Who Broke Britain? Part 1: Austerity | If You’re Listening

for a week in early September last year the UK was gripped by a heatwave but while Brits were busy flocking to beaches and Parks a prisoner at wesworth prison in London was allegedly planning his Escape Daniel khif was an ex-s Soldier and a suspected spy awaiting trial for terrorism offenses he already had a pretty long CV for someone just 22 years old but on the 6th of September he added prison escap to the list khif was working in the kitchen of the prison when sometime around 7:30 in the morning he allegedly walked into a loading dock and tied himself underneath a food delivery truck that was being unloaded at 0750 today male called Daniel khif escaped from wesworth prison where he was on remand wesworth prison is close to the middle of London so traffic is slow stopping regularly by the time the police caught up with the truck few miles up the road khif had already climbed out from underneath leaving only the bed sheet straps he'd used to hold on I am urgently appealing to the public to help us find Daniel khif who could be at large anywhere in the UK in fact he wasn't anywhere in the UK he left South London and went to West London where he was found 3 days later this morning he was arrested and is now back in custody but how was this prison break even possible if you wrote and escape this low Tech into a movie or a TV show script you'd be told to make it more complicated aren't there people with mirrors on sticks to look under trucks for exactly this thing well yes usually except it turns out on the day of khalif's alleged Escape 39% of the staff rosted on at wesworth prison had not shown up for work not only that the prison was in a state of decay well over capacity and enormously understaffed the Chief Inspector of Prisons said conditions in Wandsworth are so bad it should be shut down this kind of thing is happening across Britain institutions are breaking down more and more people are relying on Charities and food handouts one in five households with children living in them are struggling to afford food 100 years ago London was the largest city on earth capital of a global Empire larger than any other in the history of the world even as recently as 17 years ago Britains were the richest people in any of the world's large economies since then they have gone backwards more than any other large economy this feels broken so who broke it this is the first episode in our four-part series called who broke Britain it's about the past 14 years of conservative party leadership from their win back in 2010 all the way up to the general election that's happening next month rishy sunak fired the starting gun in a dull rainy and very noisy Downing Street the country has gone through staggering change which has at times been chaotic I am a fighter and not a quter hilarious can you get me a rope depressing and often absolutely faral what were the big decisions that led to this and who were the people that made them I'm mban this is [Music] ifis today David Cameron's moneyman George Osborne the young heir to a wallpaper Fortune who took a butcher knife to the UK budget and started the country's Politics on a journey to total chaos to work out how we got here we have to go all the way back to the start thank you thank you in 2010 a soft spoken eaten educated man who was Queen Elizabeth II's fifth cousin was taking the conservatives to an election why is our politics broken conservative leader David camaron was poised to win why is our society broken it was just after the the 2008 Global financial crisis and the message from the Tories was simple the GFC was the other team's fault why is our economy broken Britain is broken we're here to fix it thanks to Britain's heavy Reliance on its Financial Services sector they had been hit particularly hard by the crisis people are still in Long cues waiting for jobs in the UK their prospects aren't looking good the British military was involved in two Wars in a part of the world nobody visits much there was a wave of strikes and the unemployment rate was Rising pulsers said labor prime minister Gordon Brown a prickly publicly educated Scottish Boomer was set to be replaced by upper class English gen xer David Cameron David Cameron is presenting himself as the youthful new man of a reinvigorated conservative party safe sensitive Middle Ground there was something comforting about how predictable it all was the Tories were going to return to government there always be an England and England shall be historically the Tories are usually in government have been for most of the last 300 years isn't it the case Mr Speaker that the labor party have finally worked out that they've got a loser not a leader something comforting about predictable politics England means as but that predictability was to it didn't go off without a hitch the election was a virtual tie and Cameron only got over the line by forming a coalition with the minor party of the liberal Democrats he probably would have been better off running on a simple we're not them platform but he pitched a funky new plan with a funky new name a word that would come to define the decade austerity the man charged with delivering the AER program was David Cameron's best mate George Osborne Osborne was even younger and even more upper class than David Cameron he was 38 years old and the eldest son of a wallpaper magnate named Peter Osborne sorry I should say Sir Peter Osborne 17th baronet of Balon Taylor and B lemon now Balon Taylor and B lemon aren't even in the ukuk by the way they're in the Republic of Ireland but it's still a title which George will inherit from his dad one day George started working for the conservative party straight out of Oxford in fact I think the British conservative party has a clearer sense of its own identity and its own principles than any other party in British politics today the principle he love most is cutting the size of the government the first principle and perhaps the oldest principle uh of conservatism is that of limited government small government he also believed in what he calls compassionate conservatism conservatives have always believed that we are part of a community we are part of a society that we owe obligations to people in that Society people who are often less fortunate than ourselves we also believe actually that the best way to help them is getting them to help themselves small government getting people off benefits and into work this is the core of his ideology he thought that it could solve every problem and it was the opposite of what labor had been doing if there's one story that symbolizes how the austerity era of government went down it would have to be this just after a new government takes power the Monarch always gives a traditional speech at the opening of parliament this speech is written by the government for the queen to read and I'm not sure that Cameron and Osborne quite realized the jux position they were creating a woman took a gold coach from one of her palaces wearing a diamond encrusted crown sat down on a Golden Throne and then told everyone to brace themselves for government spending cuts the first priority is to reduce the deficit and restore economic