The boomergeddon takes no prisoners
From my vantage point in a far, distant country, I have been keeping a close watch on the UK election and the state of the British nation. My conclusion is that Britain is approaching what can best be described as a "Boomergeddon," namely a major collapse event, caused by its main voting bloc, namely people of the boomer generation, who are blindly and unwittingly fucking up the country.
The Boomer bloc may not actually outweigh Gen-X, Millennials, and Zoomers in sheer numbers, but, in political influence, it clearly does. Boomers vote more, in a more unified way, and in a political culture, landscape, and system that has already been shaped by them. In short, Britain answers to their touch, its ears are attuned to their moans and demands.
But the blind boomer masses are an extremely poor steering mechanism for a country like Britain, and although boomers tend to be relatively unified in what they want, what they want is riven with contradictions, paradoxes, and inconsistencies.
But the blind boomer masses are an extremely poor steering mechanism for a country like Britain, and although boomers tend to be relatively unified in what they want, what they want is riven with contradictions, paradoxes, and inconsistencies.
The chaotic destructive power of the boomer has already been apparent in this election. One of Prime Minister Sunak's opening gambits to try and close the 20-point gap on Labour was to place the "triple lock plus" squarely on the table. The triple lock is an extravagant measure designed merely to "buy votes" with a cynical disregard for the health of government finances and the general economy. It was first introduced after the 2010 election by a weak Conservative government (actually one in coalition with the Lib Dems), aware of where many of their votes were coming from.
The triple lock is a promise to increase the boomer pension by the highest rate from either: inflation, the average increase in wages, or, assuming inflation and wage rises are low, by a rate of 2.5% per year. Essentially this means that the boomer, like the house, always wins. When inflation recently shot up, boomer pensions likewise shot up, something, by the way, that also helped to sustain the inflation.
The only problem for boomers from this is that when their incomes increase, as they invariably do, they edge up into higher and higher tax brackets. But Sunak has now countered this by introducing automatic rises in the tax threshold on their pensions. God forbid that Britain's sacred class should ever pay their fare share of tax!
The triple lock is a promise to increase the boomer pension by the highest rate from either: inflation, the average increase in wages, or, assuming inflation and wage rises are low, by a rate of 2.5% per year. Essentially this means that the boomer, like the house, always wins. When inflation recently shot up, boomer pensions likewise shot up, something, by the way, that also helped to sustain the inflation.
The only problem for boomers from this is that when their incomes increase, as they invariably do, they edge up into higher and higher tax brackets. But Sunak has now countered this by introducing automatic rises in the tax threshold on their pensions. God forbid that Britain's sacred class should ever pay their fare share of tax!
Another ploy by Sunak to shore up the Boomer Tory vote was a new policy of "National Service," in which Zoomers would be forced to choose between joining the army or doing a bit of charity work on weekends.
Zoomers cringe in fear of their boomer masters
I'm guessing some of that "charity work" might involve wiping the arses of elderly boomers in care homes, and that the whole thing would be contracted out to some dodgy businessman who made a generous donation to Tory HQ.
This is one of those policies where you can say, "A puppy's not just for Xmas, but for life." Clearly this election "puppy" will be dumped by the Tories on the M25, possibly next to their rather odd Rwanda puppy, the day after the election. Both policies have the taint of seeming totally unworkable in a soft, squishy modern Britain, where taking drugs, shoplifting, single motherhood, and tattoos all add to your social credit rating, and anyone can show up on the beaches with little prospect of imprisonment or deportation.
But Sunak doesn't have it all his own way. His relentless appeals to boomers have to compete with Labour's equally substantial boomer pandering. But Labour have an ace up their sleeve in the shape of Britain's increasingly shitty National Health Service, which remains Teflon-coated and immune to criticism. Over the the years, as the great boomer generation ages and is overtaken by the consequences of decades of self-indulgence, it has grown like a rampant cancer on the economy and wider social cohesion.
While Tory governments have tried to limit this cancerous growth with a few drops of financial chemotherapy, the Labour Party runs on the meme that NHS waiting lists shoot up under the Tories but come down under Labour. The following graph, sourced from the Financial Times, has appeared in loads of Labour posts.
What this graph doesn't show, however, is that this "effect" is achieved by throwing shitloads of money at the NHS, rather than reforming it and making it efficient. If you add in the averaged-out, year-on-year increase in real terms (i.e. after allowing for inflation), then you get the full picture.
