Pointing Fingers - From 2 Metres Away

'To what extent was the British Government's Response to the Coronavirus Pandemic in 2020 limited by austerity cuts on the NHS?'

And we thought David Cameron's reputation couldn't get much worse.

Already a pariah Prime Minister after calling a divisive referendum which he can't be on the right side of, he will likely now get the blame for the weakness of public services during one of the most serious pandemics in modern history.

The man can't win.

In the largest ranking of post-war prime ministers since the referendum, Cameron sits at an embarrassing eleventh (out of thirteen). This is in large part because of said referendum, which was called to heal the Conservative Party but ended up ripping apart the country, but also because of his controversial response to the Great Recession.

With an economy in recession, unemployment rising, and a hefty budget deficit (where government revenue is less than government spending), Cameron and his chancellor, George Osborne, cut government spending by nearly £15bn in three years; mostly focusing on welfare, social services and local government.

And even when Cameron fell in 2016, Theresa May's government continued the programme. By 2019, there had been £30bn in spending reductions. Even though under her watch austerity was technically ended, aside from health there have been no 'real' increases in spending since ('real' means above inflation, i.e. actually increasing spending levels).

It's important to note that spending on the NHS didn't decrease in real terms across the decade - Cameron and Osborne 'ring-fenced' it. But until 2017 it didn't increase either. That left it unable to cope with the indirect consequences of lower social care and local government spending. It also means that it hasn't received the serious investment needed to respond to a crisis - such as the yearly winter crisis.

Or, say, a pandemic.

When the spread of Covid-19 decreases, there will be a post-mortem on the NHS and its response to coronavirus. And already it is blindingly clear that the provider of, objectively, the highest quality healthcare in the world (not overall best though - more here), is unable to respond to the demand.

A 'tsunami', an 'explosion' of cases in London hospitals has left them short of intensive care beds, compounded by a further shortage of staff. There is a chronic lack of equipment and protective clothing. Retired medics, volunteers and the army are being drafted in.

To link all these shortfalls to austerity would be a poor piece of political theatre. Healthcare systems around the world have been swamped by Covid-19. Many of the shortages are simply because staff are falling ill. There was no need for thousands of extra respirators a year ago. This is a crisis that the globalised world has never before faced, and is far more significant than policy decisions made ten years previously.

However, there is an arguable link. The NHS could well have been in a structurally more robust place, with more beds and capacity than it otherwise was in early 2020. It may have moved quicker, more effectively, needing less support, if not for a lack of spending. It could never have prevented or limited the disease, but it may have inspired more confidence.

And the concerns are already there. Austerity is being openly linked as the root cause of all the issues the NHS is facing. That is wrong.

But, still, when the dust settles, Cameron will be blamed.

He may have successfully dragged the economy out of a recession, but this, and the referendum?

He'll be this century's Chamberlain.

D-Day or Dull Days?

This is an unprecedented period in human history.

Flights blocked, schools shut, workplaces closing. A £350bn investment from the government which still might not be enough.

The creator of a favourite Facebook page of mine, 'Humans of New York', compared the Covid-19 pandemic to our generation's World War Two. For me, that was the moment I realised how large this crisis is.

The news is filled with headlines of marauding shoppers and caring neighbours, contrasting vast government spending with small businesses on the verge of collapse. The national mood is unsettled and incapable of standing on its own two feet. We do not know how to feel or what to feel or why we do feel because we are out of our depth, drowning.

And amidst it all, aren't you rather bored?

Step away from the screen you're killing time with. Think.

What have you done today?

Me? In eight hours, I've done some some easy jobs, played a game of Age of Empires, repeatedly checked social media and put off some urgent studying.

My life has been meaningless today, and I'm not even in isolation (although being on a deserted uni campus, I might as well be). How does yours compare? How will it compare a week from now, when the structures of life break down even further?

