WSJ: US Companies Outsourcing White-Collar Work to UK in Search of Lower Wages

[EastAnglianLefty]

Good to see the UK become a third world country

Idk if I’d say “good,” but they’re reaping what they sowed in 2016.

Brexit was good actually

It really absolutely was not - and I am far from a starry eyed #FBPEer.

The current horror show would not have happened if northerners turned out for Corbyn. McDonald should have been the candidate instead to reach out to these voters, as Corbyn’s personality is weak for these voters, but that still doesn’t change the fact that the decades of Tory and blairite rule destroyed Britain and voters should have known better.

The re-entrance to the EU by Starmer will be his first major crime against the masses.

Andy McDonald is a nice guy, but never really leadership material.....

Oh, you meant John Mc*Donnell*??

Sadly, his remarks about the IRA back in the day meant he would never even have got on the ballot.

Also the fact that McDonnell has always been known to be a serious political operator. You don't put somebody on the ballot to widen the debate if you think they actually will widen it.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Over the last 35 years, the US has pursued a far more capitalist set of policies than the UK. We are now seeing the consequences of that when combined with modern technologies. Great thanks must of course also be given to our constitutional structure, which has stopped attempts at expanding the size of our government.

Thirty five years ago the British Prime Minister was Margaret Thatcher, who had recently entered her tenth year in power. She was replaced the following year by John Major, whose government pushed through some of the most radical and controversial of the 1979-97 Conservative privatizations and expanded further on Thatcher's marketization policies in parts of the public sector. The Labour government in officer from 1997 until 2010 (under Tony Blair's leadership until 2007 and thereafter under Gordon Brown's) pursued a policy of implementing traditional socialist goals using market mechanisms and the fruits of the deregulated financial services sector. Social spending increased significantly as did some regulation in certain fields, 'yet' the period was marked by widespread prosperity up until the financial crisis of 2008. Since 2010 we have had Conservative governments under an embarrassingly lengthy list of Prime Ministers (Cameron 2010-16, May 2016-19, Johnson 2019-22, Truss 2022, Sunak 2022-present). All of these Conservative Prime Ministers have had right-wing economic agendas, with the Cameron era policy of 'Austerity' being particularly significant, along with Truss managing to spook the markets so severely during her extremely brief period in office that a major run on the pound was triggered almost immediately. If the present government lacks much room for maneuverer on this front, it is largely due to the social damage done by 'Austerity' coupled reduced credibility with the markets due to 'Liz Truss', along with the post-pandemic issues that have been a problem everywhere.

And in any case the divergence of the UK economy from the American one dates to approximately 2008-2010 and was not visible for the preceding two decades.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Poorer and more Labour-inclined areas have seen their funding from central government cut more, but everywhere has seen cuts that are impacting satisfaction with public services so in practice the Conservatives are no longer deriving any electoral benefit from that.

The distribution of money from the Towns Fund was certainly partisan, but again the sums concerned were too small to really make a big difference.