The country is apparently on fire again. Not literally this time, though give it a few weeks of underfunded fire brigades and we might get there. This week it’s train stabbings, prisoners released by mistake, and yet another police officer in court for something grim.

The government will tell you these are isolated incidents. Just bad luck. A blip. But they are all symptoms of the same disease: austerity.

The Price of Cutting Everything

Over a decade ago we were told that the only way to “balance the books” was to take a chainsaw to the public sector. Instead of raising taxes on the wealthy, or tackling the billions lost to tax avoidance, we hollowed out everything that keeps a civilised society functioning. The NHS, police, courts, prisons, councils, all carved to the bone.

And what happens when you underpay, overwork and demoralise people for years on end? Standards collapse. Corners get cut. Recruitment becomes desperate. Suddenly your vetting checks are done by an 18 year old trainee on their third 12-hour shift, and the next “police officer” turns out to be a walking HR complaint with a badge.

The Privatisation Trap

Then there’s privatisation. Serco, Capita, G4S and their merry band of corporate vampires hoovered up public money, paid themselves handsomely, and handed back the bare minimum in service and safety. The result is chaos, but the shareholders are fine, so it’s not all bad news.

And through it all, the politicians who started this mess are still insisting austerity “would have worked” if only we had given them another go. The current lot, terrified of the Daily Mail and GB News, will not touch the truth with a barge pole. It is like watching two arsonists arguing over who threw the smaller match.

The Public Needs to Grow Up

It is not just the politicians. The British public has some growing up to do as well. Decades of being spoon-fed drivel by tax-dodging newspapers has left people genuinely believing that tax is evil and the public sector is full of lazy parasites. Meanwhile, countries like Denmark and Norway are over there running safe, efficient societies on the radical principle that if you want nice things, you have to pay for them.

Political Cowardice

Labour promised not to raise taxes because, frankly, they had to peddle that lie. If they had told the truth, that better services cost money, the Tories would still be in power, cutting, flogging off, and blaming immigrants for the collapse they engineered.

And where would that leave us? Mental health patients attacking people on trains would be a regular event, prisoners escaping would barely make the news, and your next operation would be performed by someone earning £18,000 a year subcontracted from Serco.

But at least your taxes would not go up. The billionaires would keep their money. Because after all, they are the wealth creators.

And the rest of us? We are just the peasants.