This may be the biggest global crisis since the Second World War, but frankly, just like most crises in history, us average citizens will have to sit in slobby boredom until it all blows over. We'll blank-face our way through Netflix, Prime and Instagram on repeat, until we're allowed to publicly cough again.

World War Two lasted 2176 days - a vast period of time. And for all the battles and epic clashes, how many periods were there of nothingness; of going to work; of people knowing they had no influence on events whatsoever. For every D-Day, there were ten more days of banal newspaper headlines and food rationing to endure. How dull it must have been.

Because that's what will happen now. The experts are suggesting it could be eighteen months until a vaccine is successfully created. And jack-all is going to happen in our lives until then.

Road to Nowhere?

Today is Brexit Day. The road here has been long, ending not just three years of bizarre politics, but a saga that stretches back to the 1960s and has claimed three British Prime Ministers. Here is the definitive timeline.

Pre-Referendum

Thatcher's resignation was heavily
linked to Europe

1963 & 67: Britain is twice denied entry to the EC because of 'deep-seated hostility' to the European project.

1969: Britain is allowed membership of the EC.

1975: A referendum approves our EC membership by a 35% majority.

1990: Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher resigns over divisions with her Cabinet on Europe.

1992: The EC becomes the EU, with 'ever closer union' a guiding principle.

2006: Newly-elected party leader David Cameron criticises the Conservatives for 'banging on about Europe' amid more important issues.

2010: Cameron wins a general election and forms a government with the pro-EU Liberal Democrats.

(2010-15: Three of the biggest Conservative backbench rebellions in this government are over EU/immigration.)

2013: Without Lib Dem approval, Cameron makes his 'Bloomberg Speech', where he commits to major reform of the EU and an in/out referendum on membership.

2015: A Conservative majority government is elected with a manifesto pledge for a referendum. This will be held in 2016 after renegotiating British EU membership.

2016

David Cameron resigns on the morning of the election

June 2016: The Referendum result shows a majority for leaving the EU. Cameron promptly resigns as Prime Minister.

July 2016: Theresa May becomes Prime Minister after a Conservative Party leadership race.

October 2016: May indicates a desire for a 'hard' Brexit: leaving most/all EU arrangements. 

2017

March 2017: Article 50 - the document that allows leaving the EU - is triggered to start a two-year negotiation period.

June 2017: A disastrously fought general election wipes out May's majority and establishes a fragmented, chaotic parliament.

December 2017: Fractious UK-EU negotiations lead to a 'joint agreement', providing the outline for a post-Brexit relationship. However, it is far from the final deal.

2018

Summer 2018: May outlines her vision for the final deal. Meanwhile, Parliament gives itself the power to vote on and and when the deal is agreed.

Autumn 2018: The EU reject May's plan, but a compromise is reached in late November, finally creating a Brexit deal. Theresa May survives a vote of confidence by her own party, but then postpones Parliament's vote on the deal, fearing they won't pass it.

Theresa May wins the Conservative Party vote of confidence

2019

Winter 2019: May finally brings the deal to a vote and suffers the worst government Commons defeat in British history. The next day she survives a parliamentary Vote of No Confidence.

March 2019: After two failed attempts to pass the Brexit deal, May agrees an extension of Article 50 until 31st October. 

Theresa May resigns

May 2019: However, a catastrophic performance in the EU elections forces May to finally resign, becoming the third Conservative Prime Minister to do so over Europe.

Summer 2019: Boris Johnson becomes Prime Minister after a leadership race, and commits to the 31st October deadline. 

September 2019: The Supreme Court orders Johnson to reverse a prorogation of Parliament, which then passes a vote blocking Brexit without a deal.

Autumn 2019: Johnson fails to pass his own Brexit deal, but after a 'no-deal Brexit' is avoided, is successful in calling a general election

December 2019: Johnson wins a landslide victory, thus eliminating effective opposition. Jeremy Corbyn resigns as leader of the Labour Party.

