There was a clear bias towards the City in coverage of the 2008 crash. We can’t afford for it to happen again
There is no real public enthusiasm for Tory economics. Sure, the heart of a thinktanker dwelling in London’s Tufton Street may flutter a little faster when they hear the words “shrink the state”. But ask the average Brit in Wolverhampton, the Rhondda valley or Dunfermline whether they support reducing the tax bill of the rich, or slashing public services, or flogging off utilities to provide a steady stream of dividends to shareholders, and they’re unlikely to start gleefully punching the air.
Instead, an economic agenda that has produced weak growth and stagnant living standards for a generation, while shovelling apparently endless amounts of wealth into a few bank accounts, has depended on something else: public acquiescence or resignation. “I believe people accept there’s no alternative,” said Margaret Thatcher of her profoundly unpopular economic policies in 1980. If citizens believe that a harmful economic programme is bitter tasting but necessary medicine, they will reluctantly accept it.
Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist
