The permanent austerity doom loop

With both of the main political parties using the tactic of blaming their predecessors in order to justify austerity and wage repression, Britain is trapped in a permanent austerity doom loop.

We all know what politicians really mean when they say that have to make "tough decisions".

They don’t mean tough decisions that will restrain the greed of the mega-rich, reduce the profiteering of corporations, restrict the exploitation of property-hoarding slumlords, or negatively impact the bank balances of their billionaire donors.

They mean they’re intent on enacting policies that will be tough on ordinary working people and their families, local communities, and those most in need of social support (children, the exploited, elderly people, the sick and disabled …).

The economic messaging of the incoming Labour government is indistinguishable from the Tory government that was enabled into power in 2010 by the complicity of the Lib-Dems.

The same blaming of the preceding government to justify poverty-spreading policies.

The same ruinous economic policies of austerity, wage repression, infrastructure under-investment, privatisation profiteering, and draconian social security cutbacks.

The same economically illiterate baby talk of "no money left", "bankrupt Britain", "magic money trees", and "balancing the books".

The entire Westminster establishment order is absolutely infested with the cult-like ideology of austerity and short-term book balancing, when what’s really needed is strategic investment to break us out of the economic stagnation we’ve been locked into since the bankers wrecked the economy back in 2008 with their insanely reckless gambling on complex financial derivatives that they clearly didn’t even understand.

Starmer’s Labour are absolutely insistent that they’re keeping the ruinous Tory austerity cuts in place; continuing with Tory wage repression policies; and refusing to make the long-term strategic investments for the future that the country desperately requires, even though they’ve seen how poorly these policies have played out over the last 14 years, and how short-term penny pinching actually resulted in an unprecedented tripling of the national debt in that period.

If they stick with this austerity agenda, then the decline in living standards will not be reversed, and Labour will eventually be ejected from power as disillusioned Labour voters turn their backs on them, and then whoever replaces them (likely a Tory-Faragist alliance of some sort) will continue with the exact same agenda, using the exact same excuses about how the failings of the previous government mean there’s "no money left" to materially improve ordinary people’s lives.

We’re apparently stuck in this austerity doom loop whoever we vote for, so it’s absolutely no surprise that the 2024 general election featured widespread disillusionment and the lowest participation rate since universal suffrage.

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