Groucho Marxism
Questions and answers on socialism, Marxism, and related topics
Category: Government
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Local elections are taking place across the UK on the 7th May. Where I live in Surrey these will be to elect councillors for two new ‘unitary authorities’: East Surrey and West Surrey. I live in the latter, which is an amalgamation of six previously separate borough councils in the western half of the county.…
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In a previous blog post I set out the case for reforming English spelling and sketched out a proposal for such a reform. As that post received more likes than any other post on this blog (four likes!) I thought I should set out a more detailed reform proposal. The basic idea was to start…
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A recent exchange in Sheffield between the Green councillors group on the one hand, and Trade Union & Socialist Coalition / Your Party supporters on the other, has raised an important question: what can councils actually do to resist austerity? For context, Sheffield council provides over 500 public services to the city’s half-a-million plus population.…
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There is no doubt that anecdotally at least, it feels as though public services are in a dire state across the UK and have been for some time. But what do the data say? It’s not immediately obvious how to go about measuring the state of public services. Perhaps we should start by defining exactly…
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The Labour council in Liverpool was elected in 1983 against a backdrop of decline that had been going on for 20 years. Beginning in the 1960s, containerisation destroyed thousands of jobs on the docks, up until then Liverpool’s biggest employer. The city’s population then collapsed, from over 700,000 in 1960 to under 500,000 in 1980.…
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The western world is currently facing what is commonly referred to as a ‘housing crisis’: a situation where many people can’t find safe, decent, and affordable homes. This crisis is particularly acute where I live in south-eastern England. The usual explanation for this is that there isn’t enough housing to go around. However, according to…
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Former Labour MP Zarah Sultana caused a stir last week by suggesting that we should nationalize the entire economy. Put simply, nationalization is the process of transforming privately owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. On the face of it this seems an entirely…
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It is generally agreed that English spelling is a mess. There is less agreement about whether anything should be done about it. To be sure, we can all agree that there are good reasons to reform English spelling. It would make English easier to learn to read, write, and pronounce, as well as making it…
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It is often said that the United Kingdom has one of the most regionally unequal economies in the western world. This statement certainly sounds plausible, and it is backed up by the data. According to figures published by the Office for National Statistics, in 2022 the Gross Value Added (GVA) per capita in the richest…
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The energy regulator for Great Britain, Ofgem, has just announced that it will raise the energy price cap by 2% from October. But what exactly is the energy price cap? Actually there are four energy price caps: one in pence per kWh and one in pence per day, for both gas and electricity. These represent…
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It’s fair to say that public services in the UK are in a bad way. The quality and performance of these services has declined significantly in recent years according to many studies, and confidence in public services is currently at an all-time low. The primary cause of this malaise is lack of funding: Local Authority…
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Two recent articles in the Socialist newspaper once again highlight the callous stupidity of neoliberal capitalism. The first tells an all-to-familiar story of public services being cut to save money: in this case, the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire Service is facing £1.6 million of cuts, which will result in 30 firefighter jobs being…
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