- The UK has reduced public spending to 36% of GDP by the end of 2019 from a peak of 41% in 2006. Today, rates of public spending in the UK as a whole are only a fraction above those of the US. Almost every other country in the EU spends more on its public services than the UK does; almost every other country in Europe now has a lower infant mortality than the UK. These are facts the British have simply accepted because we have been distracted by Brexit. These are the facts that very few British voters knew when they voted on 12 December 2019. Messages about them were either ignored or crowded out.
Parts of the article feel like he's grasping at straws ("strong man leader" LOL). Interesting nonetheless; I feel like this is only a preview of the public service decline that's to come.
I've been interested in them from the beginning, when they started as a Dutch crowdfunded journalism project. Their step to a global site is so far going well although I don't yet see a very large amount of traction. It's the same Correspondent where I now have three published articles at, by the way. :)
A metaphor that works on so many levels. I'm just going to leave this here.A boy ends up being treated on the floor of a hospital because the beds are all full, and the beds are full because the system is not working overall.
There has also been a rise in infant mortality. In England and Wales, this rise was concentrated in those same years of maximum public spending cuts. In 2014, 3.6 babies died for every 1,000 born. That rose to 3.7 in 2015, 3.8 in 2016, and 3.9 in 2017 (which sadly is the latest year for which we have data, as funding for ONS has also been cut).
