HELLO. I’m Jeremy Hunt, chancellor by default, and pre-election I’d like to talk you through the economic model that has made Britain such a success.
You might remember when universities were free. This was clearly unsustainable. Now, after 14 years of the adults running the country, studying for a degree means three decades of debt and universities are facing bankruptcy.
Like so much else in the country we’ve transformed – energy providers, water supplies, train networks – our world-renowned universities are now only sustainable with foreign investment. Like the Tory party, the country is in hock to amoral overseas billionaires.
How did we do it? Well, it’s all thanks to what I call the Three Ps. First, Privatise. Take a system that’s functioned well for decades and sell it, or at the very least start charging for it.
Does it matter if the country can’t function without it so investors know full well they can do whatever they like and we’ll have to prop it up? No, not in the least. Which takes us to the second P: Profit.
For the government this is easiest of all, because we simply sit back and let it happen. Royal Mail wants to put stamp prices up by 47 per cent in 18 months? Go ahead. What’s good for shareholders is good for Britain, even if it self-evidently isn’t.
And finally you reach where we are with our water companies, when an essential public service has been neglected for decades, used as a cash cow, loaded with debt and is now polluting our rivers and seas while demanding huge price rises.
We’ve arrived at our third P: Pretend it isn’t happening. Yes, our economic model is so indisputably brilliant that nothing can go wrong with it, so when evidence to the contrary arrives ignore it for it cannot be real.
And that’s how you transfer public money into private hands. If there’s a higher purpose to government than that nobody’s told me about it. God, I love this country.