A 5.5% increase every year for the 13 years of the last Labour government (1997-2010) is actually a 100% spending increase in real terms over that period. Yes, almost double!
However, this is Labour LARPing. A Starmer government won't be able to match that level of spending, as the finances in 1997 were relatively healthy, whereas Brexit, Covid and other Black Swan events, outside the government's direct control, have made a mess of Britain's present-day financial situation. In fact, to reach a 5.5% year-on-year increase, an incoming Labour government would have to spend an additional £10 billion in real terms the first year and more thereafter. For reference, the Health Department's spending in 2022/23 was £181.7 billion.
Of course, massive rises in taxation and inflationary money printing shouldn't be ruled out, although the massive size of government debt will actually impose some restraints, because bad financial management will kick up interest rates on huge government debt, and cause a Liz Truss-style collapse.
Of course, massive rises in taxation and inflationary money printing shouldn't be ruled out, although the massive size of government debt will actually impose some restraints, because bad financial management will kick up interest rates on huge government debt, and cause a Liz Truss-style collapse.
Actually, when it comes to the NHS, the Tories were not doing too badly until Covid came along.
Also, it was relatively easy to get staff from poorer EU countries before Brexit. That's something else the Boomers fucked up by voting against Remain with little consideration of the consequences.
The consequences were that a lot of dodgy agencies have sprung up to recruit droves of Third Worlders on "health care visas" to go with all the Third Worlders sucked into the UK on s0-called "student visas." Back in the 1990s, when I was working in education in London, "student visas" were a running joke, allowing foreign students to work practically full-time jobs after attending a few paltry lessons or seminars. No one is really sure what percent of the foreign "health workers" and "students" are actually working in health care and studying, or how many are running empty barber shops and delivering Uber Eats.
The consequences were that a lot of dodgy agencies have sprung up to recruit droves of Third Worlders on "health care visas" to go with all the Third Worlders sucked into the UK on s0-called "student visas." Back in the 1990s, when I was working in education in London, "student visas" were a running joke, allowing foreign students to work practically full-time jobs after attending a few paltry lessons or seminars. No one is really sure what percent of the foreign "health workers" and "students" are actually working in health care and studying, or how many are running empty barber shops and delivering Uber Eats.
Britain is an "immigrationy" country that is just really, really shit at immigration. In fact, Britain is so shit at immigration that it should shut the whole thing down until they can figure out just WTF is going on.
But the real problem here are the boomers again. They couldn't stomach East Europeans so they voted for Brexit, but they still needed their NHS care, so cue droves of so-called nurses and care workers from the Third World. Then, on top of that, the government has to bend over backwards to ensure that their pensions keep going up.
In short, the overtaxed British economy and the whole future of the country are effectively mortgaged to the boomer class. Meanwhile all the politicians, Starmer, Sunak, and even Nigel Farage, are just mere flunkies of the chaotic and contradictory urges of that dominant demographic.
What the UK needs, but won't get until things are far, far worse, is a dictator, nay even a tyrant, who can come in and cut spending, slash taxes, destroy the fake public-private crony economy, and create a real economy in its place; someone who can promote a cult of youth, fertility, and vitality, rather than pander to a culture of mollycoddled pre-death and mass unassimilable immigration.
But before anything as radical as that can occur, Britain will sadly have to pass through its long and painful Boomergeddon. What comes out the other end may not even be Britain, it will just be "Something" with "vaguely British characteristics." In factm Britain already seems to be that way to many of us.
What the UK needs, but won't get until things are far, far worse, is a dictator, nay even a tyrant, who can come in and cut spending, slash taxes, destroy the fake public-private crony economy, and create a real economy in its place; someone who can promote a cult of youth, fertility, and vitality, rather than pander to a culture of mollycoddled pre-death and mass unassimilable immigration.
The normie politician is his bitch
But before anything as radical as that can occur, Britain will sadly have to pass through its long and painful Boomergeddon. What comes out the other end may not even be Britain, it will just be "Something" with "vaguely British characteristics." In factm Britain already seems to be that way to many of us.
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Colin Liddell is the Gen-X Chief Editor of Neokrat and the author of Interviews & Obituaries, a collection of encounters with the dead and the famous. Support his work by buying it here (USA), here (UK), and here (Australia).
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