>When the global financial crisis hit in 2008, it hit hard, smashing the engine of Britain’s economic ascent. Wary of rising deficits, the British government pursued a policy of austerity, fretting about debt rather than productivity or aggregate demand. The results were disastrous. Real wages fell for six straight years. Facing what the writer Fintan O’Toole called “the dull anxiety of declining living standards,” conservative pols sniffed out a bogeyman to blame for this slow-motion catastrophe. They served up to anxious voters a menu of scary outsiders: bureaucrats in Brussels, immigrants, asylum seekers—anybody but the actual decision makers who had kneecapped British competitiveness. A cohort of older, middle-class, grievously nostalgic voters demanded Brexit, and they got it.
It’s also those older, middle-class nostalgic types (aka. Tory party members) who voted for Thick Lizzy.
>“In 2019, when Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party won a big majority in the House of Commons, most people of working age did not vote for them,” Weldon told me. “I’m pretty sure that’s the first time that’s ever happened. You have this post-economic, older, economically insulated voting bloc that could afford to be anti-growth almost as a luxury, because they don’t have to care about economic outcomes.”
Young adults need to turn-out and vote, also proposed boundary changes could mean it becomes even more important in some areas
I’m really surprised that the Atlantic published this as it’s like a sixth former wrote it as it’s all sorts of sweeping statements and rehashing gripes done a thousand times on reddit and in opinion pieces by other people making sweeping statements.
If take this claim of a “closed economy” it is obviously bollocks as the UK accepted all sorts of EU terms and got into a right mess in parliament for years to get a “deal” and it’s the most comprehensive trade deal the EU has ever done. Even the gloomiest forecasts for brexit have the UK growing, but with a small bit less of GDP and even that assumes that nothing is done to boost GDP.
The UK has become politically locked into a spiral of decline and that’s the serious issue. The moment any party advocates for mass house building (one of the biggest boosts to GDP after all) or construction of infrastructure then the other parties will run on a nimby ticket and stop it whilst our legal system has become more and more spaghetti like so that campaigners can bog down any big projects for many years. Our lack of housing, reservoirs, nuclear power, train lines etc can all be resolved if our politicians wanted them solved – instead they choose less GDP in favour of faffing about with minor tactical issues like yet another reorg of the NHS or quibbling over universal credit.
13 years of conservative rule and idiots voting for Brexit.
Populist need a reminder Nazi Germany also populist government…
Decades of misleading articles in newspapers and the Internet.
Politicians peddling twisted versions these same topics to either gather a base, or to excuse their own inefficiencies.
A lack of consequences for failing to be factual.
Increasing inequality and a decline in support for key social institutions (medical, education, libraries).
A lack of long term thinking in policy making and kowtowing to big businesses and banks.*
*a degree of this may be necessary, but it is way out of hand.
5 comments
>When the global financial crisis hit in 2008, it hit hard, smashing the engine of Britain’s economic ascent. Wary of rising deficits, the British government pursued a policy of austerity, fretting about debt rather than productivity or aggregate demand. The results were disastrous. Real wages fell for six straight years. Facing what the writer Fintan O’Toole called “the dull anxiety of declining living standards,” conservative pols sniffed out a bogeyman to blame for this slow-motion catastrophe. They served up to anxious voters a menu of scary outsiders: bureaucrats in Brussels, immigrants, asylum seekers—anybody but the actual decision makers who had kneecapped British competitiveness. A cohort of older, middle-class, grievously nostalgic voters demanded Brexit, and they got it.
It’s also those older, middle-class nostalgic types (aka. Tory party members) who voted for Thick Lizzy.
>“In 2019, when Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party won a big majority in the House of Commons, most people of working age did not vote for them,” Weldon told me. “I’m pretty sure that’s the first time that’s ever happened. You have this post-economic, older, economically insulated voting bloc that could afford to be anti-growth almost as a luxury, because they don’t have to care about economic outcomes.”
Young adults need to turn-out and vote, also proposed boundary changes could mean it becomes even more important in some areas
I’m really surprised that the Atlantic published this as it’s like a sixth former wrote it as it’s all sorts of sweeping statements and rehashing gripes done a thousand times on reddit and in opinion pieces by other people making sweeping statements.
If take this claim of a “closed economy” it is obviously bollocks as the UK accepted all sorts of EU terms and got into a right mess in parliament for years to get a “deal” and it’s the most comprehensive trade deal the EU has ever done. Even the gloomiest forecasts for brexit have the UK growing, but with a small bit less of GDP and even that assumes that nothing is done to boost GDP.
The UK has become politically locked into a spiral of decline and that’s the serious issue. The moment any party advocates for mass house building (one of the biggest boosts to GDP after all) or construction of infrastructure then the other parties will run on a nimby ticket and stop it whilst our legal system has become more and more spaghetti like so that campaigners can bog down any big projects for many years. Our lack of housing, reservoirs, nuclear power, train lines etc can all be resolved if our politicians wanted them solved – instead they choose less GDP in favour of faffing about with minor tactical issues like yet another reorg of the NHS or quibbling over universal credit.
13 years of conservative rule and idiots voting for Brexit.
Populist need a reminder Nazi Germany also populist government…
Decades of misleading articles in newspapers and the Internet.
Politicians peddling twisted versions these same topics to either gather a base, or to excuse their own inefficiencies.
A lack of consequences for failing to be factual.
Increasing inequality and a decline in support for key social institutions (medical, education, libraries).
A lack of long term thinking in policy making and kowtowing to big businesses and banks.*
*a degree of this may be necessary, but it is way out of hand.