Potholes: our Broken Economic System
Cllr Lee Scott last week told us how hard the Essex Highways team are working. But I’m rather
tired of politicians who claim to be ‘working tirelessly’ or ‘around the clock’ when personal experiences indicate that the services that government is supposed to provide, from getting appointments with our GP to catching a train can no longer be relied on.
I heard last week that our railways are now less reliable than those in war-torn Ukraine, when our government should be doing everything it can to attract us onto the most clean and sustainable form of transport.
The excuse is that we simply can’t afford the repairs or inflation-equalling pay rises for public sector workers. Local Government budgets have indeed been cut for decades. We are the 5th richest country in the world, but for the vast majority of us, it simply doesn’t feel like that. Why?
Because the wealthiest 10% of households hold 43% of all the wealth in Great Britain according to the latest ONS survey, while the bottom 50% hold only 9%. So where is all the wealth going?
The Government’s new Register of Overseas Entities has shone a light on how wealthy businesspeople and Gulf Royals have legally purchased billions of pounds of London property via tax evading offshore jurisdictions such as the British Virgin Islands and Channel Islands, driving up house prices in the process. The list includes 20 Conservative donors, Lewis Hamilton and Richard Sharp, the chair of the BBC.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could all be careless about declaring the odd £37m like Nadhim Zadhawi? But it is becoming increasingly clear that unless you have an offshore bank account and wealth tucked away in trusts or behind shell companies, our economic system is going to struggle to get around to filling those potholes.
Still, it could be worse. At least we don’t have to cope with Transpennine Railways! Meanwhile, do visit us at our market stall next Saturday, when our focus will be transport.