Almost 25 years

[BrianW]

Foreign aid always has strings and is often, in fact, a subsidy for UK companies.

It's part of diplomacy. If you called it what it is, bribes, people would understand.

We've been following this policy for years. Correlli Barnett refers to it in his series of books about post-war Britain.* He gives it as an example of mistaken policy.

* Highly recommended. Although he is no socialist, more like a Thatcherite, his analysis of Britain's policy errors - some of which are almost laughable in retrospect - is invaluable. I suggest you read his books for a much clearer understanding of how modern Britain developed. He slags off all sides. Politicians, trade unions, and by no means least, industrialists.

 

[Gorton_Tubster]

Yeah inequality is the way forward it seems.

The preceding 25 years for me were a lot more promising and I was hoping the society we were creating, the way we were heading, was going to be more collaborative, more caring, more responsible to each other, all that bollocks.

It's totally gone the American way during my lifetime where people are expected to fend for themselves rather than rely on the state to help them, where the NHS is burden rather than a source of pride in our society. Slowly the state help and responsibility has been stripped away. We can't see a dentist, midwives and district nursing, doctors and GPs are all more difficult to engage with. All public services seem to be shrinking, even our recent politicians don't serve the country anymore.
Public services have always been under funded but its the will to fix them that seems to have gone. We keep putting plasters over major issues whilst putting our major efforts into wealth growth.

I guess that's the way it goes though when the rich own most of the govn/media/law power, I suppose its just human nature. But I also do think we're in the middle of our industrial revolution. The poorer parts of society are being exploited by those large multinational companies, a handful of people seem to be taking, or making, so much money whilst their employees can't even set up a union or get regular hours or get good health care. The wealth gap is getting larger again. That's going to have to reset itself at some point. The extremely rich are going to have to pay for society to be fixed or they will reap the shit that happens and I think they know it.

That's just my thoughts on a blurry Friday morning.