So, here's the deal: the British government is kinda broke. How broke? Roundabouts £960 billion national debt. That works out to somewhere near $1.5 trillion. For comparison's sake, the US has a national debt of $13 trillion plus... but we also make a lot more money than the British do (and don't they know it). So to make the comparison more fair, we can look at debt as percent of GDP, in which case it's about 65% for the Brits, and... 93% for us. um, yay? we're winning?
The current US position is that this is not exactly our preferred situation, but that in our extended economic slump continued borrowing is necessary - and at any rate, sharply increasing taxes or decreasing spending will really just make everything worse. Cue heavy sigh.
The current UK position, on the other hand, is WE ARE ALL GOING TO PERISH IF WE DON'T CUT SPENDING. There's a lot of complicated stuff about coalition governments (somehow one party with "conservative" in the name, and another with "liberal" in the name, have joined forces and are trying to get along. How that worked out I'm still not clear on) but at any rate, they're cutting spending like... like... like a man trapped under a giant rock might cut his arm off, I suppose. Messily, painfully, and with much protestation.
[Interesting side note: the British are primarily worried, it seems, that the debt could work its way up to 100% of GDP. Did you know that after WWII, their national debt was almost 250% of GDP??? 250%! I mean, I remember learning that Britain was suffering after the war, but I really never appreciated just how insanely in debt they were - or how much it impacted them. Especially compared to the US' post-war boom - crazy stuff].
Anyway, as the UK welfare state is rather well-entrenched and beloved (and hated, simultaneously, by the same people - it's all very complicated) cutting spending is quite difficult indeed. Nobody likes it, but the cuts are being branded - rather skillfully, really - as "austerity measures" which are "tough but fair," and generally sold with a heavy sigh and a "we'll get through this together, chaps" spirit that seems to hearken back to the post-war bootstrap-pulling bonanza. And aside from some student protests, which everyone mostly ignores (disruptive drum-banging aside), most people are shrugging and tolerating it all.
This is all background. The main point is that there is a fair amount of "time to put up with being broke again" happening right now. But when the City of London tries to cut some superfluous transport jobs, the transport workers are having NONE of this "austerity measure" nonsense and are, instead, marching out of their jobs to protest - over and over again. So the tube lines stop running, and the buses fill up, and people walk to work - anecdotally, I've heard they'll walk for hours.
Side note: British people = crazy? Maybe so. I think they want to prove they could still have the stubborn resolution necessary to handle another Blitz, if necessary, and in the absence of a Blitz, they survive these strikes. So the surprisingly unhostile public response to this massive inconvenience might, in fact, be gratitude for the fact that the tube workers are giving everybody a chance to prove their quiet endurance. Too much? I dunno, what I've learned so far is that everything in the modern British psyche is due to WWII. Either "losing the empire," as they put it, or being broke for ages. But back on-topic.
Tonight and all of tomorrow, there pretty much isn't a tube system. The funny thing is, though, they're mostly arguing over cutting the jobs of ticket agents... and, true story, nobody buys tickets from ticket agents any more. I mean, I do, but that's just because the machines won't take my 20th-century American credit card (the British are very proud of the fact that their credit cards have a "chip and pen" system that's cooler than ours or something, whatever). But aside from helping the occasional cash-strapped, very annoyed American like me, basically they aren't doing much.
Now, I'm not saying the tube workers are all in the wrong here. I think the city should keep the same number of workers total, but move those 800 jobs to signal-workers. because the signals fail all the freaking time, I swear. "Signal failure" this, "signal failure" that, and whaddaya know, no central line today. But I digress.
The point: EVERY MONTH there is a day when London is just in shambles because the union and the management can't agree on these freaking station agent jobs. Just GET IT OVER WITH ALREADY FOR THE LOVE OF MERCY.
And this weekend, on "bonfire night," full of - you guessed it! - bonfires, as well as loads of fireworks, the firefighters are on strike. This one doesn't even make sense. They're striking because management wants them to change their shift schedule so they can check more fire alarms during the day or something. Seriously, that's one of the reasons. And they don't want to, because they wouldn't be able to put their kids to bed. They aren't talking about firing anybody, or cutting wages, or cutting hours or increasing hours - just changing the shift schedule!
Now, I'm not saying that neither side has a point. I'm sure they both have points. And I'm sure they could both find SOME way to compromise. Instead, management has threatened to sack EVERYBODY (yeah, fire every firefighter in London, GREAT PLAN GUYS) and the firefighters have responded by deciding to just sit out the night with the most fires each year.
all I have to say to that is: PEOPLE DIE IN FIRES. can you really not find any other day to strike? really? none at all?
This week in London, London's public services are on strike. Up next: NHS doctors refuse to do surgery, will stand back with their arms crossed and shout insults at the 3rd-year med students who are trying to take their places.
I wouldn't be much surprised.
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