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The challenges ahead to unity are real. But Scottish independence and Irish unification aren’t foregone conclusions.In the pages of some U.S. based foreign policy publications, it has become in vogue to predict the imminent demise of the United Kingdom (UK) and to place the blame for this “inevitability” and the rise of nationalism on Brexit. Both sentiments betray an overly simplistic understanding of existing trends and developments. There are challenges to the status quo, but economic circumstances and COVID-19 (and the European Union’s (EU) failings), mean the UK will likely go on being united.The Scottish Question. The Scottish independence movement is top of mind for any discussion of a potential breakup of the UK. Anyone familiar with the Quebec Referendums in Canada could have predicted the Scottish National Party (SNP) was never going to adhere to their promise of a “once in a generation referendum” after they lost. Brexit is just a convenient excuse. While a range of arguments have been floated over the last two decades (e.g. the Celtic Tiger, banking & oil, etc.), the SNP’s post-Brexit push is based on the supposition that the EU is a better, more capable partner for Scotland than the UK.Reality has not borne that out. The difference in outcomes during the COVID-19 vaccine development and rollout could not be starker for instance. Not only did a UK company rapidly develop one of the first vaccines, the country is close to world-leading in their vaccination rates. As of February, they have more than doubled the per capita vaccination rate of the highest EU nation (Malta), and are over 4.5 times of Germany’s, and almost 6 times that of France. Unsurprisingly, the UK economy is also rebounding faster than that of the EU, providing relief to businesses across the nation.Since the start of the vaccine rollout, polling winds have (slowly) begun to shift in Scotland. While the SNP is currently polling at 52 percent in the upcoming Scottish Parliamentary election, this is actually down from almost 55 percent this time last year, and is also mirrored by a small, but steady decline in support for independence over the last few months. This is exacerbated by growing cleavages within the SNP, between the former First Minister Alex Salmond and current First Minister Nicola Sturgeon wings of the party. These wings are increasingly at odds, across the grass roots, members of Scottish Parliament, and even in the courts.But could the SNP still push ahead? At the end of the day, Scottish Parliament lacks the authority to hold another referendum without Westminster’s approval, which both the current Tory Government as well as the opposition Labour Party have ruled out. In response, some grassroots SNP activists have suggested they could hold a wildcat referendum, but that has been consistently shot down by the First Minister herself. Suggestions that the SNP could be kingmakers have no basis in polling or Westminster reality, and no Unionist party leader will risk being the one to allow it.Finally, despite the SNP’s ever-changing, overly-optimistic financial predictions, the economic circumstances that would allow for an independent Scotland have grown increasingly dim. Prior to the 2014 referendum, then-First Minister Salmond predicted oil would be critical for Scottish finances. At the time oil hovered around $100 a barrel, and the SNP predicted this could rise to over $150 a barrel by 2020. Even with these high oil prices, there was an over £7.6 billion annual spending deficit in the Scottish budget. When combined with increased SNP spending, this doubled to over £15.1 billion per year in 2020 and as we now know, oil prices have fallen off a cliff and are unlikely to reach even $60 per barrel for the foreseeable future. Translating macro to micro, the per-resident basis of the SNP’s spending is, at best, an ignorance of basic accounting or at worse, a preparedness to not “balance the books” today for ideals based on macro optimism related to tomorrow that plainly does not pan out near, medium, or long term according to any reputable economic analyst. In simple terms, the per-person spending in Scotland is £1,633 higher, while tax revenue is £308 lower than the rest of the UK, a net deficit of almost £2,000 per resident.In addition to all of these issues, the SNP’s independence plans are predicated on rejoining the EU immediately and receiving access to EU funding to try and shore up their spending chasm. This would require major concessions from the Scottish Government, consensus among EU countries on Scottish accession, and, most damaging, a likely 4-5 year wait. In the first instance, currency becomes a significant issue. Joining the EU would require Scotland accepting the euro, which is deeply unpopular (a mere 18 percent of Scots support it), and adhering to the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy, which is responsible for decimating Scottish fishing communities in the decades after the UK joined the EU. In the second, despite some conflicting reports, consensus for accepting Scotland to the EU is far from guaranteed. Third, even if they are successful, in the years it takes Scotland to rejoin the EU, its economy will be in freefall. It will not have the contribution of the rest of the UK to meet its £15.1bn per annum (and rising) funding gap, it will lack a currency, and its revenues from oil will be squeezed by declining oil prices and output. A recent study from the London School of Economics’ Centre for Economic Performance starkly highlighted these