Social Policy in Ontario

Let demise of the U.K. be our warning

Posted on January 9, 2017 in Governance Debates

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TheStar.com – Opinion/Commentary – Britain has privatized itself at great cost.
Jan. 9, 2017.   By HEATHER MALLICK, Columnist

In the U.S., the signposts of national deterioration were in plain sight until Donald Trump made them inescapable. But it is a deep sorrow to see the U.K. wither away.

Always a massively unequal nation, it was nevertheless packed with soft power: art, popular culture, literature, intellect, history and the glory of once having saved the planet from Nazis. Thanks for that.

Long before Brexit, Britain’s self-destruction created northern areas so dire that they should have been placed under martial law (which EU grants might happily have paid for, but no more). So many people fled to London and environs that the unbalanced island tilted and slipped into the sea. Thanks to Brexit, no European nations are sending out little boats. ‘Tis a sad thing. Remember Dunkirk.

Britain failed in a particular way that offers lessons for Canada: it disabled levels of government, sanded through wood, sliced into bone. From such small cumulative decisions, a nation becomes centrally authoritarian and loses its limbs.

How did it happen? London Review of Books writer Tom Crewe calmly lays out the sad history in a new essay, The Strange Death of Municipal England. I hadn’t realized. It stopped my heart.

“Britain is the most centralized country in the Western world,” writes Crewe. It was not always so. In 1835 the Victorians handed power to local authorities who “pioneered welfare provision, cleared slums, built houses, parks, hospitals, museums and libraries, swimming pools and playing fields.” This was their response to the fantastic wealth of a colonial power: good things, Christian sharing.

Post-Second World War, central government encroached with socialism, local government ceded power to the postwar welfare state, and the money came from Westminster. But local city and town councils were still mandated to provide good things, such as libraries, social housing, homeless shelters, garbage collection, cemeteries, transit, parks etc.

About 64 per cent of the money came from central government grants and local taxes achieved the rest. Then the rot began. In 2010 local taxes were basically frozen. Similar to California’s disastrous Proposition 13 in 1978, taxes were deemed so very bad that they couldn’t be raised without a referendum. Councils were forbidden to run deficits.

So when Conservatives under David Cameron and Theresa May told starving local government to cut further, they had to. In this way, Crewe writes, Westminster has quietly escaped blame for destroying basic services across the country.

It was exquisitely planned. Local councils are cutting essential services, such as children’s centres, buses, park maintenance, swimming pools, etc. In some parts of Britain, Crewe reports, tens of thousands of street lights are switched off after midnight to save money. This is Britain in 2017, more like a backwater in eastern Europe.

And people, including media, complain loudly about local government instead of pointing to 10 Downing Street.

We’ve seen this happen here. Ontario Premier Mike Harris created the megacity in 1998 and downloaded billions in services. Short of money, every borough ended up resenting the other when the real villain was the province. Toronto remains under-taxed. Only a persuasive mayor can change this.

Now Ontario’s Liberal government is stuck with providing lavish public services that cities won’t raise taxes to help pay for. This is how Hydro privatization came up. Beware.

Britain privatized the nation. British municipal government is like easyJet, with user fees for no-frills services for the 99 per cent. Crewe reports that Barnet in North London has contracted out responsibility for legal services, cemeteries and crematoriums, IT, HR, parking, environmental health, payroll, benefits and libraries.

The National Health, Britain’s medicare, is collapsing from underfunding in a nation that has already privatized its rail, gas, electricity and water. As Crewe reports, the private sector is partly or fully responsible for parole, prisons, schools, roads, hospital services, mail, welfare assessments, court interpreters and much more. Britain broke all its eggs and for what?

Next up for outsourcing/privatization are, seriously, child protection and the law courts.

Finally came a hint of revolt. The Tories want to “marketize,” allowing new profit-making colleges to become universities, and the House of Lords has balked. It’s a British “Trump University” and it may be stopped by a Lib Dem-Labour coalition.

As Labour’s Lord Stevenson said, “This bill is an attempt from the government to run a market experiment through the bloodstream of our university system, and a classic case of understanding the cost of everything and the value of nothing.”

For lack of care and attention, there’s no England now. Canadians should take note. Under a different government, it could happen here too, inch by inch.

< https://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2017/01/09/let-demise-of-the-uk-be-our-warning-mallick.html >

Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living, tax

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