[Gordonjcp]

Fuel prices are at an all-time high, and fuel companies are posting record profits. Rent is at an all-time high. Mortgages are getting insane because we have double-digit inflation and insanely high interest rates. Saving are worthless because of double-digit inflation and insanely high interest rates not actually being passed on except where it benefits banks. Food prices are at an all-time high and farms are going to the wall because they're being paid scrap prices for everything they sell.

Unemployment is at an all-time low? That's great, but people are working their backsides off and cannot afford to eat or heat their homes.

In the UK we have had twelve years of the right-wing extremist Conservative government and their "economic austerity" to "right the ship". What this has meant in practical terms is that wages have not risen in twelve years, taxes have gone up and up and up, and public spending has gone down and down and down. We had the woefully inept Kwasi Kwarteng who blew £60 billion off the UK's economy by raising taxes on the poorest and cutting them for the richest, collapsing most people's private pension pots. We went from roughly 40,000 people in the UK using food banks in 2010 when the Tories took power to 2.5 million people using food banks in 2022 - and these are not just "poor people" who the tabloid trash papers sneer at "well somehow they can afford mobile phones and TVs, why can't they afford food" - no, there are people on £30-£40k per year, who simply cannot afford to feed their families because they have to choose whether they keep the lights on, buy food, or pay their mortgage.

The political right have over the past 20 years done incalculable damage to the world.

[henry_bone]

I can't speak intelligently about UK centre-right, but here in Aus our Liberal party (as in classical liberal, centre-right) are almost indistinguishable for our Labor (centre-left). Big spending, big government and so we are seeing many of the same problems you mentioned.

[soco]

I wonder why only the "populists" speak out about these problems, and then why most populists movements are led by extremists. It's not like fascists or communists ever had or have real economical solutions for healthcare or housing or environment, yet they constantly gain votes claiming exactly that (without detailing, of course). Why are all the big traditional parties only paying lip service to the real problems of the little man, even while pretending they represent them? And no I'm not sarcastic, this is a real question which bothers me extremely.

[int_19h]

Parties don't really represent interest of their voters. They fish for votes to obtain political power, but they represent the interests of the people who run them (and their friends and patrons) - who are, generally speaking, not their voters.

Thus, traditional parties represent the interest of some subset of the established elites. Which means that the current socioeconomic arrangement is broadly in their advantage. They know that those problems are real, but they can be only solved by giving up some part of the pie. And organizations are much more selfish than individuals, so they never give up unless they believe that the alternative is to lose even more (hence why a messy revolution somewhere else can often do wonders).

[thedrbrian]

>In the UK....

we've just pissed away 700 billion on measures that most of the population banged pans on Thursday for.

my sympathy is running out.