Simon Jenkins didn’t mention one factor in the disastrous decline in public services: austerity (The storm clouds of Brexit and Covid have moved on – but Britain just isn’t working any more, 5 June). Have we really forgotten so soon that public service expenditure was savagely cut under the Lib Dems and Conservatives after 2010?
Just what did they imagine would happen? The answer, of course, was that at least the Conservatives were captured by a small-state ideology that wants everything to be run by private firms, for profit. Well, good luck with that, and thank goodness I’m not a Ukrainian refugee.
The same faction is happy for state health services to break down, as the effect would be lavish profits for the private sector and poorer services for those who can’t afford to go private. In the meantime, the more people desert the NHS, the less (they hope) will be public resistance to its demise. This government is never likely to reverse that trend. In fact, by reducing the civil service by 90,000 in a desperate attempt to placate his right wing, the prime minister is going in the opposite direction. What will they privatise next – the police?
Jeremy Cushing
Exeter
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