Looking Back On 14 Years Of Austerity - For What?

Well said, mae13.

I'll be interested in the answers.

Covid didn’t exactly help though, did it?

Calendargirl

Covid didn’t exactly help though, did it?

Put it this way - we’d have coped a lot better with Covid if the NHS was still as it was in 2010 when it struck. Services had been seriously run down by 2020, and Major Incident planning had taken a back seat, that’s why so much of the PPE was out of date.

Whatever hope that the austerity policy was going to be beneficial evaporated in 2016 when the Brexit vote was lost, since then it’s been crisis management the whole time.
If we can have a period of stability the economy will improve, maybe this time next year we can have some optimism, it’s not likely before.

The problem with the NHS is poor management. If the health service stuck to what it was intended for...providing basic health care for the poorer in society....perhaps there wouldn't be a problem with finances.
One of the problems with the austerity cuts is that there is an increase in street crime. At least, that seems to be the case where I live. The streets are poorly lit in the evenings, so the area is rife with drug dealers and muggings. Any money saved on lighting is now being diverted to dealing with criminals.

I don't think the health service was intended for...providing basic health care for the poorer in society - it was intended for everyone.

The NHS can’t decide whether it’s providing a service or running a business.

I'm not even sure that the UK has a high level of "street crime". It's a very loose term anyway - do you mean crime in a public place? Such as taking people's phones, selling drugs outside? Breaking into parked cars in public places?

Not sure where your info came from.
Please could you post a link? Thank you.

Are you really talking about drug dealing and muggings?

The NHS was recognised throughout the world as the best health system in the world in 2010.

Austerity and the Tories mismanagement has brought it to its knees.

Austerity and Brexit crippled growth in the economy which meant we were in a poor place to deal with covid.

"14 bitter years of cuts and more cuts and all we've got to show for it is a shattered health system, wall to wall foodbanks and local councils up and down the country going bankrupt."

mae13 it makes my head spin, could never have imagined such things even becoming possible let alone usual. Heart breaking.

The Tories have ensured that the generation coming through will have no teeth by the time they are 40, no homes to call their own, soul destroying zero contract jobs and terrifying hospital waiting lists.

They will have no free movement in Europe and should they wish to start a small business trading with Europe they will suffer extra costs and red tape which will negate the whole point. The Tories have not been caretakers of the country's future on any level.

This is in contrast to the inherited wealth and privilege (George Osborne, Jacob Rees Mogg, David Cameron for example) that many of them enjoy, safe in the knowledge that their children and grandchildren will live life with impunity at the very top of society.

They should hang their heads in shame.

👏👏👏 Agreed Flappergirl.

Curtaintwitcher

The problem with the NHS is poor management. If the health service stuck to what it was intended for...providing basic health care for the poorer in society....perhaps there wouldn't be a problem with finances.
One of the problems with the austerity cuts is that there is an increase in street crime. At least, that seems to be the case where I live. The streets are poorly lit in the evenings, so the area is rife with drug dealers and muggings. Any money saved on lighting is now being diverted to dealing with criminals.

The problem with the health service is Unlimited Demand and it never will meet that demand, ever more complex treatment combined with increasing lifespan will ensure that.

We have to accept that either treatment is going to be rationed or some kind of payment or means testing is going the be introduced. Management changes are not going to change much, they never have, there simply isn’t enough money.

flappergirl

The Tories have ensured that the generation coming through will have no teeth by the time they are 40, no homes to call their own, soul destroying zero contract jobs and terrifying hospital waiting lists.

They will have no free movement in Europe and should they wish to start a small business trading with Europe they will suffer extra costs and red tape which will negate the whole point. The Tories have not been caretakers of the country's future on any level.

This is in contrast to the inherited wealth and privilege (George Osborne, Jacob Rees Mogg, David Cameron for example) that many of them enjoy, safe in the knowledge that their children and grandchildren will live life with impunity at the very top of society.

They should hang their heads in shame.

Excellent post.

mae13 sadly I have to agree with you and now it seems the Chancellor is going to do it all over again i.e. cut public services to pay for tax cuts. What with that and war everywhere and it never stops bloody raining I refer to another posting about stopping elderly people drinking - an evening drink is the only thing to look forward to at the moment.

Tax cuts to benefit who? I'm cynical that it's a desperate attempt to curry favour with a dwindling electorate who will vote Tory. Public services benefit everyone except successions of Tory governments have decimated them.

