropped)

Under David Cameron and George Osborne, the Conservative Party worked hard to change its image. With Labour in power, and getting very comfortable within the establishment, they sought to present themselves as warm and compassionate with just a light fondness for tradition.

Part of that 'compassion' was to roll back the 'nanny state' - to stop big government looking over people's shoulders. The counterpoint was to instead get society, out of charitable and philanthropic instincts, to pull together and support each other in their own communities.

But the 'Big Society' disappeared quickly. But then it had already served its purpose, as the sheep's clothing for the wolf - just the latest in fashionable lines, taken from progressives, that the Right had shrouded itself in to slip unnoticed amongst the livestock.

And if anyone still believed in the Conservative vision, after years of austerity had stripped their community of libraries and investment in roads, schools and healthcare, and left social care in a near terminal crisis (Triggle, 2016), recent reports should dispel the illusion.

The most recent damning report is that of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which reported that seven million people in Britain suffer from working poverty (Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2016). That means that, despite earning an income in work, these people are still unable to make ends meet.

More than any of the other reports, working poverty is the most damning betrayal of the promises of Conservatives, and of neoliberalism. The basic promise, that hard work will bring reward, that will people will gain on merit, has been broken.

Conservatives, neoliberals, the purveyors of 'free' markets and small government - they sell privatisation with a promise: with no government restraining or filtering, there will be innovation, and the entrepreneurial will be allowed to get ahead, to take what they are merited.

But the 'Big Society' brand, the promises of liberty, conceal a darker reality. They neatly package selfish individualism for sale by disguising what it brings with it: disconnect, loneliness and isolation. Consider that, even as work is delivering poor rewards, the job centres are facing closures (BBC, 2016).

As a demonstration of how much it is being put upon any one person to carry the weight of their own obstacles, the closure of job centres is illuminating. People are being cut off from one another, with little power or means to change their situation. Merit, it seems, requires an inheritance to get started.

Conservatives and neoliberals want to package this as 'liberty' and 'individualism', but that's only half of the story. Their liberty is negative liberty, believing only in removing barriers. What that won't address is the crushing inequality that goes untouched, except by charitable disposition - something that itself comes under attack by the deeply conservative notion of neoliberal individualism. How can charity flourish amidst an a conception of the individual that is hierarchical and dependent upon competition, selfishness and greed?

The impact of the neoliberal and conservative ideologies is destructive. They're reducing society to a mad scramble that turns communities first against each other, and then inwards upon themselves, as individuals must put aside their social bonds to pursue their own interests.

But in fighting that destructive impact, in undoing the pain caused by the neoliberal ideology, that glorifies selfishness, we mustn't give up or suppress individuality. In fact, it would be a sore loss to give over individuality to an ideology that reduces it to little more than greedy consumption and extraction.

Individuality can be so much more. Instead, a social fabric needs to be woven in which individuals live ever with the support and cooperation of others. Where people realise the fullness of themselves in collaboration with others, rather than competition with them. A positive liberty, that raises people up as well as removes the obstacles from their path.

Conservatism, as it represents the establishment, has ever kept itself relevant by gobbling up the language of progressives, turning the words of hope into tools for their own designs. Individuality becomes selfishness, community becomes sectarianism, the balance and moderation of civic republicanism becomes a 'centre' captured and dragged ever to the Right.

We have to stop handing sheep's clothing to the wolves. We have to stop letting conservatism take our words and twist them. Ideals, art and culture are created by and belong to the 99% - the 1% just exploits them for profit. We must fight for every word.