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Britain’s winter of discontent is the inevitable result of austerity
- anigbrowl 4y agoThis headline is quite weighted, since the phrase 'winter of discontent' in the UK refers to a year in the late 70s when Britain's economy was in a shambles and the country was paralyzed by strikes under an ineffective labor government. The discontent was so acute that it swept Margaret Thatcher into power in 1979. That helped to boost Reagan's 1980 candidacy and between them they continue to influence politics and economics in the present. Many of today's power-brokers and senior politicians got their start in that era. The Conservative party has held power in the UK for the last 12 years, having started in coalition with the Liberal Democrats under David Cameron. After gaining a majority and holding several referenda culminating in Brexit, it has then speed-run through 4 more prime ministers (May, Johnson, Truss, and now Sunak). Thus, they have no scapegoat on whom they can dump administrative responsibility for the country's problems. In a country about the size of California where power is considerably more centralized with few legal/electoral checks and no election due before 2025, the problem of how to canalize public anger becomes acute. Politically, the government can deflect blame to unions, the media, the EU and Putin but in terms of policy options the cupboard is empty. There's not much left to privatize besides the NHS and the police, and the Tories' big idea for economic growth is the widespread establishment of free ports which ostensibly trade tax revenue and regulation for boosting exports and job creation. But even if valid this would take years to realize, and economic aspirations can't bridge the political gap between a steep fall in living standards and a monarchy going through an increasingly anachronistic reproductive cycle.