impacts. Principally, Scotland’s trade with the rest of the UK is 4 times that of Scotland’s trade with the EU, and independence could add 30 percent to its trading costs. This would result in a potential 8.7 percent further reduction of Scottish incomes. This would exacerbate the already widening annual funding gap, resulting in an independent Scotland becoming the sick man of Europe.Northern Ireland. Shifting to Northern Ireland, a recent article in Foreign Policy chose to cite a single 2019 poll as evidence for Northern Irish support for Irish unification being ascendant. It is strange that the author did not cite the myriad of other, more recent polls that show that pro-unification has actually fallen over the last year and that, statistically, support for it is overestimated. Indeed, the EU has managed to unite Northern Ireland, and not in the way they would hope. The abortive, vindictive attempt by the EU to exercise of Article 16 without warning to London or Dublin, let alone Belfast, in February has caused an anti-EU backlash across Northern Ireland. This adds to the continued expectation that the stridently unionist DUP will remain the largest party in the Northern Irish Assembly. Northern Ireland continues to have its internal issues; the most recent three-year Stormont suspension, which lasted until January of 2020, did not help matters.In all, the COVID pandemic has put the relative responsiveness and dynamism of a post-Brexit UK and the EU in stark contrast, one in which the EU has come off decidedly worse. And while one must concede that the UK and its constituent nations no doubt face an uncertain future, and that unity may very well not be fully assured, pundits would do well to look at the data rather than sensationalist headlines

India often attracts generalisations and stereotyping, but more often it defies them. After all, it is an enormous and varied place with the genetic, linguistic, culinary and sartorial diversity which are usually found in a continent. Sam Miller, a former BBC Delhi correspondent who has spent more than half his adult life in India, has chosen 10 'big' facts about India.POPULOUS STATE​Image captionExperts predict that India's population will peak in the 2060sIndia's population will (probably) overtake China's in 2028.According to UN estimates, India will become the most populous country in the world in just 14 years' time, when it will have about 1.45 billion inhabitants.For many in India, becoming the most populous country will be an achievement, marking the country's progress in its rivalry with China.For others, particularly from the older generations, it represents a failure of the country's decades-old attempts to bring its population under control - which included a controversial and counter-productive mass sterilisation campaign during the 1970s.In fact, birth rates have fallen significantly in almost all parts of India, driven by female education, rising household incomes and greater availability of contraception though this has been partially offset by increased life expectancy.India's population is likely to reach about 1.6 billion in the 2060s, before decreasing to about 1.5 billion by the end of the century.By then, according to the UN study, Nigeria may have overtaken China as the second most populous country.INDIA WAS ONCE AN ISLAND​Image captionThe Himalayan mountain range is the youngest in the worldIndia was once a continent. More than 100 million years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, most of what is now India was an island.It had broken off from an ancient supercontinent referred to as Gondwanaland by paleogeographers (named after Gondwana, a forested area of central India), and was moving slowly northwards.About 50 million years ago, dinosaurs by now extinct, the India continental plate collided with Asia, buckling the coastal area of both continents and creating the Himalayas - the world's youngest major mountain range - and, of course, the highest.Evidence of this ancient history is provided by fossilised sea shells that can still be found high in the mountains. The plate on which the subcontinent rests continues to press slowly northwards, and is the reason why the height of Mount Everest increases slightly every year.MULTILINGUALIndia has, arguably, greater linguistic diversity than any other large country.The precise number of languages spoken in India is probably over 1,000, but it is often hard to define when one language begins and another ends.The 1961 census of India listed 1,652 languages, though some of these may have effectively been dialects, and a few languages have died out since then.The big six languages - Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil and Urdu - are each spoken by more than 50 million people.A total of 122 languages are each spoken by more than 10,000 people.India doesn't have a national language. Hindi and English are both official languages, though the writers of the constitution envisaged a transitional status for English, but opposition to Hindi hegemony from speakers of other languages, particularly Tamil, mean that English remains an official language.Indian languages belong to four of the world's major language groups: Indo-European, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic and Tibeto-Burman.Until the mid-20th Century, the Bantu language group, which originates in Africa, was also represented by speakers of the Sidi language used by migrants from East Africa living in western India.The language has now died out, though members of the Sidi community still use a few words of Bantu origin.MEGACITIES​Image