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Troubled times
hungry children dismissed as coming from families of welfare scroungers; the building of walls to keep immigrants out; terrified Afghan families passing their babies to the Canadian airforce as they are refused asylum … the list is endless, and is getting bigger. ‘We need more people who can see “the big picture”’, calls Al Aynsley-Green (2019: 230) in relation to ‘the British betrayal of childhood’. With some of the worst outcomes for health, education, social care, youth justice and poverty, the UK is at the same time among the richest countries of the world. But we need to see beyond this to the global picture in order to understand the lack of connection, empathy and compassion of neoliberal capitalism that breeds hatred, violence and destruction in relation to all humanity and the environment. Neoliberal capitalism is a toxic global problem that has polluted life on Earth. Meanwhile, as Bregman (2018) says, we still seem to be in a coma, lacking the ability to understand what is happening, let alone the imagination to see a new world order to replace the devastation of neoliberal politics. And there are many ideas in action across the world based on Universal Basic Income, participatory budgeting and the like that could set the ball rolling in your community immediately. Environmental degradation and poverty violate human rights, so we need to think harder and act quickly! It is the rich who are the problem, not the poor (Sayer, 2016). Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life. (Mandela, 2005)
Big electoral change from Right to Left (or so we thought) The landslide election of the Blair government in 1997 filled those of us committed to social justice with hope and optimism. The promise, both personal and political, on the part of Tony Blair, Labour leader and newly elected prime minister, was to end child poverty. The reality is that it was the dawning of the centre-ground politics of New Labour: neither Left nor Right, but all on the same side, the age of partnership with no dialectical tension. It was a pandering to the rich and a betrayal of the poor that was not clear in the beginning. At Toynbee Hall, in March 1999, Tony Blair delivered his speech on the legacy of Beveridge’s welfare state, the hiatus of which was his personal and political commitment to end child poverty within 20 years. After the long Thatcher years when ‘poverty’ was eliminated from political debate, this sounded revolutionary. A raft of policies appeared on child poverty, unemployment, neighbourhood deprivation and inequalities in health and educational achievement. Optimism soared! But Blair’s principles were flawed. He was playing his cards in favour of the privileged, not the poor, and this started to show. Owen Jones (2016: 100) accuses him of taking working-class voters for granted. Optimism started to fade and disillusionment set in. He was 51