The iconic slogan of the election

2020

January 2020: A new decade. Johnson's Brexit deal passes with ease and is ratified by the EU. The UK will leave the EU, then enter into a transition period upholding the status quo, at 11pm on the 31st January.

Everyone was discussing it when I walked into school that morning. It had already been across TV and then it went viral online, like nothing else before it. No-one understood it, but we were all talking about it. We asked our teachers, but, as usual, they were clueless.

We had no idea what to make of the Referendum result. David Cameron had just announced his resignation. Sterling was in free fall. It was the only thing on people's minds, that sunny June day.

Then Donald Trump was elected President. What to make of that, too? There were dark jokes circulating that at least we weren't the 'screw-ups' of the year. Trump, in his fashion, captured conversations this side of the Atlantic too, even in the playground and the classroom.

And between Brexit and President Trump, the news feeds have barely stopped rolling. Every week, something else to engage with, as teenagers discussed 'Parliament', 'European Union' and 'impeachment'. Politics could be mentioned in the same breath as Love Island, The 1975 and history revision and no longer draw scorn or weird looks. 

So, politics became a public subject. Something worth knowing about, and a reasonable discussion topic. Not just in school, but at work or with family, too. Because as long as the disasters kept floating in, it was all rather interesting.


Notice the past tense though? Because that era is over.


With its convincing majority, Boris Johnson's government has already passed the Withdrawal Agreement, and his large majority means he has a clear authority to do whatever he likes. Most remainers have quietly conceded defeat, and the grudging British respect for elected authority has kicked in - the mentality now is 'back to normal life and wait for the next one'.

So, that period of Brexit, with all Theresa May's failures and the media frenzy, is over. There are no more disasters on the horizon to captivate us, or nasty debates about what Brexit should look like.

And the actions of President Trump alone will not keep politics in the schoolyard or the break-room. It is a given that he will not be impeached, and bar the apocalypse, his controversies are so frequent that they'll hardly merit a brief comment at work, never mind science lessons. Even if he wins the 2020 election, we'll just keep our heads down and carry on.

And rapidly, politics will stop being relevant. It will be met with the same derision it has earned from fourteen year olds for centuries. No longer worthy of schoolyard chat, politics will again become a quiet, niche interest.

Political discussion has reached its high-water mark. Time for the status quo again it seems.


Theo

The Decade is Over. Where Does That Leave Us?

The 2010s are over. The 2020s are just hours away, full of possibility and expectation.


The decade opened with the unveiling of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, and has ended with impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump. A colossal earthquake demolished Haiti that January, just as bushfires have set Australia alight this December. In the UK, one million fewer people live in absolute poverty, and Spain, Germany and France have all won the Football World Cup. It has been a decade of humanity living amidst huge change - as in every decade.


And politics. Where has the decade left us politically? There is an air of having been chewed up and spat out by the 2010s' politics, as we stumble into 2020, hoping for deliverance.


To clarify all this, I've picked out three of the most interesting political and social trends from the last decade, with a short description and analysis of where that leaves us now.


For good or for bad, this is how the 2010s end.

1) The Death of The Political Class

Every year the high and mighty of politics and economics are organised by the World Economic Forum to meet in Davos - a plush Swiss ski resort. There they discuss all matter of gibberish. These people are the political class.

They are mostly liberals, upper middle-class born, believers in rational, intelligent leadership and committed to democracy and their right to lead that democracy. They saw the fall of the Iron Curtain and successful intervention in the 1st Gulf War (1992) early in their careers. 

They were shocked by 9/11 and the Second Gulf War (2003) which they believed they would have avoided. They all subscribe to The Economist and the Financial Times. And they have provided woefully little leadership in response to the EU Referendum, the 2016 Presidential Election, the economic growth of Africa and the all-important issue of climate change.

