This seeps through into society, aided by our post-austerity cynicism about government spending and, by extension, public services. As Percy points out, countries across Europe already have expanded universalism: free childcare from six weeks is offered to all families in the Netherlands; elderly people in Belgium and Sweden have access to free social care. But today’s universalism is not a hark-back to clunky, unwieldy, centralised state provision. McDonnell’s embrace of a “decentralised” approach to state provision shows that Labour has caught up with this thinking. A decade of austerity has savaged our public services: UN envoy Philip Alston reported last year that Britain’s shocking levels of poverty were the result of policies that “deliberately gutted” public services.

Source: The Guardian December 07, 2019 08:00 UTC