As Conservative ideology sweeps across Britain, the future sets to be fuelled by endless individualism and privatisation
I live in a blissful world where Green Party rules (thank you, Brighton). I have been raised by my staunchly left-wing family and I am self-employed in a job as a Swiss-army-knife theatrical creative, surrounded by left-wingers big and small – socialists, communists and centre-lefts who hold hands and look to the future in hope.
My bubble has definitely burst. The future is blue.
It’s been a cultural disaster in London, a place where I primarily work and otherwise avoid. Countless historic nightlife venues – indispensable spaces for performers, musicians and artists to share their love and work – have been closed across the capital in favour of luxury redevelopments and expansions of anything from train stations to supermarkets. This has included the closure of great London venues such as Cable, Jacks and SE1 (to make way for the expansion of London Bridge station), as well as places like Madame JoJo’s, Joiners Arms and Candy Bar. When the termination of Camden’s iconic LGBT pub, The Black Cap, was contested, protesters were told not to stand in the way of progress.
The Conservative ideology screams individual gain. Neoliberalism is an approach to economics and governmental structure which shifts control from the public sector to the private sector. It’s an ideology pioneered in the UK by Margaret Thatcher and Keith Joseph’s thinktank, Centre for Policy Studies (CPS). They pushed a belief system through government that has been so successfully entrenched that even Blair’s era of government touted it as the single reliable ideology in Westminster. The CPS believes in “regulation that does not inhibit the growth of business, taxes that do not act as a disincentive to work or to investment in the UK, and a leaner more effective state that avoids unnecessary intervention in the economy”. Broken down, this is the shrinking of the state through the selling off of public services.
This has proven to be a devastating move in the long-term, as seen in our current energy crisis – caused directly by Thatcher’s government which sold off Britain’s energy services – and the crippling expense of rail travel throughout the country. We live in the aftermath of giving private organisations an open invitation, through tax and regulation, to charge an everyday person for essential services. As a result, we see the vulnerable and the sick freezing to death in their beds, and the unemployed fighting in an increasingly shrinking job pool because they can’t afford the 10-minute train or bus ride to other interviews.
Yet it’s an ideology that is marketed to the wider public as the only option. Any other way of being, thinking or acting is dismissed by most of the media as too radical to work. Austerity and privatisation are spun as the only ways to recover our economy, which seems to actually be doing okay. We’re told that the provision of healthcare, houses and benefits is too expensive and we’re on our own now. This way of thinking breeds a politician that breaks eye contact with the public to glance over the shoulder at other options in the room. We have now welcomed in a government which has sold 31 school playing fields to Tesco and now plans to sell off “slacking” schools to private companies by re-branding them as academies. What was once a blocked Tory policy under the Coalition is now becoming a reality: prisons and other services are being run by G4S.
Conservative election strategist Lynton Crosby has a direct stake in the privatisation of the NHS. His side-gig is the lobbying firm Crosby Textor which advises private healthcare organisations on how to best exert pressure on our easily-manipulated government. The party have accepted staggering donations from Wonga, Care UK, McAlpine and JCB, all of whom have their eye on a different sector of government – DWP, Healthcare, Environment, Communities and Local Government. The Murdoch-owned empire News UK has held the biggest share in government over the past 25 years – towing the neoliberal opinion (so we don’t have to!). Some of these donors now sit in the House of Lords, because in a world under the Tories, you can literally buy anything.
Young people were the first group to get thrown under the austerity bus. In the past few years we have seen our education fees triple, career advice and mental health services being cut, and the financial minefield it takes for half of us to get to school if we didn’t live within walking distance. In turn, the media has gone on to vilify or ignore us for protesting, reporting only the arrests in the aftermath of the student protests of 2010, 2011 and 2014, as well as the fallout which led to the 2011 riots. Not one of these papers has stood in our defence.
If you needed any more proof that the current government continues to feel that young people and their vote is little more than “a joke”, please see David Cameron’s response to Ed Miliband’s interview with Russell Brand. Many of Brand’s followers, especially on his YouTube channel, fall into the 18-24 category, whereas Cameron’s party membership holds an average age of 63. Acknowledgement of the existence of young people seems to be a rarity in our ruling party.
As we watch David Cameron’s lively speeches from the Square Mile, pointing to the sea of men around him in shirts and suits, we hear him declare, “These are real people”. How very telling.
My response to last month’s election is one of dread and fear. But we need to mobilise in the aftermath and fight for our futures.
Image from: http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2012/10/conservative-conference-clear-blue-water/