Danny Kruger of Reform UK Describes Those Who Do NOT Want To Kill People As The ‘Excessive Politics Of The Left’
Torn apart by Ken Clarke and Zarah Sultana was a sight to see and hear. As Peter Hitchens describes Reform UK, it is the economics of Thatcher on steroids.
Arguing from the perspective of totally failed economics, Kruger admits that Reform UK will bring perpetual austerity in which the only people with influence and power will be business owners seeking to exploit their workforce into the dust.
Have a listen and then consume the impact of austerity on communities and societies.
A vote for the Politics of Austerity is this
For over a decade, a single, insidious word has been used as a cudgel against the very fabric of British society:Â austerity. Sold to the public as a necessary medicine, a bitter pill to be swallowed for the collective good after the financial recklessness of the banks, it has revealed itself not as a cure but as a calculated project of social vandalism. It is a policy that has disembowelled our public services, pauperised our communities, and etched a deep, lasting scar upon the national psyche, all while its architects insulated themselves from the consequences.
The devastation begins at the most fundamental level: our public services, once the proud bedrock of a civilised society, have been systematically starved and dismantled. The National Health Service, that cherished institution, has been forced to run on fumes and the superhuman goodwill of its staff. Patients languish on ever-lengthening waiting lists, from A&E corridors to mental health clinics, as the service is carved up and forced into a perpetual, costly reorganisation that serves only the interests of private contractors. Meanwhile, local authorities, their central government grants eviscerated, have been forced into an impossible choice: which essential service to sacrifice today? Libraries, youth clubs, public parks, and leisure centres – the very spaces that foster community cohesion and civic pride – have been shuttered, sold off, or left to decay. This is not efficiency; it is a controlled demolition of the public realm.
This evisceration of the state’s capacity has, with chilling predictability, fallen hardest upon the most vulnerable. The rollout of Universal Credit, a byzantine and punitive system, has become an engine of destitution. The five-week wait, the sanctions imposed for minor infractions, the digital barrier for those without means or skills – it is a system designed not to lift people up, but to grind them down. We have seen the proliferation of food banks as a permanent feature of our towns and cities, not run by the state, but by volunteers picking up the pieces of a shattered safety net. The rise of in-work poverty is a damning indictment; it tells you that a person can work full-time and still rely on charity to feed their family. This is not an economic misfortune; it is a political choice.
The human cost is not an abstract statistic; it is etched in the faces of the “just about managing” who are now simply not managing. It is the disabled person hounded by degrading assessments, deemed ‘fit for work’ as they suffer in silence. It is the elderly couple, isolated and cold, choosing between “heating and eating” because the winter fuel allowance has been cut and their energy bills have skyrocketed. It is the child arriving at school hungry, unable to concentrate, with their future potential stunted before it has even had a chance to bloom. The mental health crisis gripping the nation is a direct symptom of this relentless financial anxiety and the loss of community anchors. Austerity didn’t just shrink budgets; it shrunk lives, ambitions, and hope.
Perhaps the most pernicious legacy of all is the way austerity has fractured our sense of social solidarity. By pitting the “striver” against the “skiver,” by fostering a narrative of undeserving poor and feckless youth, it has dismantled the post-war consensus that we are all in this together. It has fostered a mean-spirited, dog-eat-dog individualism where community support is replaced by suspicion. Our town centres, once bustling hubs, are now haunted by the spectral glow of betting shops, pound stores, and charity shops – a brutalist geography of despair. The social contract has been torn up, replaced by a cold transaction that asks, “What have you done for me lately?”
And for what? This grand project of self-flagellation, this decade of sacrifice, has delivered a pyrrhic victory at best. The national debt, the very spectre used to justify this misery, is higher than when we started. The economic recovery was the slowest in centuries, productivity has stagnated, and the gains have flowed overwhelmingly to the wealthiest in society. The banks were bailed out, and the people were sold out. The whole endeavour stands exposed as a colossal failure, not of economics, but of morality and imagination.
Austerity was never an economic necessity; it was an ideological crusade. A deliberate shrinking of the state, a transfer of wealth and power upwards, and a brutal re-engineering of the public’s expectation of what they are entitled to. It has left our communities poorer, sicker, more isolated, and less resilient. The damage inflicted will take a generation to repair. We must therefore call it what it is: not prudent housekeeping, but an act of profound social devastation, one of the most destructive and deceitful political projects in modern British history. Its legacy is a colder, harder, and meaner country, and we should never be allowed to forget it.
The Multi-Faceted Devastation of Austerity: A Summary
| Domain of Impact | The Human & Social Consequence | The Systemic & Economic Fallout |
|---|---|---|
| Public Services | Lengthening NHS waiting lists, unattainable social care, closed libraries/youth clubs, and decaying public spaces. A decline in the quality of life and civic pride. | A hollowed-out state, forced privatisation, a crisis in local government funding, and the creation of a ‘postcode lottery’ for essential services. |
| Social Security & Welfare | Proliferation of food banks, rise of in-work poverty, destitution caused by Universal Credit, and the brutal assessment regime for the disabled. | The safety net transformed into a punitive tool, soaring administrative costs, and the normalisation of state-sanctioned destitution. |
| Health & Wellbeing | A national mental health crisis, rising child poverty, the return of Victorian-era diseases like rickets, and the “heat or eat” dilemma for pensioners. | Increased long-term costs to the NHS, a less healthy and productive workforce, and the intergenerational scarring of life chances. |
| Community & Social Fabric | Loss of communal spaces, increased loneliness and isolation, the rise of stigma and division (“strivers vs. skivers”), and broken town centres. | Erosion of social capital and trust, weakened community resilience, and a coarsening of public discourse that fuels populism. |
| The Macro-Economy | Stagnant wages, precarious work, and the evisceration of disposable income for the majority, suppressing domestic demand. | The slowest economic recovery in a century, chronically low productivity, and higher national debt despite the stated aim of reducing it. |
Those who vote for Reform UK are voting to inflict desperate misery on those around them. Many are voting to inflict it upon themselves. They will not strengthen the UK; they will murder many and shorten the lives of the majority.