captionFinding water in India's city slums is a challengeIndia has three of the world's top ten megacities - one more than China.According to the UN, Delhi is now the second-largest urban agglomeration in the world, with Mumbai ranked seventh and Calcutta tenth.The population of Delhi and its immediate urban hinterland is now over 22.65 million, and is only surpassed by Tokyo.In the 17th century, Delhi was briefly the most populous city in the world, but by 1960, Delhi was not even in the top 30. The growth since then had been more than 4% per annum.That growth rate is beginning to fall, but it is still over 3% annually.That represents a yearly increase in population - through childbirth and migration - of about 700,000 people, putting a severe strain on the resources of India's capital.Water remains a major problem - with almost quarter of the city's household not having a regular water supply.Six other Indian cities - Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Pune and Surat - feature in the UN's top 100 urban agglomerations.417,037, 606 VOTERS​Image captionVoters' fingers are marked with a special ink to ensure one man one voteIndia prides itself on being the world's largest democracy (Chinese voters do not directly elect their country's rulers), and precisely 417,037, 606 people voted at the last parliamentary election in 2009 - a turnout of slightly under 60%.There were 830,866 polling stations, including one, in the western state of Gujarat which had a single voter, a temple caretaker.The Election Commission of India advises that that no voter should have to travel more than two kilometres to the nearest polling station, and that, if necessary, a separate polling station can be set up for the inmates of a leprosy sanatorium.India also holds the record for the most candidates for a single constituency - 1,032 candidates stood for the Modakurichi assembly seat in the Tamil Nadu state elections in 1996.All but two of the candidates lost their deposit, and 88 candidates did not get a single vote.IF INDIA WAS A MUSLIM STATE​Image captionIndian Bohra Muslims gather in MumbaiIndia has the second (or third) highest population of Muslims in the world.Even though less than 15% of Indians are Muslim, the country's enormous population means that by this measure it outranks all Muslim-majority countries, except Indonesia and possibly Pakistan. (There are almost exactly the same numbers of Muslims in Pakistan as in India).The first Muslims in India are thought to have been traders who came to Kerala during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad. Millions of Muslims migrated at the time of independence to either West or East Pakistan (the latter became Bangladesh in 1971), but huge numbers also remained behind.Today, the only Muslim-majority areas of India are the Kashmir valley, and the tiny Indian Ocean territory of Lakshadweep.India's Muslims are quite thinly spread across the rest of the country, though they are almost non-existent in parts of the north-east and in Punjab.DEADLY ROADS​Image captionIndia has one of the worst road casualty rates in the worldThere are more road deaths in India than any other country in the world.This is a statistic that won't surprise many visitors, for whom the roads of India are often terrifying.Officially about 115,000 people die on Indian roads each year - though a recent British Medical Journal study suggests that the true number of fatalities is closer to 200,000.Among the stark figures to emerge from the BMJ report are that 37% of all road deaths are pedestrians, with a further 28% for cyclists and motorcyclists, and that 55% of all fatalities occur within five minutes of the road incident.The study recommends more speed bumps, greater enforcement of greater use of safety helmets, and more fines and suspensions for drivers who break traffic rules.In fact, although India has by the far the highest number of total road deaths, the per capita figure for several other countries, led by Eritrea and the Cook Islands, are much higher.MOST INDIAN FILMS ARE NOT BOLLYWOOD​Image captionTamil film DVDs for saleIndia has the world's largest film industry.More than 1,100 movies are produced, on average, each year - that's slightly ahead of Nigeria, twice as many as the American film industry and ten times as many as Britain produces.Most of the Indian films are not, as is often supposed, products of Bollywood, the nickname given to Mumbai's Hindi movie industry which is responsible for roughly 200 films a year.Almost as many films are made each year in both Tamil and in Telugu, the two most widely spoken southern Indian language - and Chennai and Hyderabad are major film productions centres.However, India comes only sixth in terms of cinema box office receipts - behind the USA, China, Japan, UK and FranceMANGOES GALORE​Image captionIndia grows nearly 40% of the world's mango cropIndia is the world's biggest producer and consumer of mangoes.For many people, the greatest delight of the hot Indian summer is the profusion of mangoes - officially India's national fruit.There are several hundred varieties of Indian mango, of which more than 30 are commercially available.Everyone seems to have their favourite, and I have witnessed furious argument about which is the best mango.I have also discovered that it is possible to cause great offence in Mumbai, by suggesting that the local mango, the Alfonso, is not the best in the world.More than 40% of the world's annual output of mangoes are grown in India, far ahead of the competition from China, Thailand and Bangladesh.RECORD BREAKER​Image