The latest ‘get out of jail card’ politician must address the poverty that undermines Britain

One of the most frightening diminutions of the UK as a caring society was the closure of the mental asylums, often on the edge of towns, in the 1980s. Replaced laughingly by what was called ‘Care in the Community’. The fact that care in the community, rather than in a Victorian fortress-like place on the edge of town, never arrived meant that the poor service was replaced with no service at all.

This was seen as progress. If you see progress as a double-edged sword, then progress it was. Progress away from paternalism towards ‘I don’t give a fuck’. Leading to a modern phenomenon: mentally unwell people inhabiting our streets, prisons and A& E departments. So instead of hiding the problem in the asylum system you have the mentally ill wandering among us. Through an acceptance of rough sleeping and begging, society encouraged mental health issues to be acted out in our everyday street life.

Diminution and alienation have progressed in leaps and bounds, aided by the sudden post-Covid failure in health, the police and local authorities. Suddenly, trying to see a doctor is like seeking out a sage in medieval times. There is no one wise available to help you with a health problem, unless the threat of death is upon you. I myself, having foolishly injured my hip, was given exercises by my doctor’s surgery, in place of any attempt to find out what the damage was. Upside down health you might choose to call it.

Local authorities are unable to repair roads or stop rubbish dumping, or prevent a decline in the quality of street life. And police presence has become a thing of the past, from those days of paternalism that disappeared as we moved into our new century. Now you are on your own.

Public decline was mixed in with high street decline and a sense that what was once a semi-adequate society was now one full of broken promises. The promises made by politicians became important. Recently an under-delivering Tory government was replaced by an under-delivering, promise-garnishing Labour government. The writing was obviously on the wall. The electorate was being shat on from a great height. By a group from which were extracted the politicians of this failing social apparatus.

The most unlikely of people became most effective opposition; effective in the sense that, because they were not in power, they could map out a better world than the declining one that existed. Not being in power is an important element in what you promise. So Starmer’s promises before power did not equal delivery when in power. Therefore he joined the myriad politicians who promised the earth and delivered a flowerpot.

Read more:

• Copying Nigel Farage gives him a credibility he hasn’t earned
• The simple reason Nigel Farage has seemingly had a change of heart on benefits
• New prime minister Andy Burnham starts with vow to end rough sleeping. Here’s how he aims to do it

That most unlikely group – Reform UK – are, aside from a few frog-like jumpers out of the Tory party, not cut from the usual political cloth. Their leader, though middle class, is more golf club middle class and therefore more stridently right wing in an unfussy way. He’s not like the old-fashioned middle class who dominated polite Toryism, who pretended to a kind of reasonableness. Farage is outraged golf club middle class. Capable of talking about immigration, not tax dodgers, with a tireless energy, often holding a drink as if to underline his
simple honesty. And by so doing he can stir up support from a vast number of people who feel this shrunken society is not for them. People who ask angry questions about illegal immigrants and the enormous quantity of promises pumped into the ether by politicians seeking office.

So, what plans does the new prime minister, Andy Burnham, who managed to win a Reform-drenched constituency, have for this multitudinous-problem-strewn society? 

What new vistas will he open up for a pissed-off electorate who are of a mind to tear up the old middle-class domination and replace it with domination by a golf club middle class mixed in with a few hard-working tradesmen.

The power of Reform is all predicated on their lack of being responsible for the decline of the UK since even before the time of Thatcherism. They have a clean slate and though they are known to have bumbled on occasions in local politics, the electorate is not listening to that. Reform seems to be listening to the many’s sense of not living safely in their own country.

The fact that often the jobs taken by people from elsewhere are not the jobs that the indigenous workforce want is not a part of the discussion. Rather, it’s them that are floating over from France that stoke their fears. 

Not the fact that the NHS would collapse without the contribution of citizens of the world who come to the aid of our overstretched health service. Nor, as I observed recently at 5.30am on a London Underground train, that our cities would not wake up for business if the citizens of the world did not flock to us.

What new tools will Burnham bring to politics that are not more of the same? Will he seriously address the poverty that undermines our health service, our schools, our prisons and our streets? That breeds crime and hopelessness? 

I am intrigued by what new dimensions our latest ‘get out of jail card’ politician will bring to politics. How will he defuse the fears of the many and enhance prospects for us all?

John Bird is the founder and editor-in-chief of the Big Issue. Read more of his words from our archive.

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