Written for & originally posted by Conservative Way Forward (Yorkshire) on 18/08/11.
The recent UK riots sparked a frenzied media debate about a worrying phenomenon: an underclass which feels it has so little stake in society that it can happily destroy the community in which it lives. What is the cause of this deplorable development and what can be done?
One has to start with the disintegration of the working class. After the collapse of the manufacturing industry the working class split. Those who were able to moved to jobs in an increasingly dominant finance and services sector. In doing so they joined the middle class. Those left behind lacked the necessary education and skills to find employment in a modern economy. Wanting to avoid soaring unemployment figures, the Government ensured many of these unemployables ended up hidden on disability benefit. 20 years on and only now are moves being made to get these people back into work. In short, we relied on the success of the financial sector to paper over the cracks of a rotten system.
There is a geographic dimension too. Based in the City of London, the boom in the financial sector only created jobs in the south-east. The Government reacted by taking the money the south-east generated and throwing it at the rest of the country. How else could one explain why the public sector is the dominant employer in so many areas north of the Watford Gap?
The recent UK riots sparked a frenzied media debate about a worrying phenomenon: an underclass which feels it has so little stake in society that it can happily destroy the community in which it lives. What is the cause of this deplorable development and what can be done?
One has to start with the disintegration of the working class. After the collapse of the manufacturing industry the working class split. Those who were able to moved to jobs in an increasingly dominant finance and services sector. In doing so they joined the middle class. Those left behind lacked the necessary education and skills to find employment in a modern economy. Wanting to avoid soaring unemployment figures, the Government ensured many of these unemployables ended up hidden on disability benefit. 20 years on and only now are moves being made to get these people back into work. In short, we relied on the success of the financial sector to paper over the cracks of a rotten system.
There is a geographic dimension too. Based in the City of London, the boom in the financial sector only created jobs in the south-east. The Government reacted by taking the money the south-east generated and throwing it at the rest of the country. How else could one explain why the public sector is the dominant employer in so many areas north of the Watford Gap?
When anyone challenges this system, there is uproar. If anyone tries to reduce the North's dependency on the public sector, the Left accuses them of targeting the poor. Similarly, whenever people try to ensure only those in need of disability benefit receive it, and that those able to work do so, they are accused of attacking the meagre protection provided to the genuinely handicapped. Meanwhile, whenever someone talks of rebalancing the economy in favour of other sectors which would benefit those areas outside the south-east, the Right accuses them of wanting to return Britain to the 1970s.
This is fraud, plain and simple. We can wring our hands about the decline of our nation all we want but nothing will change until we accept there is something fundamentally wrong with our dependence on finance. Otherwise, Britain will remain 'Great' only in name.
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