To me the UK situation always feels a bit anomalous, it will take 30 years or more to work off the psychological effects of the Thatcher time (and of course that will only happen if the neo-libs can be prevented from completely implementing the Washington consensuses generally.)

We can (and I frequently find myself in this argument) discuss about whether the Labour party needed to shift to the right the way they did to win in 1997. However, it is certainly the case that they thought they did, in part due to the weight FPTP gives to certain marginal constituencies and a certain kind of floating voter.

The other probnlem is that since our economists are all economically illiterate, it shouldn't surprise that our politicians are more so and have been sold various kinds of neo-lib moonshine along the way. Economic stability (and indeed a bit of growth) are the currency of political survival/power. If you can get them then it's a lot easier to win elections.

Academic economists told the world and the politicians that the old nostrums were dead. Neo-libia had won and the only way to make society richer was to follow the neo-lib way.

Good politicians want to make a better life for people. If you tell them that the only way to avoid total economic decline is the neo-lib way, there is a strong pressure for them to accept it as the lesser of two evils, no?

It's not like they were not already pursuing

My surprise is that we have esentially been betrayed by the social democrats.

But the left lost their confidence ages ago. Look at the US where the democrats in the 50s guise were the promoters of the Common Good and the enrichment of the middle and working classes, making the "American Dream" seem possible for everyone. By the time of Reagan they had degenerated into fighting a rearguard action defending the New Deal.

Their higly visible lack of intellectual rigour in policy making and their timidity in promoting just about any liberal principle has been echoed by left/liberal parties all around the world. It just became obvious in the last 10 years or so.

I suspect it's largely because the left in power were as careless with citizen's rights as the right, but at least the right offered you hope of economic empowerment. Something the left were incapable of as their mindset was invariably telling you to be grateful for what you got.

keep to the Fen Causeway