Countries are historically run by leaders with degrees who spend several years in business or the Bar before turning to politics. There they manage traditional political parties and make medium-sized changes to the existing structure of things. At some point they get booted out, so they retire and write memoirs where they manage to be reasonably polite to their former opponents. They do not question democracy, human rights or the rule of law, and they believe in free speech (of course) and have smart people around them that help them out.

But where were those men to challenge Mrs Clinton in the primaries in 2016? Or to lead the Labour Party instead of Mr Corbyn? Where were they when Italy needed a skilled Prime Minister? Or when the United Nations' Secretary-General role needed energy and verve? Where were they hiding when the migrant crisis reared its ugly head?

A whole generation of leaders, now in their mid-fifties, went missing in the late 2010s. Cameron resigned, Obama ran out of time, Angela Merkel became a shadow of her former self. They lost, outmanoeuvred by social media-driven populists with no experience of governance.

After long taking for granted their capability to lead, the political class have lost the momentum to leaders like President Trump, Matteo Salvini and Narenda Modi; dangerous, divisive men who do not have a shared code of conduct and who do not believe in itty-bitty tweaks to the economy where they can rework it with a sledgehammer.

Street protests and populism own the stage. Why have a degree in law to stand in Parliament when you can throw molotov cocktails against that law and create just as much change? The political class seems to have collapsed and chaos has filled the vacuum.

2) The Individuality Boom

Secondly there is an increasing fragmentation of our identity as humans. Belief in community and inter-generational unity is declining, fuelled by social media. The emphasis on family and community that peaked in the 2000s is waning, as ideas of identity; sexual, moral and physical, among others, have become personal, rather than defined by society.

We see this in social media. The echo chambers that affirm our cosy ideologies mean that we control what we see and hear more than at any other time in living memory. Other people and other ideas are less relevant to our perceptions of the world than what we see on Facebook (in the West) or Whatsapp (in Brazil or India). We are able to make an online identity that has no basis in reality and rejects influence from elsewhere.

We see this in how Generation Z behave. Georgia Gould shows in her book 'Wasted: How Misunderstanding Young Britain Threatens Our Future' that those of us born from the mid-1990s on prioritise ourselves over others. We have more confidence in our own abilities but we see teams and communities as existing just for our own gain. This explains the boom in discussions about identity - no longer do we feel that other people are relevant to how we live and think, as we are the most important opinion we know.

And we see it in the inter-generational conflict that has always been a presence in human society but has now reached new levels, as seen in skewed voting patterns: over 65s are 20% more likely to vote Conservative and 10% less likely to vote Labour compared with 2010, while 18-24 year olds are 20% more likely to vote Labour (Conservative vote share stays the same). The difference in opinion is striking and shows a serious age divide that neither side - inflamed by social media and a reduced community spirit - has a desire to cross.

And so the 2010s have left us with an increasing individuality - that we can make our identity whatever we want it to be - but also a downgrading of the importance of community and generational unity. People are striking out by themselves more confidently, able to reject traditional ideas of family and society as uneccessary.

3) The New Kids on The Block

Let's split the world's most influential countries into several classes. Class 1 is the United States. The world's preeminent exporter of culture, economic influence, currency and hard power.

In Class 2 are China, the UK and France. They combine large military influence with significant economic and diplomatic clout and are primary players in most global issues.

And in Class 3 are (broadly) Canada, India, Italy, Russia, Australia, Japan, Germany, and the EU. These are countries with some influence, and with either a strong economic or military presence rather than both. It is Class 3 that is interesting.

Because it is the Class 3 countries that have become much more prominent this decade. 

After years on the wane, Russia stunned the West by invading Crimea and Eastern Ukraine in 2014. India was a relatively bit player in the 2000s but this year has become the fifth largest national economy, and is still growing. 

Peaceful Canada has significantly increased its role in foreign affairs, rebuking both Saudi Arabia and China in 2018, while the EU, formerly a quiet regional economy, has led a noisy pushback against global tech firms, slapping $9.5bn on Google since 2017. 

