UK Politics

It is time to resuscitate Margaret Thatcher’s catchphrase: “There is no alternative.” With a twist, of course. Back then, “Tina” was deployed in favour of an economic model that gave us badly distributed low growth, shambolic rip-off privatised utilities, a housing crisis and social insecurity. It is now devastatingly clear that there is no alternative to discarding this failed experiment.

Yet this week, our supposedly Labour chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will take a scalpel to departmental budgets already devastated by 15 years of austerity. Our government has robbed most pensioners of the winter fuel payment, and announced £5bn worth of cuts to disability benefits, which strip support from citizens unable to independently clothe themselves, or who need an aide to use the toilet. By the time of the next election, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, all households will have suffered a fall in living standards, but the poorest will be clobbered twice as hard. This, under the rule of a party founded to represent the interests of ordinary people.

The British public could be forgiven for believing they are imprisoned in a political Groundhog Day. They wake up, their leaders tell them they are awfully sorry, but they are going to have to make yet more unfortunate cuts – but this time, pain will be rewarded by the coming prosperity. A thousand sleeps, another thousand sleeps – and the nation wakes to the same speech. Here’s the bad news: on our current trajectory, you’re going to hear that speech for the rest of your life, whatever your age.