Austerity began in 2010 to achieve certain well defined goals within a certain time frame. All of these were missed. Yet austerity carried on. And on. And on.
Whilst the political class is debauching on Brexit, much of which is a fantasy of its own making, a new economic reality is seeping into every nook and cranny of national life. There is just not enough money in the system to pay for anything to be done properly. No matter whether you look at education, health, social care, mental health, housing, power generation, prisons, the justice system, the police, on it goes with a list so long it never ends. To this we can now add defence.
We have two giant aircraft carriers, already described by Putin as easy targets to destroy, not an idle claim by any familiar with Russia’s new smart defence capability. These vessels will have no planes for years because we could not afford them and will not be guarded by enough combat resources on the high seas because the assets designed to protect them have malfunctions in their systems.
The British active and functional fleet is now so small that it is little better than a regatta, the army is smaller than that deployed by the Confederates at Gettysburg and much smaller than the Union force at that epic engagement.There is confusion in Whitehall as to whether we need to concentrate on the defence of these islands making an attack upon us too tough a nut to crack, or whether we should be projecting some global power ambitions, which not only are unrealistic but which have little public backing and to fund which government coffers are empty.
This combination of real and pressing financial issues in all these spheres and more cannot be resolved without a major economic reboot. Austerity can be effective for up to two years, but after that it becomes a malignant cancer from which only the celebrity class and the greedy can escape. The recent budget was little more than tinkering at the margins, enough to avert an obvious crisis, but not enough to bring relief. Until this government stops rowing about Brexit and applies its mind to something which will not go away, it has no long term future. Neither has Brexit.