Critique of Political Accountability in the Addiction Economy

Addiction Economy Thought for Today - blame the people for the problems which come from badly designed or lazy government - one of the Addiction Economy playbook staples.

I honestly can't believe what I am seeing from Starmer at the moment. First all the sleazy crap about accepting clothes and hospitality, which as a letter in The Times today points out "Given that Sue Gray is a former director-general of propriety and ethics in the Cabinet Office, one would have expected her to have advised the Starmers and senior members of the government against accepting gifts of accommodation, clothing and glasses, concert and football tickets in return for access to Downing Street."

And now this, which would be a standard headline policy for a new Tory government, but I would have expected Labour to focus on the issues which lead to more people being on benefits, not further blaming of the people for the problems of government.

As I posted last week, from Prof Danny Dorling's new book on child poverty

"Few people know that the number of financial penalties, the ‘sanctions’, that have been imposed on benefit claimants by the Department for Work and Pensions, now exceeds the number of fines imposed by the magistrates’ courts for all crimes of any kind committed in England and Wales and those imposed by sheriff courts in Scotland. … The vindictive laws applied here were made in 1998 under New Labour, and then further tightened under the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government of 2010–15. So, all three political parties are culpable."

I'm writing a piece at the moment on how the governments play whack a mole with one problem, in my story, a grain glut and a pissing contest with France, which leads to a much worse one - the 18th Century Gin Craze. And of course the poor people get all the blame for drinking too much. So many parallels across the ages.