As I see it, paying more taxes can save individuals money in the long run, as it is cheaper to pay for huge-scale things such as health and education if everyone contributes than if we pay as we go. Yes, there is a 'risk' that we will be lucky enough not to need healthcare and our contributions will be 'wasted' on the less fortunate, but isn't the security of knowing that we will be cared for if our luck runs out worth it?

The tax system needs a huge overhaul, IMO. Nobody should be allowed to opt out (which is not the same as not being able to contribute), and all sources of income should be taxable, not just earned income. After that, means-testing should be abolished, as one's means would be tested at source, and appropriate contributions taken.

We need to have proper conversations about how much people are prepared to pay for a genuine 'cradle to grave' safety net, and what we want it to cover, too. Expectations should be managed, and returns on contributions should be binding, so that people can plan their lives without goalposts being moved with no time to make arrangements. As it is, taxes of various kinds are imposed on (most of) us, and what they cover is not only fluid, but dependent on the ideology of those in power. I am very much in favour of a proper social contract that is binding on both sides.

“The tax system needs a huge overhaul, IMO. Nobody should be allowed to opt out (which is not the same as not being able to contribute), and all sources of income should be taxable, not just earned income. After that, means-testing should be abolished, as one's means would be tested at source, and appropriate contributions taken.”

Yes, and those with the wealth should pay more, far too much wealth is untaxed especially inherited wealth where it is not earned it’s just handed over.

Absolutely. And as income is very easy to tax, it is those in work who end up paying every penny, whilst those whose money comes from elsewhere can often escape paying their dues.

There seems to be no area of public life that has not been affected by the swingeing cuts to services brought about by Conservative fiscal policies aka ‘austerity’. This is not surprising when the Tories have long been the party of ‘small’ government that supposedly doesn’t interfere in people’s livesu or the economy.

In practice though we see banks and big businesses being bailed out by the government (using taxpayer’s money) and whilst the lives of those who are poor and/or on the margins are being increasingly controlled by government (legislation re: rights to withhold labour, protest etc.), we have fewer and fewer safeguards from wealthy individuals and businesses who are attempting to bulldoze through laws that will increase their already great powers. (I’m thinking of planning de-regulation and a certain wealthy landowner’s recent challenge to ‘right to roam’.)

In real terms the poor (inching now towards the middle classes) are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer - at the expense of the poor. There is an explosion of ‘millionaires’ in this country - and most of them didn’t get there by winning the lottery. The number of millionaires in the UK in 2010 was 508,000, by 2023 that number had risen to 2.85 million.

With regard to the NHS, the think tank, the Institute for Government, published this report last year. I think it is well worth reading:
The question it seeks to answer is:

Why has hospital activity not increased in line with funding and staffing?

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the government provided the NHS with a large injection of funding. That funding means that hospitals now employ more staff than ever. But despite those increases, hospital activity remains below pre-pandemic levels on some metrics.
This report examines why this has happened and what might be needed to bring productivity back in line with trend levels. It was funded by the Health Foundation, an independent charitable organisation working to build a healthier UK.

Its key findings:

We identify the slow flow of patients through over-capacity hospitals, covered in Chapter 1 of this report, as the most immediate cause of the problems

^Chapter 2 looks at how changes in the composition and morale of NHS staff could be
exacerbating the problem^

Chapter 3 investigates the system within which the interaction of capital (like beds) and labour (staffing) occurs – the targets and incentives attached to hospitals and how well placed the management is to meet these

www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/2023-06/nhs-productivity-puzzle_0.pdf

While the debate about how it should be funded is an interesting one I feel that identifying the causes of its problems in a reasonably objective fashion has to come first.

flappergirl

The Tories have ensured that the generation coming through will have no teeth by the time they are 40, no homes to call their own, soul destroying zero contract jobs and terrifying hospital waiting lists.

They will have no free movement in Europe and should they wish to start a small business trading with Europe they will suffer extra costs and red tape which will negate the whole point. The Tories have not been caretakers of the country's future on any level.

This is in contrast to the inherited wealth and privilege (George Osborne, Jacob Rees Mogg, David Cameron for example) that many of them enjoy, safe in the knowledge that their children and grandchildren will live life with impunity at the very top of society.

They should hang their heads in shame.

Yes, just about sums thing up. Spot on 👏

“The number of millionaires in the UK in 2010 was 508,000, by 2023 that number had risen to 2.85 million.”

That would be made up of House value, pension value plus any investments or savings, but is still less than 5% of the population the increased taxation point has to be a lot lower to make a difference.