Tory Social Catastrophe Looms in Britain
The Owen Jones Podcast
Owen Jones
4.4 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 19 August 2022
⏱️ 74 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It is difficult to understate the scale of the social catastrophe looming in Britain, with an estimated 45 million people - a large majority of the population - facing being driven into poverty. Just what is the reality of the disaster about to unfold, what will it mean in practice - and can it be stopped?
We are joined by Miatta Fahnbulleh, chief executive of the New Economics Foundation, and Lewis Ford, a public sector worker backing the Don't Pay UK campaign.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to the show. Now, 2,000 of the British population face being driven |
| 0:13.2 | into fuel poverty by the beginning of next year. That's according to a new study by the |
| 0:17.8 | University of York. Now in a wealthy society such as our own, one of the biggest economies |
| 0:22.6 | on the face of the planet, the fact that a large majority of the British population |
| 0:27.2 | face being unable to pay their energy bills is clearly nothing short of a social catastrophe. |
| 0:31.9 | It's the year 2022 and we are talking, as I've said, about the majority of people being unable to pay |
| 0:40.0 | to pay in exchange for one of the most basic needs we have to be able to heat our homes |
| 0:45.3 | and provide, again, one of the most basic utilities that human civilization depends on. Now, |
| 0:50.4 | real wages have already suffered before the current crisis. The longest squeeze that they've had |
| 0:56.9 | since the Napoleonic Wars, but now we're looking already at the worst fall on top of that |
| 1:02.9 | in real wages ever recorded. It's all right for some, though, isn't it? Record profits, of course, |
| 1:08.0 | booming profits for the energy companies. And earlier this year, the UK hit a new milestone, |
| 1:13.8 | creating the highest number of billionaires in its history. Now, looking at all of this, |
| 1:20.6 | the government and their apologists will say, we've had a pandemic followed by a war. In fact, |
| 1:25.9 | they keep saying that. They're sticking very clearly to that script. And clearly, both of those |
| 1:30.7 | are huge shocks, which have caused a massive crisis. But there's something rotten about the structure |
| 1:38.3 | of the British economy and British society. This isn't just a freak weather storm, which the |
| 1:43.0 | government has limited options to deal with. With decisive radical action, then we can avoid |
| 1:50.2 | a calamity which faces driving large portions, as I've said, of the British population |
| 1:56.1 | into total and utter disaster. Now, we've got some great guests on today. Later on, we're speaking |
| 2:02.8 | to a brilliant representative from Don't Pay UK. That's a new campaign, which has been set up, |
| 2:07.7 | urging people not to pay their energy bills. Before we start, as ever, do click on the YouTube |
... |
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