‘Austerity, That’s What I Know’: The Making of a Young U.K. Socialist
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Where are they going to get the money? The deficit is already 2% of GDP and they're £1.7 trillion in debt.
Source: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxe...
> The deficit is already 2% of GDP and they're £1.7 trillion in debt.
This after ten years of austerity. It's not what they promised.
Stupid question but is that why they call it Bright-on?
"The etymology of the name of Brighton lies in the Old English Beorhthelmes tūn (Beorhthelm's farmstead). This name has evolved through Bristelmestune (1086), Brichtelmeston (1198), Brighthelmeston (1493) and Brighthelmston (1816). Brighton came into common use in the early 19th century"
https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/16885281.brighton-has-third-...
They don't call it London-by-Sea for nothing!
I'm sure there are cities in the US with that sort of scene too.
The irony is that both of these cities have also gentrified, massively, over the last ten or so years. He is now railing at having trouble making ends meet when working a bar kitchen, in about the lowest-end of chain pub we have in the UK, and one of the most expensive towns (outside London). Not that there is anything wrong with Wetherspoons, and everyone should have somewhere decent to live. But...
This is the same everywhere where people get a degree of a hobby subject. As a renter myself, I have not been allowed to do fixed on the property I rent, so I had to hire semi-professionals (gives you an invoice, but had a weekend course) to fix some piping, painting, electricity issues, etc. I used to be charged between £65-£75 per hour (10x the national minimum wage) and I had to wait for weeks to arrange an appointment. I assume this is the same in every developed country, where people go and get masters in “marketing” or “international communication” but there is a huge demand for people who get things done, even in questionable quality.
The last photo of the bus is absolutely gorgeous, almost looks like an oil painting.
The credit crunch destroyed government revenues, in response the Government ballooned the deficit rather than impose massive cuts. They've spent the past decade not growing spending so that GDP growth has caught up - in the process massively increasing the national debt.
It's great that young people are getting involved in politics. One can't but help think of the much attributed quote: if a man is not a socialist by the time he is 20, he has no heart. If he is not a conservative by the time he is 40, he has no brain.
Every time an article like this pops up, I look and stupidly fail to find any numbers specific to what years had what funding reduction in what program and what the total funding of the program was before. So it's "austerity" but I don't know what that means beyond spending cuts and tax increases.
The closest thing to what I am looking for is apparently here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending_in_the_Uni.... To find it, you have to search for UK budget without mention of "austerity".
I assume this gets to the heart of why anyone would 'downvote' me here for asking for simple information, there's a strict anti-intellectual force on HN that has a problem with anyone digging in to what "austerity" actually means. When you search for anything specifically related to "austerity" in the UK, unsurprisingly, you're met with articles containing photographs, but no real numbers to give you an idea of what "austerity" means in terms of relative changes to the government's budget.
What would be REALLY nice is a chart like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#/... (but for the UK, and with more years to compare, or remove the comparison aspect and just give me raw numbers, year by year). Presumably, I could find this on some UK government website in PDF form, but why didn't NYT do this instead of some puff piece about a kewl, hip young socialist.
Yes, I found your downvotes disappointing too! Chin up, the votes often seem to get better over time, as remedial voting is done - i.e. voting up of greyed-out things when you wouldn't bother usually etc. Who cares anyway. You're asking uncommon questions on here perhaps, and surprised they're downvoted? Complaining about voting gets you more downvotes, rightly so.
The only reason I can think of is that you wrote 'stupidly', and read very quickly your comment looks like a complaint about the article. Maybe if you'd put more of this detail in the initial comment.
p.s. Be very careful of nursing political conspiracy theories on here. ("there's a strict anti-intellectual force on HN that ..") People are convinced HN is right wing, left wing, and everything in between, and are totally certain of that. The political topics do tend to be more..careless and loose on here, perhaps unsurprisingly.
1. Chooses to study to be a doctor in one of the most expensive places in the UK rather than staying at home and studying locally or moving up north where rents are significantly cheaper.
2. Gets a place to stay that is more expensive than he ca n afford in an expensive town. Everything else, of course, will be expensive as a consequence.
3. Has to work to pay rent, chooses a job with anti-social hours which will, of course, make his ability to concentrate and therefore study a very difficult subject even harder.
4. Whilst supposedly being in debt, they cover their body in tattoos which are not cheap or necessary to survive.
5. Drops out, which is a worse decision that borrowing your course fees and putting them all on black in the casino as you've guaranteed lost your money, also months of your life and others around will almost certainly consider it a sign of poor decision making.
Everyone should watch the Yuri Bezmenov video on YouTube to show just how effective the KGB subversion in the west was - these kids will give up capitalism without even realising or believing they've been manipulated.