Has Britain been gripped by fanaticism?
The average person in Britain is no more fascinated by politics, or doctrinaire about it, than he or she has ever been.
Among those who do take an interest in politics, however, there seems to be an increasing tendancy to believe that the opposition represents an existential threat and that one's own side has the ability to create a paradise, a land flowing with milk and honey, providing the nasty Blairite/Eurocrats/Moderates/Extremists/Remoaners don't sabotage it.
I actually do believe that a Corbyn administration would do a massive amount of damage to Britain, but I wish I could for one moment believe that any party or faction had all the answers to create a paradise on earth. I don't.
There is an interesting article in The Economist about whether Britain is in the grip of "Millenarianism" which you can read here.
Among those who do take an interest in politics, however, there seems to be an increasing tendancy to believe that the opposition represents an existential threat and that one's own side has the ability to create a paradise, a land flowing with milk and honey, providing the nasty Blairite/Eurocrats/Moderates/Extremists/Remoaners don't sabotage it.
I actually do believe that a Corbyn administration would do a massive amount of damage to Britain, but I wish I could for one moment believe that any party or faction had all the answers to create a paradise on earth. I don't.
There is an interesting article in The Economist about whether Britain is in the grip of "Millenarianism" which you can read here.
Comments
* the number of people in work has risen to the highest it has ever been, mostly through more full-time permanent jobs,
* more money has been spent on the NHS in absolute and real terms and it is treating more patients than ever before with thousands more doctors and nurses
* more children are being taught in schools classed as Outstanding or Good
* forty million people have had their taxes cut and four million low-paid people have been taken out of the income tax net altogether
* the government deficit has been cut by two thirds as a proportion of GDP
* The slump in national prosperity at the end of the last Labour government has been reversed
* more houses have been build per year than the Labour government under Gordon Brown was building
* modern slavery has been outlawed
* equal marriage has been legalised
* Britain is one of very few rich nations which meets both the NATO target to spend 2% of GNI on defence and the UN target to spend 0.7% of BNI on foreign aid
* A National Living Wage has been introduced
This government is not perfect (I'll probably now get comments here from some people whose reaction to the list above is to say that it is not right-wing enough)
However, anyone who can look at that record and claim that it is that of an uncaring government, a reactionary hard-right government or an unsuccessful government, particularly when the economic record of the country since 2010 is compared with that under most of the other governments which have been in power in my lifetime and especially the disastrous Brown administration we took over from is, quite frankly, living in cloud-cuckoo land.
who would say such a thing?
well to whomever would, i can only say, yeah, you have a point.