Yet, overall, Jack is still getting stuffed. Excluding social security payments, almost half of tax revenues are earmarked for commercial companies that either supplying services or goods to the state. Private companies profits spiral upwards, while largely the services they provide deteriorate witness transport, a disgrace the Government failed totally to address in its first term yet the lessons of the past are ignored. Meanwhile, the welfare state continues to be dismantled, asylum seekers are persecuted and a university education put beyond the financial reach of a significant proportion of the population. George Orwell was on the right track.
Capitalism leads to dole queues, the scramble for markets, and war.
Collectivism leads to concentration camps, leader worship and war. There is no way out of this unless a planned economy can somehow be combined with the freedom of the intellect, which can only happen if the right and wrong are restored to politics. I shall, of course, vote Labour today, as I always have, along with millions of comfortably-off former Tories who know a good deal when they see one. What so many hoped for after 1997 was a tune that would make the heart sing. What we got was a succession of bum notes.