growth as Osborne began to roll at his Cuts he found himself cornered by the queen at a state dinner he said on his podcast political currency that her majesty demanded that a bagpipe school be spared from the cuts she came up to me and she said you're not going to close are you the Highland bag pipe School of the British army I was like of course not your majesty in fact the Army School of bagpipe music and Highland drumming was set to be closed by the budget cuts Osborne spared it I immediately sent a message back to the Palace that uh she could be reassured that the uh the Pipers of the British army would remain well trained it's really quite hard to think of a more British story than that Chancellor Mr Chancellor of the ex cheer yeah George Osborne delivered his first budget speech the month after the British election Mr Deputy speaker this emergency budget deals decisively with our country's record debts What followed was 55 minutes of cuts announcements with the exception of the National Health Service the Aged pension and some large infrastructure projects nothing came out unscathed in one 9C section of the speech he announced 13 cuts to benefit for single parents children Working Families and expectant mothers the bagpipe school was okay though thank goodness we will focus our benefits more towards those in need and we will end some one-off payments that the country cannot afford anymore if you compare UK spending at the time to its allies like Australia the US and its European neighbors you can see how starkly different Cameron Osborne's response was to the GFC in every other country government spending shifted rapidly into top Top Gear and then slowly eased back down like a driver and a manual car downshifting as they come off the freeway the labor government had also put its foot to the floor but then just as it was reaching top speed Osborne shoved the gearbox into reverse as the months went on more and more Cuts were announced the Army is losing 40% of its tanks and artillery the cuts to the Army and Navy in particular was quite signicantly reduced Britain's capacity to project military power public service jobs would be axed and the people who stayed would have their wages Frozen public sector workers rallied outside 10 Downing Street some of the police trying to maintain order here might well have considered jumping the fence many of them will lose their jobs too in the British government's new age of austerity Osborne said the cuts were tough but fair except they weren't the treasury's own analysis published today suggests that the measures announced today do disproportionately hit lower income groups now you might be thinking why would the government make drastic cuts at a time when the economy was already in trouble it sounds counterintuitive but Cameron Osborne had what they thought was a good reason yeah let me pretend to be the ABC's esteemed business reporter Alan kler and explain budgets and debt for just a minute thanks Matt it's 2010 and UK government debt has has reached 131% of GDP that's big bigger than the sales of brand new artist Justin Bieber's debut album Now interest rates for government loans are currently lower than that horn from that new movie Inception but George Osborne is worried that they will rise tighter fiscal policy can enable interest rates to stay lower for longer the solution slash the government budget to bring down the debt cut benefits to to force people to work more and watch the economy race off faster than the amazing non-d disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong will it work only time will tell and that's Finance okay back to 2024 and with the benefit of hindsight we can see if the Osborne style austerity was good for Britain and the answer is quite obvious that it was not interest rates didn't rise in fact 2010 was pretty much the perfect time to borrow as much money as you could 8 years after Osborne's policies were rolled out the United Nations special rapporter on Extreme poverty arrived in Britain this is not a guy that you want coming to check up on your country it's like a call from the sewage Department while you're on holiday it's not going to be good news his name is Philip olon he's an international human rights lawyer who has done a wide range of jobs in the UN most of that work was done in extreme extr poor countries in Africa Asia and Central America but in 2018 he toured the United Kingdom and he wasn't impressed what I saw food banks schools community centers job centers libraries and elsewhere is a lot of misery a lot of people who feel that the system is failing them a lot of people feel that the system is already there just to punish them a system that's there to punish them people who feel that despite the fact that they are really down and need a little bit of help that they could always have counted on in yesterday's Britain they're just not able to get when the government refuses to help people they need help from others a lot of it has been pushed off to the community to families to emergency rooms uh and to even governmental Emergency Services 14 years after austerity was introduced to Britain the data is in it didn't work and in many cases it did the opposite of what it was meant to do compared to similar countries British unemployment went up poverty went up government debt even went up as a proportion of GDP Britain is certainly capable of eliminating most if not all of its poverty if it wanted to but it's clear there's a political choice that it doesn't want to it doesn't want to I think it is getting more and more scary and particularly as we're approaching winter and people are now having to rely on their heating there's um yeah real uh desperation for a lot of people pretty much every developed country in the world has spent the last 20 years dealing with the same challenges that Britain did globalization energy transition the rise of social media manufacturing jobs are disappearing housing is more expensive the cost of living is rising and wages are not trust in politicians and institutions is eroding but George Osborne's extreme ideologically driven austerity politics accelerated this one of the richest countries in the world became more unsafe outside the parliament grieving families protest a spike in knife tax they say is linked to austerity Cuts some of this may have happened under another government but Osborne's severe austerity policy was like fuel on the fire and in an environment like that in a broken Society well Things become a lot less predictable and when things become unpredictable governments can start to lose control of the country this means that the UK has voted to leave the European Union so the eyes have it the eyes have it we're going to wave you goodbye resume your seat put your flags away you're leaving can you get me a rope which is of course where we're headed next on our quest to find out who broke Britain [Music]

Channel: ABC News In-depth

Views: 201,051

Keywords: abc news, australian news, abc news indepth, documentaries, long-form journalism, ifyourelistening #areyoulistening, #whobrokebritain, #brexit, #ukpolitics

Id: jW2NSrzcrIQ

Length: 17min 4sec (1024 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 14 2024