Austerity Britain

This recession has seemed to last for a very long time now. The incoming Tory government has to make cuts in each public sector in order to balance the books and get the UK out of the hole that it is in and push the country into the green again. A decade or so under new Labour of excessive borrowing and risk taking by hedge fund managers and large investment banks is well and truly over and new legislation is being brought in, in the US as well as the UK, to curb the powers that the financial sector has on the wider economy.

The problem that arises is that the large corporations and big banks prop up the treasury in the UK and for some reason, the media are often reluctant to identify, it is London that bears the burden of keeping the people of Britain in jobs. Socialism in the UK is difficult to put into practice due to the character of the UK economy in the 21st century. With emerging markets like India and China as well as cheap labour markets to exploit, businesses in the regions struggle to record a profit when times are bad and are the first to enforce redundancies.

London is the engine of the ship, running the entire show and as soon as that engine loses power, the extremities lose the energy to operate as they had done. Under the old Labour government, the public sector would pick up the slack caused by a decline in regional private businesses. However, it drains the economy of the entire country and therefore cannot remain sustainable.

Before these cuts were announced by David Cameron and his Tory pals, areas such as Scotland, the North-East and Northern Ireland had the majority of their work forces in the public sectors. With the downfall of Lehmann brothers in good ol’ Uncle Sam’s backyard, the fall of the pound was inevitable and Labour pushed more money into the economy to bailout these sectors and essentially keep them afloat.

With the revelations that senior figures in the Labour government like Lord Mandelson understood towards the end of 2009 that Labour were not going to come close to winning the General Election held in April, there was spiralling spending in order to give the incoming Tories a headache and a half, forcing them to make further public sector cutbacks, thus struggling to avoid the Greek tragedy.

As London tries to keep its own head above water and regain the economic power it had before the down turn, jobs in the regions are like gold dust. Cuts will be made forcing people into the private sectors and a variety of austerity measures will be implemented.

Young graduates looking for that first break are going to be competing with all of the above. Even graduates with good degrees from top universities won’t be getting any jobs on a decent salary in any of the regions any time soon.

Thanks Gordon...Thanks Tony...Thanks 21st century UK Socialism.