Who Broke Britain? Part 1: Austerity | If You’re Listening

For a week in early September last year, the UK was hit by a heatwave, but while Brits were busy flocking to the beaches and Parks, a prisoner at Wesworth Prison in London was allegedly planning his escape. Daniel Khif was a former soldier and a suspected spy in waiting. trial for terrorism crimes already had quite a long resume for someone only 22 years old, but on September 6 he added prison escape to the list. Khif was working in the prison kitchen when around 7:30 a.m. he allegedly walked onto a loading dock and tied himself under a food delivery truck that was being unloaded today at 7:50 a.m.

A man called Daniel Khif escaped from Wesworth Prison, where he was being held on remand. Wesworth prison is close to the center of London, so traffic is slow and stops regularly for the When the police caught up with the truck a few kilometers from the road, khif had already climbed out from under it, leaving only the straps of the sheet that I used to hold. I am urgently appealing to the public to help us find Daniel Khif who could be big anywhere in the UK, in fact he was nowhere in the UK, he left South London and went West from London where he was found 3 days later this morning, arrested and is now back in custody, but how was this prison escape possible?

If you were to write and escape this low-tech script for a movie or TV show, you'd be told to make it more complicated. Aren't there people with mirrors on sticks to look under trucks for exactly this? Well, yes, generally, except that it turns out. On the day of Khalif's alleged escape, 39% of the staff assigned to Wesworth Prison had not shown up for work, not only was the prison in a state of disrepair well beyond its capacity and with a huge lack of staff, the chief prison inspector said conditions at Wandsworth are so bad it should be closed.

This sort of thing is happening all over Britain. Institutions are collapsing. More and more people are relying on charities and food donations. One in five households with children living in them is struggling to afford food. 100 years ago, London was the largest city in the world, capital of a global empire larger than any other in the history of the world, even just 17 years ago. The British were the richest people in any of the world's major economies and have since regressed further than any other major economy. This feels

broke

n, so who

broke

it? This is the first episode of our four-

part

series called Who Broke Britain?

It covers the last 14 years of leadership of the Conservative

part

y from its victory in 2010 until the general election taking place next month. rishy sunak fired the starting gun in a boring, rainy and very noisy Downing Street. The country has gone through amazing changes that have been chaotic at times. I'm a fighter and not at all hilarious. Can you get me a rope? Depressing and often downright farcical. What were they? the big decisions that led to this and who were the people who made them I'm mban this is if today is David Cameron's money man George Osborne, the young heir to a Fortune wallpaper who took a butcher knife to the budget of the United Kingdom and initiated the country's politics. a journey into total chaos to find out how we got here we have to go back to the beginning thank you thank you in 2010 an educated, soft spoken man who was a fifth cousin of Queen Elizabeth II was leading the Conservatives to an election why is our politics broken?

Conservative leader David Camaron was set to win. Why is our society broken? It was just after the 2008 global financial crisis and the Conservatives' message was simple. The GFC was the other team's fault. Why is our economy broken? Britain is broken. We are here to fix it thanks to Britain's heavy dependence on its financial services sector. They have been particularly affected by the crisis. People are still in long queues waiting for jobs in the UK. Your prospects don't look good. The British Army was involved. In two wars, in a part of the world that no one visits much, there was a wave of strikes and the unemployment rate was rising.

The pulses said that the Labor prime minister, Gordon Brown, a fussy, public-educated Scottish boomer, was to be replaced by the upper-class Englishman, David Cameron. David Cameron is presenting himself as the young new man of a revitalized Conservative party. A safe and sensible middle ground. There was something comforting about how predictable everything was. The conservatives were going to return to government. There will always be an England and England will be historically. The conservatives are. They have generally been in government for most of the last 300 years, isn't it true Mr Speaker that the Labor Party has finally realized that they have a loser, not a leader?

Something comforting about the predictable politics that England means, but that predictability was so it didn't go smoothly, the election was practically a tie and Cameron only got over the line by forming a coalition with the minor party of the Liberal Democrats; It probably would have been better to apply with a simple "we're not here." platform, but he presented a new original plan with a new and original name, a word that would define the decade of

austerity

. The man in charge of delivering the AER program was David Cameron's best friend. George Osborne Osborne was even younger and upper class than David.

Cameron was 38 years old and the eldest son of a wallpaper magnate named Peter Osborne. Sorry, I should say that Sir Peter Osborne, 17th Baronet of Balon Taylor and B Lemon, now Balon Taylor and B Lemon are not even in the UK, by the way. This is the Republic of Ireland, but it is still a title that George will inherit from his father one day. George began working for the Conservative Party straight out of Oxford. In fact, I think the British Conservative Party has a clearer sense of its own identity and identity. principles than any other party in British politics today the principle he loves most is reducing the size of government the first and perhaps oldest principle of conservatism is that of limited government small government he also believed in what he calls compassionate conservatism the conservatives They have We have always believed that we are part of a community, we are part of a society, that we have obligations to the people in that society, people who are often less fortunate than us, and we actually also believe that the best way to help them is to achieve let them help themselves.

The government takes people off benefits and gets them to work, this is the core of their ideology. He thought he could solve all the problems and it was the opposite of what the unions had been doing. If there is a story that symbolizes how the government's era of

austerity

fell, it would be It has to be this just after a new government takes power, the Monarch always gives a traditional speech at the opening of parliament. This speech is written by the government for the Queen to read and I'm not sure Cameron and Osborne realized the jux position.

