Carnival of Self-Harm ( www.lrb.co.uk )

llamatron , 10 days ago

Every Tory voter needs to read this

Aggravationstation , 11 days ago

"Short-term thinking has been the fatal tendency of the Conservative governments to which Britain has been subjected since 2010..."

Pretty sure short term thinking has been the problem with all Conservative governments in living memory. They treat the country like a crooked CEO treats a business. Get in, strip and sell as many assets as possible, make as much money for yourself as you can, get out whilst it all crumbles behind you. Who gives a fuck if it ruins the lives of all the little people? They were lucky to have your amazing leadership in the first place and they just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, never mind that those bootstraps are now in your pocket.

A prime example is Thatcher's government and their "right to buy" scheme that decimated council housing stock and is still causing housing problems to this day.

samc , 10 days ago

I suppose a complete history of Tory government was out of scope for what's already a dissertation-length essay.

Actually, at the end the author begins to slightly contradict himself by arguing that (neo-)Thatcherism is the long-term objective of the conservatives. I suppose the consistent narrative is that the Tories have a long-term commitment to policies that can only ever yield short-term gains.

This does lead to the rather dire conclusion that British politics is stuck in a cycle where Labour slowly rebuilds the British state, only for the Tories to sack it the instant our fickle support for progressive government waivers.

NickwithaC , 12 days ago

Paywall.

samc , 10 days ago

Not that I saw. A nag screen maybe, but it was dismissible

hobnoblin , 12 days ago

Bravo that guy and the LRB. An absolutely devastating read. It's concisely written, but still long as it tries to outline the sheer scale of the damage the Tories have done over 14 years. I wish this was read by more people.

MonsterMonster , 12 days ago

Definitely needs a TL;DR.

hobnoblin , 11 days ago

TLDR: the tories fucked the country in almost every way you can think of, through short termism and ideological zealotry.

Not a very controversial statement - but the article is extremely good if you want that deeper detail and analysis.