No.264 - The UK: The Sick Man of Europe Once Again?
Dear James,
Surely these are the end of days for the Tory Party? That demon worm called Brexit has been devouring your party from within for the last thirty years and now all that is left is a husk, a discarded skin, a shrunken, shrivelled corpse of a once largely honourable party.The only problem remaining is that you’re unable to admit failure and that is the mark of Cain on any politician. No ideas, no plans, no philosophy, no honour. There is nothing left within this political cadaver James - it’s just a desiccated skein of yesteryear wrapped around the last feeble skirmishes of your own civil war. And all the nation can do is to watch the death throes in numbed and helpless horror.
I suppose you’re glad that you James, survived the Truss insurgency and are now back on the Sunak government payroll. But even you must know that the end is nigh. Exhausted, discredited and swirling in tides of corruption, your Party’s record over the last twelve years is being revealed in all its sordid incompetence. From Cameron’s mishandling of the Brexit referendum to Osborne’s disastrous austerity project through to the quagmire of the May years, the fantasies of the Boris Circus and the calamity of the Liz Truss insurgency, we are now in the hands of a final, lame duck premier who presides over the shattered remains of the Tory Party civil war. Over the last twelve years productivity, that key to growth - which rose on average by 2.1% during the Blair years - has remained stuck on zero. Brexit is decimating our industries. Our farmers, our hospitality industry, our police forces and our NHS are struggling to overcome the banishment of EU workers. The last twelve years will one day come to be known as ‘the lost decade’ of British economic power. If ever our nation needed to time to reassess and regroup, it is now.
A recent YouGov poll showed that support for Brexit is at a record low, with only 32% of the British public saying it was right to vote to leave and 56% saying it was wrong.One in five who voted for Brexit now think it the wrong decision. They have much evidence to cite. The small number of post-Brexit trades deals your government has managed to achieve, have offered only miniscule advantages at best. The Japanese trade deal so loudly touted by Liz Truss as International Trade Minister in 2021 has delivered less trade with that nation rather than more. In the first year since coming into force on 1 January 2021, total trade between the countries was £23.7bn, against £24.9bn in 2020, a fall of about 5%. Hardly the ‘historic landmark deal' claimed by Miss Truss when she signed the deal. Recently, George Eustace the former-Agriculture Minister has admitted that the trade deal with Australia was a poor deal for the UK. And this week came word that Brexit has added nearly £6bn to Britain’s food bills over a two-year period. The National Farmers’ Union found some 40% of its members had lost crops because they didn’t have enough people to bring in the harvest. Strangely enough, the Ministry for Brexit Opportunities has been remarkably quiet over the last months. I wonder why?
Poor Richi Sunak, James. His back benches are full of ex-ministers each harbouring the wounds of earlier failure and ready to inflict more on the current leadership. Grudges fester like rotten cabbages. Corruption is rife. The latest case is Lady Bimbo aka Mone who has had to flee the Tory whip after allegedly helping herself to £29 million pounds of tax payers money through a company that didn’t even exist when she started lobbying for the PPE contracts. Add to that the constant turnover of Prime Ministers, Chancellors and assorted lower ranks and your party is like a blind man scrabbling in the gravel for his front door keys.
James, the real shame is that the Tories spiralling death dive is taking the country with them.The UK is fast defaulting to its ancient role as 'the sick man of Europe’. For the last twelve years, your government has failed consistently to improve productivity, to grow the economy and to provision sufficiently for the NHS, schools and police forces. When challenged, Sunak reincarnates as Boris, bleating on about delivering ‘the fastest vaccine delivery’ in the world - thanks actually to the happy combination of the NHS and a private company - and saving countless lives in the pandemic - actually 180,718 deaths by July 7th this year giving the UK the highest number of Covid deaths in Western Europe. It’s all so sad.
Once upon a time, politicians believed in governing in the interests of the nation. Those times are long gone. Today it’s all about political survival. And with the opinion polls consistently showing a 20+ point lead for Labour, your party insists on clinging desperately to a sinking ship. What a majority of the population want is a general election.May be James, it's a good time to start making yourself known to the head hunter community? Alternatively, I suppose, you could always follow Matt Hancock’s example and apply for the next season of ‘I’m a Celebrity- Get me Out of Here!’?
BH - Your Concerned Constituent