Pacifist Japan has been trying to expand its military presence, while Italy has courted with controversial hard-right governance.

Why the sudden change? Continued global economic growth since 2010 means that trade has made countries richer and with increased connections with each other. The result is less dependence on the Class 1 and 2 nations for trade and security. And this is compounded by implicit American withdrawal from international events, leaving space for other countries to make noise.

Maybe this is Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau taking a very active role in global affairs this decade, and criticising President Trump - two things unthinkable for America's smaller neighbour previously. Or Russian President Putin reviving Russia's regional presence, and meddling in several western elections.

And this is also, most interestingly, the European Union becoming a new player. The 2016 British EU referendum result had an adverse affect, as painfully protracted Brexit negotiations have dissuaded disunity. Massive regulation against tech monopolies has set the global standard. There are explicit moves towards a joint defence force. China's inroads in Southern and Eastern Europe are being more openly blocked. The EU is the world's second largest economy and is starting to both realise it, and use that power elsewhere.

The effect of the growing voice of Class 3 nations are hard to judge. But policy and global tone is no longer set by Class 1 or even 2 states; countries have more freedom and more independence, and they're unlikely to let it go in the 2020s.




Who can know what the world will look like in the 2020s? Even the most carefully calculated predictions may not survive on contact with reality. But for saying where we're at now, I hope this is a pretty good attempt. The 2010s have left us with a very clear legacy. We shall see what it turns into.



Have a Happy New Year, and a very Happy Decade.



Theo

Creek. No paddle.

We are not legal experts, but we believe that, more than anything else since June 2016, it is the Supreme Court case against Boris Johnson that will be remembered in the future.

When Parliament gains more powers, history notices. The Magna Carta, the English Civil War, the Great Reform Act in 1832; all led to huge changes in the way this island is governed. The Supreme Court unanimously declared that the Prime Minister has overreached his power, which limits what future Prime Ministers can or cannot do. This implicitly gives Parliament more power, and sets a precedent that the Supreme Court can overrule the Prime Minister's actions.

This is because we have no codified constitution. In most countries, the constitution is the political rulebook, dictating what politicians are able to do, what powers the various branches of government have and where their limits are. In the UK, the rulebook doesn't exist.

Or, rather, it does, but across a sprawling mass of documents, and mostly in the minds of the rule-keepers (the Speaker and their Deputies) and players (MPs and the PM) instead of in one central place. This means the rules are often fluid, changeable, or can even be ignored. Unlike in the US, the Prime Minister could become a dictator if they get enough votes (and if the Queen obliges - but that's a whole other issue).

So Boris Johnson, in trying to limit Parliament's power by shutting up shop for five weeks, has only achieved a muscular extension of Parliamentary sovereignty at his own expense. Aside from the rather satisfying end result this is, future Prime Ministers will curse him for how much harder their jobs have been made. Running the country is an intensely stressful occupation, never mind having to deal with one of the most active parliaments in the world. And now said parliament has suddenly been endowed with new possibilities and freedoms to act against the PM.

He is in trouble. This is not a magistrates court dealing in petty theft. The most intelligent and experienced justices in the country have declared him a criminal - a man who has broken the law. In moral terms, that is a deeply alarming judgement of a figure in No.10. In political terms, that means Johnson is likely to lose support from moderate Conservative MPs and much of the more liberal party membership, plus a swathe of the middle-class at an election. Resignation calls are coming from every quarter; remainers are-invigorated, leavers are demoralised; this is a man in trouble.

Don't write him off yet. Laura Kuenssberg earlier suggested that we must not 'underestimate how aggressive Number 10 might be willing to be in response'. In New York for the United Nations Assembly, Johnson could well fly straight home to start an immediate counter-campaign. He still has options. He still has power.

Yet this is a man who has lost all six of his first Commons votes, broken the law and misled the monarch. His Premiership has not been a success story.

And don't you think he looks tired?


Theo