UK Election Special: The Broken State

The LRB Podcast

London Review of Books

Society & Culture

4.4 • 582 Ratings

🗓️ 19 June 2024

⏱️ 52 minutes

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Summary

For the second episode of our series on the UK election, James Butler is joined by Sam Freedman to talk about the enormous challenges facing the next government. From hospital waiting lists to criminal court backlogs and even potholes, the fabric of the British state seems to be beyond repair. It’s not simply a problem of funding: poor management, a lack of scrutiny and extreme centralisation combined with the almost total destruction of local government have all played a part. James and Sam consider whether there’s anything to be done about this chronic dysfunction, and whether the next official opposition could in fact be the Liberal Democrats. Sam Freedman is co-author of the substack Comment is Freed. His book Failed State: Why Britain’s Institutions are Broken and How We Fix Them will be released in July 2024. Read more from James Butler the LRB: James Butler on the crisis in care: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n05/james-butler/this-concerns-everyone Sponsored Link Get £100 off your Serious Readers order: https://www.seriousreaders.com/LRB Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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1:04.8	Hello and welcome to the second episode in a special UK election series from the London Review of Books. I'm James Butler,
1:12.2	and I'm taking an in-depth look before Election Day at some of the big issues of the campaign
1:16.6	or issues that perhaps should be big in the campaign, at least. Since last week, Labour has launched
1:22.3	their wealth creation manifesto. Ed Davy has successfully completed an obstacle course in Tunbridge
1:27.2	Wells, and the Tories
1:28.7	are now grappling with the existential threat of Nigel Farage's rising Reform Party. At the same time,
1:34.5	the Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned that none of the parties are being honest about the
1:38.3	terrible state of the UK economy and the vast black hole in public service budgets now looming.
1:44.2	But there will be no conspiracy of silence here because today we're tackling that question head on.
1:48.7	How bad are things in this country?
1:51.2	What kind of mess will the next government inherit?
	...

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