I am thinking deeply I assure you. What is not needed is a cartoon-like 2 dimensional analysis of the complex socio-economic challenges. The application of simplistic analogies to reduce these issues to sound bites is why we are here today. "Labour bad, Tories good", "Free Market good, Nationalisation bad", etc."
The 4 decades old free market economy has run its course. It has failed to deliver what the original proponents promised. We are in the end game. If the country survives the No Deal abyss, the centre ground of politics lies vacant to accomodate a new social democratic approach: one that discards the blinkered Old Labour, New Labour, Right Wing Tory mindset.
The future will have to redeploy the wealth held in the hands of the few to invest in *all* the country for the benefits of *all* the citizens. The climate emergency demands no less. The wealthy do not care about you or me and they do not care about the planet.
Johnson claims to be wanting to spend 3 billion for the neglected North to try and address some of the reasons so many felt "left behind" and disenfranchised. To put this in context, the City of London had a bonus pool, remember these people already have very high salaries, of 20 billion in 2018. Yes, 20 billion for 1 year. These are the people that you, me and, yes, the people in the neglected north bailed out to the tune of 100's of billions in 2008 and caused the decade of austerity.
The childish responses like "politics of envy", etc. just do not work anymore. Everyone can see the evidence before their eyes. You would be a fool to believe the free market is the future. The market must be controlled: intervention where strategic and national interests dictate and control where it does not.
The system is broken and when people who cling to the debunked "rising tide floats all boats" maxim try and sell the "greed is good" snake oil, it really is depressing. I find it interesting to see the people defending the current system: they seem to be invariably those who comes from the baby boomer period where they had the fortune to find a good job easily, to have a final salary pension that we can only dream of today, to be able to easily afford to buy a house that now has risen many, many times in value and to have enjoyed the best of social service quality during this period.
These are the people who will now say:
"I got where I am today through bloody hard work" .. well, truth be told, they were just very lucky. The sinister part is that they feel entitled: "how dare you take away what I worked hard to get". The awareness that the wealth and opportunities they enjoyed will never be available for the current generation is just absent. This lack of empathy underwrites a lot of the current politics.
While I am rambling on, I would like to thank Hugh for his many posts expounding, as I see it, his One Nation Conservatism. His views on how those that have most have a moral duty to those who do not is to be applauded ... loudly. Views like his are seldom heard from the political right ..
