In the 1970s Britain owned its own water, power stations, national grid, transport, and mail service; we had millions of council houses and plenty of affordable housing for those who wanted to buy; university education was free; we had a functioning health service and a decent social safety net; and we'd discovered a massive one-off North Sea oil and gas reserve.

Now our essential infrastructure and services have been flogged off to parasitical private profiteers for a tiny fraction of their true values; social housing has been catastrophically depleted and homes are more unaffordable than ever; university education costs tens of thousands of pounds on rip-off inflation-busting repayment terms; the NHS has been run down to the bare bones and the social security system has been turned into a Kafkaesque nightmare; and the North Sea oil and gas bonanza was wasted away while other countries like Norway used their fossil fuel wealth to build sovereign wealth funds worth hundreds of billions of pounds.

Millionaires have turned into billionaires, while millions of working people have become the working-poor.

This national decline was never inevitable. It came about because of the privatisation and austerity obsessed right-wing politics of the Westminster establishment cabal.

It was a choice, and the political class and their mega-rich capitalist donors have done so very nicely out of it that they've got absolutely no desire to change course.

More tax breaks, privatisation profiteering, and handouts for them. More austerity, rip-off rents and bills, and stagnating wages for us.