Total power vacuum in the United Kingdom in the midst of economic and social crisis

“You have called 10 Downing Street.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
18 August 2022 Thursday 22:32
9 Reads
Total power vacuum in the United Kingdom in the midst of economic and social crisis

“You have called 10 Downing Street. The prime minister leaves office on September 5 and will be on vacation until then. If he wants to complain about the electricity and gas bill, press 1; if you want to complain about the queue for an operation in public health, press 2; if you want to complain about the arrival of immigrants, press 3; if you want to complain that you can't get your passport renewed, press 4; if you want to complain about the tax increase, press 5; for any other complaints, press 6. If it is an emergency, do not hang up and the first available operator will attend to you. You are number 9,345,678. The estimated waiting time is one year, two months and three days. To improve the service, the conversation is being recorded.

Use this hyperbole to describe the state of the British nation in the middle of Ferragosto, with the highest inflation in forty years (more than 10%), the highest taxes in seven decades, interest rates on the rise, the pound under threat, a debt and uncontrolled public deficits, the cancer of Brexit, gas and electricity bills that will soon reach 600 euros per month per household, the forecast of a recession that will last more than a year, a 3% drop in average income, salaries frozen, collapse of public services...

And, to all this, Boris Johnson, after initially not accepting his defenestration and while preparing to return, has decided to spend the entire month on vacation with his family, first in a spa in Slovenia, now in Greece, and then in Checkers, the house available to the British premiers in the English countryside. In his absence, and to avoid the bad drink, the moving truck appeared in Downing Street on Monday and took his things. He's not coming back.

Bad news happens day after day (drought and water restrictions in such a rainy country, in case something was missing). The predicted summer of discontent has come true. People are between concerned and angry, watching in slow motion as the ship heads towards the cliffs with no one at the helm, with the Conservative Party locked in the battle for leadership between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss (the very likely winner) and talking only to the 160,000 militants (the vast majority of whom are well-to-do retired whites) who are going to elect the new prime minister. An absolutely undemocratic process (something like if only the members of Barça chose the president of the Generalitat), and full of political dangers, because the winner may find himself without the support of his parliamentary group and with his agenda paralyzed.

In this climate, transport workers (represented by one of the most militant unions) are starting today, Thursday, a new round of strikes (or "industrial actions", the euphemism used) demanding higher wages that compensate them for inflation. Today and Saturday you will not be able to travel by train practically anywhere in the kingdom, and on Friday the London Underground will be almost paralyzed. And the thing has only just begun. Doctors, lawyers, postmen, airline employees, airport workers and even lawyers threaten work stoppages in the coming months.

Truss, who already feels like a winner, prefers to keep her cards up her sleeve and not offer concrete solutions so as not to tie her hands prematurely, but this increases the feeling of an absolute vacuum of power, while the opposition proposes freezing energy bills at current levels, even if this means indebting more to the State. But when she speaks she has a tendency to screw up, and she has come to say that British workers are lazy (they lack “geek”) compared to foreigners. It is something in which she is not far off the mark, as the very low productivity of the United Kingdom suggests. Brexit has caused a panic among EU citizens, and the hospitality industry is finding it impossible to cover casualties. The establishment is rare in which there is not a sign in the window asking for labor that does not arrive. The English refuse to be waiters or work in construction, for that they sign up for unemployment.

Going on a trip has become a nightmare, when it is not impossible due to the strikes; the waiting list for operations is seven million people; of the EU countries, only Greece and Portugal have less public investment; the officials have not returned to the offices, the doctors "receive" by Zoom, renewing the driver's license is an odyssey. The cost of living has skyrocketed, and there's no one behind the wheel. But you can always call Downing Street and leave a recorded message.