In England there are two very marked social groups: the triumphalists and the defeatists. The former believe that their football or rugby team will always be world champions, and celebrate victories in an almost insulting manner; they see the country as a great power (despite the fact that the latest OECD analysis places it almost at the level of Argentina); they think that the empire still exists, that Brexit will be a success (just give it time) and that the British economy is doing much better than the EU’s (statistics don’t count).
Defeatists believe otherwise, and there is a broad tradition of defeatism that was expressed in the 19th century, after the Boer Wars and the Suez defeat, with the governments of Balfour, Douglas-Home, James Callaghan, Harold Wilson, Macmillan, Major and now Rishi Sunak, during the winters of discontent and after the destruction of industry by Thatcher… When the American writer Paul Theroux visited the coastal towns of England in 1982, he could hardly describe the fear and was surprised by the negativism of many he interviewed: “This country is a disaster, nothing works, we are not going anywhere”.
Now England is again surrounded by a wave of pessimism, as when it was described as the “sick of Europe”, and the defeatists seem to have plenty of arguments. The latest example is the bankruptcy of the city of Birmingham, the nation’s second most populous and Europe’s largest municipal authority, which – to stay afloat – may be forced to sell even its museums and art galleries, the spectacular Central Library (opened only in 2013), mansions like Ashton Hall and even furniture.
The case is a mixture of mismanagement by Labor (who have controlled the City Council for twelve years) and the impact of the cuts that successive governments (starting with David Cameron’s) have imposed in the name of sacrosanct austerity. The funding of municipal authorities has been reduced by 60% since 2010, and the result is a huge black hole of 2.2 billion euros.
The city of Birmingham’s budget is €4.2 billion (London receives 77.8% less money than it did twenty years ago), and one would think that the money would be spent on collecting rubbish, fixing potholes, etc. lighting the streets, keeping the parks, sports centers and libraries open, cleaning graffiti, paying the teachers… But, in reality, all this is secondary: the bulk of the funds are spent on social assistance for the elderly and consideration for children with problems By law, these are the first responsibilities that the municipal authority must take care of, and then, if there is any left over, the other things come.
To compensate for the brutal decrease in state resources, the councils invest the money that London gives them. But investments, as you know, can go well and go badly. Birmingham is not the only one with problems, and on the list of candidates for bankruptcy in the next two years are Huddersfield, Thurrock, Woking, Derby, Stoke and several dozen others. Some have gone broke buying shopping malls, others with solar energy, or whatever.
In Birmingham, the problem has been magnified by hundreds of lawsuits brought years ago by female civil servants (in charge of cleaning schools and maintaining official buildings) for discrimination, as they received lower wages than men who did the same jobs. The City Council has already had to pay 1,400 million euros in compensation, and now it has received a bill for another 900 million that has precipitated bankruptcy. Auditors sent from London have taken charge of the management and have abolished all expenses, except for social assistance and a minimum for garbage collection and similar services.
For Birmingham, which competes with Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Newcastle for the unofficial title of second largest English city, this is a humiliation. Only last year it celebrated the Commonwealth Games (on which it spent 200 million euros despite financial problems) and announced the beginning of a “golden decade” by its Michelin-starred restaurants, the arrival of the high-speed train, its Symphony Orchestra, Central Library and Exhibition Center (which it cannot sell now because it already did so eight years ago for 325 million euros to pay compensation to municipal employees ). The fact that their main football team, Aston Villa, was in the second division for a few years was not a good sign either…
Premier Rishi Sunak has ruled out helping Birmingham to cover the budget deficit of one hundred million dollars expected for the current financial year, and double that for 2023-2024. He claims that in London they don’t tie dogs with sausages either and that everyone takes care of their own things. It is the seventh English city to go bankrupt since 2020, and those to come… Inflation is rising, and the Central Government is giving less and less. In this way, there is no council that survives. Those who in the eighties told Paul Theroux that the United Kingdom was drifting away feel vindicated.
