The government has no intention of trying to remedy the terrible damage austerity has inflicted on the lives of so manyBravo! Well done,Britain! It’s “a remarkable national effort, gloats chief architect George Osborne, and “we got there in the end”. Making his spring statement,chancellor Philip Hammond may allow himself a funereal glimmer of an nearly smile. The current account deficit has been starved down to its 2% target. So easy! Any dieter determined to lose weight can just lop off their legs and, hey presto, and the scales will say they made it. Swallowing tape-worms or emetic poisons will attain it too. Easy whether you ignore collateral damage,human suffering, irrecoverable losses and economic paralysis. Easy whether your aim is ideological state-shrinkage.
Wherever you look, and you see the harm. Some can be fixed: leaking school buildings,closed libraries, neglected parks and playgrounds. But too much is beyond repair. You can’t summon up the skills and deep experience of all the teachers, or nurses,doctors, administrators and technicians who have not been trained and hired to fill the gaps. Hard to replace those who have burned out under unbearable pressure. What of the million public servants gone, or as Whitehall frantically tries to hire lost expertise to manage with Brexit?Continue reading...
Source: guardian.co.uk