OPINION
April 23rd, 2024
In recent months I have been reporting how the UK is going down the drain. Matters are nearly reaching a head as the UK now really sucks.
Government spending is almost out of control with priorities being allocated according to political pressures (as in many countries). With the war in Ukraine being an existential threat to the UK and the Western world including the USA, more emphasis needs to be placed on defence. Russia has now committed to spend over 7% of its GDP on its defence budget, whilst the UK is just over 2%.
Health spending is growing.
The major trend of the past 70 years has been a steady increase in the share of national income devoted to government spending on health and a corresponding decrease in the share of national income devoted to defence. Between 1955-56 and 2022–23, health spending increased from 2.8% to 8.4% of UK GDP. This rise was offset by a fall in defence spending from 7.6% to 2.2% of GDP. This ‘peace dividend’ allowed the government to spend more on health without increasing the size of the state.
But the speed with which defence spending has fallen has slowed in recent years. The UK government pledged to spend a minimum of 2% of GDP on defence as part of its NATO commitments in 2014, creating an effective floor for the defence budget. More recently, in response to Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine, governments across Europe – including the UK’s – have announced increases in defence spending. Rishi Sunak has set out an ‘ambition’ to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP in the longer term, which – if achieved – would start to reverse the downwards trend seen over the last 70 years.
We see similar trends if we instead look at spending as a share of total managed expenditure. Health spending has grown steadily to account for an ever-increasing share of total spending. At the same time, the share devoted to defence has fallen, but at a slowing rate. Some other areas of spending, notably education, have been relatively stable over this period, while the share of spending devoted to areas such as housing has fallen.
Source IFS Tax Lab 23rd April 2024
All the while this is happening the NHS is coming close to being the national deity, to be protected and worshipped and with sacrifices being made in other areas of expenditure to satisfy its vast appetite for cash. I was going to make a comparison with human sacrifices but with the ever-increasing waiting lists, emergency ambulances taking ten hours to reach a patient and ever-growing numbers of early deaths due to inadequate care I could be accused of being insensitive. This reverence for the NHS has resulted in the prime function of a government – to protect its citizens from external threats – being sadly neglected. Let’s look at other reasons why the UK sucks.
Two young men were arrested yesterday and charged with spying for China. Actually, they were charged with breaches of the Official Secrets Act. Christopher Berry, 32, from Oxfordshire, and Christopher Cash, 29, a former parliamentary researcher for the governing Conservative party, were charged with providing prejudicial information to China. At the same time, something was happening in Germany.
Prosecutors in Berlin said on Monday that three German nationals had handed technologies with potential military purposes to Chinese intelligence with whom they have been working since at least June 2022. The federal prosecutor identified the main suspect as Thomas R, who was described as an agent for a China-based employee of China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS). Herwig F and Ina F – a married couple who run a company in Düsseldorf – were recruited to procure cooperation from researchers.
Through their company, the couple concluded a cooperation agreement with a German university, part of which involved preparing a study for a Chinese contractor on machine parts that can be used for operating powerful marine engines such as combat ships, the statement said.
Left-wing newspapers reported that the incidents were unconnected. Hmmmm.
Meanwhile in Scotland things are hotting up for the Scottish National Party. Peter Murrell, the husband of Nicola Sturgeon (previous First Minister) and ex CEO of the SNP was arrested and charged with embezzlement (it is thought of SNP funds). Police said that enquiries are continuing, and it is thought that more arrests are in the wind.
Sturgeon’s successor as First Minister (Humza Yousaf) is on the receiving end of a huge backlash against the dreaded anti-hate legislation. Apart from being nearly unworkable it has gradually dawned on people that it has actually accidentally (really?) meant that blasphemy (if not in name, but in practice) has been covered by the new legislation. I wonder whether that will be taken advantage of by Islam or the Free Church of Scotland. Yousaf’s brother-in-law was also arrested and accused of selling heroin worth more than £6000.
The accused was allegedly caught dealing the Class A drug alongside two other people at an address in Dundee on Thursday, January 11.
The accused, 36, appeared at the sheriff court in Dundee on January 15 following a weekend in custody, up against a three charge petition. The three individuals were also allegedly in possession of cocaine and cannabis.
Then after these charges Ramsay El-Nakla, the brother of SNP leader Humza Yousaf’s wife, was charged with abduction and extortion in a case linked to a man who died falling from a window in Dundee.
Moving on to Wales, Mark Drakeford recently retired as leader of the governing Welsh Labour Party, which had introduced a blanket 20mph speed limit replacing the standard 30mph limit. A petition was raised by the populace, with over 500,000 signatures, and his replacement as leader has immediately reversed the legislation. Drakeford had a reputation for being a control freak and this speed limit was the last straw.
Just to show that England isn’t immune to stupidity, at a pro-Palestinian demonstration a Metropolitan Police Sergeant told a bystander that he was not allowing him to get closer to the demonstration as he was “openly Jewish”. This unsurprisingly has caused a huge outcry and is compounded by the Jewish gentleman being told that if he didn’t move on, he would be charged with a breach of the peace. Apparently, they weren’t charging the demonstrators who were displaying the usual banners and hate messages. All this just as we were approaching Passover. The Met Police Commissioner is now widely reviled and unless he gets the demos under control his resignation will be demanded. Public trust in the Met is at an all-time low.
This was compounded by today seeing the trial of well-known right-wing activist (freedom fighter, far right stirrer etc, you choose your own epithet) Tommy Robinson.
The far-right activist, real name Stephen Yaxley Lennon, was today acquitted after a judge ruled the power used against him had not been legally authorised by the Metropolitan Police.
Mr Robinson, 41, was arrested and pepper-sprayed at a march against anti-Semitism near the Royal Courts of Justice in central London, where the demonstration began, on November 26 last year.
The co-founder and former leader of the English Defence League was accused of failing to follow an order to leave the area.
Organisers had said he would not be welcome at the event, which was the first of its kind since the start of the current Israel-Hamas conflict and had about 100,000 people attending.
The senior Metropolitan Police officer who signed the dispersal order barring Robinson from being there yesterday admitted it might not have been lawful after he wrongly wrote November 24 on the form instead. Giving his ruling today which cleared Robinson, District Judge Daniel Sternberg said: ‘I am not satisfied there was a legal authorisation.’
He told Mr Robinson: ‘There is no case for you to answer.’
Source Daily Mail 23rd April 2024.
Because of the dates mix up the order was not legal. Yet another Met police cock-up. Ironically the court case happened on St George’s Day.
Tommy Robinson was found not guilty of breaching a dispersal order section 35. The date of the occurrence was the 24th of November, but the inspector issuing the order dated it the 26th; therefore the order was not valid until that date, so Robinson was cleared.
All this is on top of 18 months of train strikes and 12 months plus of NHS strikes that continue unabated.
Hence the opening statement “The UK sucks”. We are all getting the feeling that there is no one in control and the country is sliding towards social and cultural disaster with increasing conflicts, with the Government backing the wrong sides. British traditions are being overturned.
To finish on a lighter note, but one which may have serious repercussions the UK Customs (HMRC) sued a sweet manufacturer for £470,000 in VAT that they had not paid. At a tribunal the manufacturer won their case as it was decided that the product in question (marshmallows) were not sweets, but ingredients as they could be used in cooking and stuck on a stick and toasted at a barbecue.
Welcome to Batshit Bonkers Britain.