June 01, 2017   |   0 comments

Andy Duncan discusses the 2017 UK General Election and the wider political and economic scene past, present and future.

(Stream / download audio at bottom of page)

Like many political systems around the world, UK politics is deeply divided and in a growing state of disarray. Many feel that voting today has become all but irrelevant and in future may, at best, achieve little more than cementing a series of conflict-ridden coalitions. At worst, the current schizophrenic state of paralysis and upheaval may trigger the rise of a party – perhaps as yet unknown – of the ultra-extreme right or left.

In the face of enormous global challenges – in energy, economy, and environment in particular – we hear little from the political class beyond predictable, pie-in-the-sky promises and empty rhetoric about values, aspirations, and hard working families. And yet many citizens still believe that their vote actually counts for something when in the vast majority of cases it rarely – if ever – makes any real difference to anything. Who can blame them? We have long surrendered our sovereign status and personal agency to a kleptocratic elite obsessed with power, wealth, and self-aggrandisement. Now, entire generations know nothing else.

We explore these and other related issues including why the differences between the main political parties are disappearing, where we are headed if things continue as they are, and how the global financial crisis of 2007/8 – which was not allowed to run its rightful course – is coming back to bite us – hard. In a system where voters can see no real alternatives and increasingly resign themselves to disillusion and apathy, what will so-called representative democracy and indeed industrial civilization itself look like in the coming decades?

www.finlingo.com

Previous interviews with Andy Duncan:
Democracy – The God That Failed
The Myths and Mysteries of Modern Money
Independence for Scotland?
The Alternative 2015 UK Election Special
A Greek Tragedy: Bankers, Bailouts and Bureaucracy

Bumper music: Cliff Martinez ‘Traffic OST’
Rainbow ‘Land of Hope and Glory’
Hubert Parry ‘Jerusalem’