Britain, Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

The coalition government has finally unveiled their monstrous “spending review”, cutting public spending by £83 billion. The cuts will effect welfare, higher education, social housing, policing and local government – pretty much every walk of life and, I promise you, every one of us living on this island.

The critics (and Labour of course) have warned of the consequences cuts of this scale will have on society. And they are not wrong.

In the early 90s, the global recession hit especially hard on Finland. Around 20% of our foreign trade had been with Soviet Union and its collapse added just that little something to the economic disaster that was created during the yuppie years of the 80s.

The unemployment rose from pre-recession 3,5% to 18.9%. A couple of banks collapsed. The coalition government in power tried to solve the situation with excessive cuts on public spending. Sounds familiar?

But that's just numbers. The recession left us a generation who graduated to unemployment and after a few years became unemployable. They are still on the dole. It left us another generation who grew up in poverty during the recession, with constant uncertainty about mom's and dad’s job, money and even family unity (anyone who is claiming that chances in the economic situation don’t effect relationships is either really rich or stupid). We called them children of the recession, kind of like children of  the revolution, but not cool.

The Finnish welfare state was effectively being dissolved and the burden of that can still be seen: more mental problems and alcoholism go untreated. There is more poverty, which always brings along its dear friend crime. The economy recovered but unemployment is still high, hovering around 7 - 8 % with youth unemployment currently a staggering 22,5%.  

Everyone knows that the UK economy is not doing so well and that some cuts needed to be done. But the cuts made by the coalition government are done for ideological, not economical reasons. Every country in the world has got debt. Hell, most of us has got debt. But if you would decide stop buying food for the next five years and instead triple your mortgage payments, you would be considered mad.

People get the government they deserve, they say. But are they ready for the aftermath? 

The boys club stick together. RIP Public Services.