BREAD AND CIRCUSES FOR MODERN TIMES

One of the simplest analogies used to describe the benefits of our economy is to compare it to a rising tide where all the vessels sitting in the harbour will rise, the larger cruisers rising more than the rowing boats. Enlarge that rising tide ranging from the start of the industrial revolution to the beginning of this millenium and most economists would agree with Harold Macmillan, prime minister from 1957-1963, who was quoted on 20th July 1957 when he made an optimistic speech telling fellow Conservatives that "most of our people have never had it so good". From his patrician point of view it could be said he was speaking down to a majority of this country`s people. But on the other hand the NHS was providing fine healthcare for all but a small minority who chose and could afford private healthcare.




In 1959 there were 71,692 warranted police officers in England and Wales roughly half the current number. As of March 31 2024 the UK had 170,500 police officers which is 244 officers per 100,000 people. In 1961 there were 807 people for every police officer in England and Wales whereas the most recent figures in a House of Commons briefing paper show that there are now 462 people for every officer. It would be a brave statistician who would argue that that the 1960s was a more lawless era than that since 2000.




Despite the reform of the higher courts during the 1870s, the system of local assizes and quarter sessions had remained largely unchanged though it had become prone to excessive delay. This was chiefly because the courts only sat at certain times during the year. There appears to be no published information of trial court delays or backlogs as we now are all too familiar. It could be said that until the 1970s our courts and their processes would have been familiar to legal practitioners of the 19th century.




Legal aid was originally established by the Legal Aid and Advice Act 1949. In 2009 legal aid in England and Wales cost the taxpayer £2bn a year – a higher per capita spend than anywhere else in the world – and was available to around 29% of adults. In 2022/23 the criminal legal aid budget in England and Wales was £873 million. All the latest legal aid information is here. What can be said is that it is far more difficult for the defendant on the Clapham omnibus to get legal aid now than it was half a century ago.




In a nation where a two-week holiday for a UK family of four can cost around £4,792 the idea of having charges for some medical treatment is akin to crying "fire" in a crowded theatre. According to ABTA 58% of young families and 57% of older families went on a foreign holiday in the last 12 months. Today on a morning TV show an articulate married woman with two young children and expecting another explained her reliance on food banks. I wonder if the sympathetic interviewer would have lost her job if she had hinted at her position with regard to having another mouth to feed when she couldn`t manage to heat her home and also clothe and feed her current family. She would have lost all chance of ever working again in the TV media.




Margaret Thatcher famously said in 1987, "There is no such thing as society". There are many criticisms to be made of the Iron Lady but also some forgotten truths. This country`s infrastructure is fading fast. Recent motorway trips will reveal mile upon mile of expensive equipment lying unused whilst speed restriction beacons flash for long removed obstructions. NHS delays are literally the cause of tens of thousands of annual deaths. Trial delays make the Indian justice system efficient by comparison. Add to that list armies that have no bullets, aircraft carriers that have no planes and an RAF lacking pilots, aircraft and personnel. But this government like its predecessors continues on its merry way with the sweet political treacle coming from the lips of every minister. Avoidance of panic and head in the clouds, whichever metaphor takes the fancy, is the order of the day. That is why here and in much of western society populist politicians are on the rise. Perhaps it`s in the nature of any society, not just that of ancient Rome, that bread and circuses precede collapse. From Assad to Zimbabwe societal discontent can take many forms. Each collapse is as individual as a fingerprint but like fingerprints they all have a commonality. An existing order must replace the failed regime. How that change in political direction takes place and its effects on a population are unpredictable. All that I would opine is that the course is set.