Britons lack hope because our politicians are powerless... so let's ditch privatisation and give them real responsibilities again

Britain has a worrying deficit. But I am not talking about the Government’s budget shortfall. Instead, I am referring to something even more pernicious: the lack of hope.

Today, few 18-year-olds can expect a secure job, a decent home of their own or – what was once an almost inalienable right – to do better than their parents.

Different groups in society feel similarly hopeless. Middle-aged workers increasingly worry about losing jobs and pensions. And the elderly feel more vulnerable than ever.

Yet the one thing everyone seems to want – regardless of what party they might (often begrudgingly) support - is for politicians to “do something” and fix the problem.

This popular desire for action was made abundantly clear in an excellent four-part BBC Panorama series that examined voters’ four basic wishes for the “good life” - love (or community), jobs, homes and a sense of hope - and whether politicians can deliver.

In the final episode last night, John Humphrys (pictured) visited Lowestoft, whose bellwether electors have swung to support every incoming government and yet – for the last four decades at least – have become used to being disappointed.

The only thing many residents of the former fishing town seemed to like about Britain was its past.

This is a commonly held sentiment and is fuelling support for Ukip, which is polling very well in Lowestoft and elsewhere on the east coast.

But what is it about the past people like so much?

I doubt it has much to do with the phoney image Nigel Farage paints of Little England outside of a meddlesome Europe.

I suspect a big element of their nostalgia has something to do with a sense that modern politicians manage rather than represent us.

Hope’s biggest casualty is the feeling that politicians are either unwilling or unable to give us good communities, better jobs, more affordable homes and reasons to be optimistic.

Right now, quitting the EU seems like the only plausible big change that is even on the political agenda, outside of Scotland at least.

And, by unburdening ourselves from Brussels, men like Farage imply that it would unlock power like some magic key because it would “repatriate sovereignty”.

But, of course, beyond allowing MPs to limit immigration and giving British fishermen the sea to themselves, leaving the EU would do very little to rebalance control in a wider sense.

If we quit Brussels, the same big business owners and City spivs would still be there holding the reigns to economic power in Britain, while MPs were resigned to tinkering almost exclusively with public and social policy issues like education and policing.

Privatisation is the real reason politicians – and we the people they are supposed to represent - are so powerless.

Governments cannot give you better paid, more secure jobs because they no longer own a big share of the means of production.

Instead we are held ransom by private industries, especially the banks, whose mantra seems to be “private profit, public liability”.

We are at the whim of unelected wallet-stuffers, who prefer the poor to pay the bill for bridging the fiscal deficit and want us to believe they would abandon their cushy lives here for the oppressive heat of Dubai if we dared to raise their taxes.

Politicians cannot build affordable homes because they have almost entirely sourced out that job to private firms, who have no interest in building as many houses as we actually need because they would risk their profits if an increased supply eased pressure on prices.

And our MPs will struggle to maintain supportive communities when it allows profiteers to drive people out of their homes because they cannot afford the astronomical rents imposed on them, yet alone buy a house.

The lesson from Lowestoft and elsewhere in Panorama’s odyssey seems to be that more people than we might think actually want statist governments with the power to directly improve their lives.

And, while a generation of fear mongering about higher taxes and public ownership have scared people, we clearly prefer the past, especially the first two decades after World War II market intervention began in earnest.

Indeed, before Margaret Thatcher launched her privatising counter-revolution, British administrations of every stripe used to see the benefits of public ownership.

After all, it was Winston Churchill who, before he crossed the floor from the Liberals to the Tories, got the ball rolling with the 1908 purchase of what would become BP.

Today, instead of thinking that every privatisation is set in stone and politicians are weak, we should be having a debate over whether the frontiers of the state should roll forward again and empower people once more.

Hope need not be consigned to history.

Please feel free to debate with me on Twitter @SeeingRed1945