They were creating a woman took a golden chariot from one of her palaces with a diamond encrusted crown, sat on a Golden Throne and then told everyone to prepare for public spending cuts. The first priority is to reduce the deficit and restore economic growth, as Osborne said. began to roll in his Cortes he found himself cornered by the queen at a state dinner he said in his podcast political currency that his majesty demanded that a bagpipe school be saved from the cuts he approached me and said you are not going to close, is it You the British Army Highland Pipe School?

I said, of course, no your majesty, in fact the Army School of Highland Pipe and Percussion Music was going to close due to budget cuts which Osborne forgave. I immediately sent him a reply message. to the Palace that she could be sure that the British Army's pipers would remain well trained. It's actually quite difficult to think of a more British story than that. The Chancellor, Mr. Former Chancellor, encourages, yes, George Osborne gave his first budget speech. The month after the British election, Mr Vice President, this emergency budget decisively addresses our country's record debts. What followed was 55 minutes of cuts announcements, with the exception of the NHS, aged pensions and some big infrastructure projects, nothing left unscathed in a 9C.

In one section of the speech he announced 13 cuts in benefits for single-parent children, working families and expectant mothers. The bagpipe school was fine, although thank God we will focus our benefits more on those in need and end some one-off payments that the country cannot. If you compare the UK's spending at the time with that of its allies such as Australia, the United States and its European neighbours, you can see how markedly different Cameron Osborne's response to the GFC was in all other countries. Government spending shifted quickly to Top Gear and then slowly declined. backing up like a driver and a manual car downshifting when exiting the motorway, the Labor government had also put its foot down, but just as it was reaching top speed, Osborne put the gearbox into reverse as they passed months.

Cuts announced The army is losing 40% of its tanks and artillery Cuts to the Army and Navy in particular have been reduced quite significantly Britain's ability to project military power Public service jobs would be axed and the salaries of people who stayed would be frozen in the public sector. Workers in the sector demonstrated in front of 10 Downing Street. Some police trying to maintain order here might well have considered jumping the fence. Many of them will also lose their jobs in the British government's new era of austerity. Osborne said the cuts were tough but fair, except they were not If the Treasury's own analysis published today suggests that the measures announced today disproportionately affect lower income groups, now one might be wondering why the government would make drastic cuts at a time when the economy was already in trouble.

It sounds counterintuitive, but Cameron Osborne had what they thought was a good reason, yeah, let me pretend I'm ABC's esteemed business reporter Alan Kler and explain budgets and debt to you for just a minute, thanks Matt, we're on 2010 and the UK government debt has reached 131% of GDP, which is much more than the sales of new artist Justin Bieber's debut album. Now interest rates on government loans are currently lower than the horn of that new movie Inception, but George Osborne is worried they will rise. Tighter fiscal policy may allow interest rates to stay lower for longer. The solution is to cut government. budget to reduce the benefits of debt cutting to force people to work harder and watch the economy accelerate faster than disgraced incredible cyclist Lance Armstrong will work only time will tell and that's fine in Finance until 2024 and with the benefit In retrospect, we can see whether Osborne-style austerity was good for Britain and the answer is quite obvious: it was not that interest rates did not rise;

In fact, 2010 was pretty much the perfect time to borrow as much money as possible, 8 years later. Osborne's policies were implemented. The United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty has arrived in Britain. This is not a guy you want coming to control your country. It's like a call from the wastewater department while you're on vacation. It's not going to be like that. good news, his name is Philip Olon, he is an international human rights lawyer who has done a wide range of work at the UN, most of that work was done in extremely poor countries in Africa, Asia and Central America, but in 2018 toured the UK and was not impressed with what I saw food banks schools community centers work centers libraries and other places there is a lot of misery many people feel that the system is failing them many people feel that the system is already there only to punish them a system that is there to punish people who feel that, even though they are really depressed and need a little help that they could always have counted on in yesterday's Britain, they just can't get it when the government refuses to help. people need help from others, much of it has been shifted to the community, to families, to emergency rooms, and even to government emergency services 14 years after austerity was introduced in Britain, the data isthere, they did not work and in many cases did the opposite of what they were supposed to do compared to similar countries British unemployment increased poverty increased public debt even increased as a proportion of GDP Britain is certainly capable of eliminating most , if not all, of his poverty if he wanted to, but it is clear that there is a political choice that he does not want, he does not want.

I think it's getting scarier and scarier and particularly as we get closer to winter and people now have to rely on their heating, there's um, yeah, it's real. Uh, despair for a lot of people, virtually every developed country in the world has spent the last 20 years dealing with the same challenges that Britain faced. The globalization. The energy transition. The rise of social networks. Manufacturing jobs are disappearing. Housing is more expensive. The cost of living is. Trust in politicians and institutions is eroding, but George Osborne's extreme ideologically driven austerity policy accelerated. This one of the richest countries in the world became more insecure outside parliament.

Grieving families are protesting a rise in knife tax which they say is linked to austerity. Some of this may have happened under another government, but Osborne's harsh austerity policy was like fuel to the fire and in an environment like that in a broken society, things become much less predictable and when things become unpredictable, governments may begin to lose control of the country this means that the United Kingdom has voted to leave the European Union so the eyes have it the eyes have it we are going to say goodbye take your seat put away your flags you leave can you bring me a rope what is it?

Of course, where we're headed in our quest to find out who broke Britain.