Hopefully the next GE will see a massive rejection of right wing policies and strong support for centrist policies.
Labour may have moved to the right compared to its recent history, but it lost 4 GEs in a row, so it would be plain daft to keep doing the same thing and hoping for a different result. The party cant be a vehicle for vocal minority that no one, other than the terminally online care about.
The next government will inherit a troubled economy and parlous public services. Compared to the current cast of Conservative ministers, a Labour government may well be an improvement in competency, decision making and governance. Beyond that, people should not raise their expectations.
The UK is in a mess. The tax burden is at a 60 year high. Households are poorer now than at the 2019 election. Regional inequalities and poor productivity hamper living standards. The economy is sluggish. Servicing the national debt is ever more costly. There is a political crisis in Northern Ireland, which has had no government for almost two years.
Years of austerity has hollowed out public services. Budget cuts have contributed to local councils going bankrupt, a growing backlog of unresolved court cases, prisons at capacity to the extent that some criminals have to be let loose, record NHS waiting lists, delayed passenger transport improvement as well as declining adult and children’s services. There's industrial action in the NHS, Railways, and other sectors. Education standards are falling. There’s a threefold increase in food banks and soup kitchens. In 2022, a report found that one million children are living in destitution. There are huge unfilled vacancies in Social Services. The UK is a poorer place than we’d like to think.
A perfect storm of austerity, the economic damage of Brexit, the pandemic and energy crisis has left many UK household struggling to make ends meet, made worse by relying on declining public services. Hospital A&E departments are now the first point of medical contact, rather than a GP or dentist. The police perform the duties usually assigned to social services.
The next government will have to deal with a mounting backlog of repairs to schools and hospitals. There will be the growing national debt to be serviced. And perhaps the greatest difficulty, millions of voters’ expectations will have to be managed.
For a country offered sunlit uplands by Brexiteers, the outlook is the same struggles as now: paying the bills, access to public services, housing, education and job security.
Labour’s inheritance, if they win, will be the worst of any government since the 1930s.
www.theguardian.com
