The UK's wasted decade

When David Cameron's Tories came into power in 2010, in coalition with Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats, I was still living in the UK.  Like the rest of the world, the UK was grappling with the financial crisis that had erupted in 2008.  The economy was wobbling and the banking system was shaky, with Northern Rock defunct, RBS in near-terminal trouble and so on.

Almost the Tories' first move, against all advice, was to set the economy on a path of fiscal austerity.  The promise was that a few years of belt-tightening would get the budget back on track, and then the economy could drive forward.  In the event, and to the surprise of no-one with the least sense of economic history, austerity made the fiscal situation worse and ensured years of sub-par growth.  The date for a return to fiscal balance kept getting pushed farther into the future.

Then, just as the global economy was showing signs of picking up, Cameron pulled his next dumb stunt -- the Brexit referendum, which surely seals his position as the UK's worst Prime Minister ever.  This entirely unnecessary vote, called purely for internal Tory party purposes, ensured that the second half of the decade would be even more divisive and disheartening than the first half had been.

Now, with Brexit Day five months away, Chancellor Phillip Hammond has tabled a budget that proclaims "the end of austerity".  The fiscal situation is far from being repaired, even after seven years of austerity, and indeed Hammond is projecting significant budget deficits for the next several years. The sole justification for declaring austerity to be at an end is that the Tories desperately need to boost the morale of the country ahead of what looks ominously like a costly and messy divorce from the EU.  Hammond admits that he will have to go right back to the drawing board if his assumption about the future UK-EU trading relationship --    an "average-type free trade deal", whatever that is -- turns out to be incorrect.

Watching the UK from our safe perch in Canada since 2012 has been agonizing.  My wife said some time ago that if we were still living in Britain we'd be angry all the time, and we're too old to live like that.  We may have Donald Trump as our next door neighbour and Doug Ford running our Province, but at least we're not contemplating national suicide.