captionIndian students dressed as Mahatma Gandhi for a record attemptIndia is more obsessed with breaking records than any other country. Not something that I can prove with official sources, but I am pretty sure it is true.According to the Guinness Book of World Records, India ranks third behind the USA and the UK in the number of records claimed each year.Among the recent additions was the largest gathering of people (891) dressed like Mahatma Gandhi.But this leaves out the large number of often bizarre and obscure record claims that never make it to the Guinness Book, but that are compiled in similar local compendiums such as the Limca Book of Records and the India Book of Records.The records include the longest garland made of cakes of cattle dung (2 km) , for performingyoga on horseback (10 hours) , and for lighting electric bulbs by passing a wire through one's nose and out of one's mouth (30 sixty-watt bulbs) . Sometimes record-seekers go too far - as do their parents.In 2007, a 15-year-old boy, under the watchful eye of his doctor parents, performed a caesarean section in a hospital in Tamil Nadu, in an attempt to be recognised as the world's youngest surgeon. Unsurprisingly, the police and the medical authorities took a dim view of this particular attempt on a world record.Sam Miller is the author of A Strange Kind of Paradise: India Through Foreign Eyes published in India by Penguin India this month, and by Jonathan Cape in the UK in June 2014

1 Introduction Nearly all countries have a hidden history of which they, for very good reasons, are not proud. That history is very infrequently mentioned in the national media but is referenced enough for the occurrence of these key events to be beyond dispute.1.1 The Major Reason Why The United Kingdom Has A Hidden HistoryThe United Kingdom is a nation which has fully implemented the baleful predictions of Oswald Spengler’s Decline of the West, that isfirst, the country has been entirely taken over by monied interestssecond, that this takeover of the UK Government by the rich (their greatest lobbyists) was a natural evolutionary development of western economies and in Spengler’s view was both inevitable and irresistibly unavoidablethird, that all of the nation’s privately-owned and government-controlled media would become utterly compliant in accepting and promoting that take-over and useless and incapable of objectively reporting on events or providing accurate information, andfourth, Spengler stated that there is a tendency for nations which have been taken over by monied interests to fall under the control of politically inept but monied “Caesars” who have minimal competence in running the country but who nonetheless gain a political power despite lacking the capability to govern effectively in the national interest.All of these results have happened in both the UK and the USA. SeeSee Do you see any merit in Oswald Spengler's claim that "The Decline of the West" is fast approaching? andGeorge Tait Edwards's answer to What are your thoughts on the 20th century, German philosopher Oswald Spengler and his theory on the decline of the West?2 Definition: Items of hidden history are developments which encompass three major effects: these area hidden history item partially explains recent events (such as election or referendum results)the British Media while mentioning these changes in a very minor way do not recognise their explanatory effect in altering the course of history and ignores the relevance of these changes upon continuing political developments, andthe population of the United Kingdom have become almost completely uninformed about how major recent significant events have come about and about how the economic development of the country and its social policies are the inevitable consequence of their hidden history.Let’s examine these situations in more detail3 Recent Major Hidden Historical Events There appear to be six major factors in the recent hidden history of Britain. These arethe destruction of a fully-functioning British democracy byMargaret Thatcher’s 1992 Poll Tax andthe application of David Cameron’s Individual Electoral Registration Act 2013the 1992 election of John Major due to absence of Poll-Tax avoiding previous votersthe election of David Cameron in May 2015 due to the partisan reduction of non-Conservative previous voters through the Coalition Government’s implementation of the Individual Electoral Registration Act 2013the BREXIT result which was brought about by the removal of at least eight million previous voters from the parliamentary electoral rollsthe destruction of the NHS as an accessible public service due to the redefinition of doctor’s GP services as emergency services and the almost complete conversion of nearly all NHS hospitals and facilities into cash-limited semi-privatised hospital and health service trusts focused on cost saving rather than services to patientsthe destruction by the Government of the social contract and living standards of the poorest sections of British societyAll of these developments have their consequences, which are continuing to affect the political development and basic characteristics of the UK. It may be useful to illustrate these events in turn.3 Scale of these itemsNone of these items is trivial. Each of these was enough to produce results which were, for example, in direct opposition to the opinion polls.3.1 The destruction of a fully-functioning British democracy by Margaret Thatcher’s Poll Tax in Scotland in 1989 and In England and Wales in 1990See Poll tax (Great Britain) - WikipediaThe piloting of the Poll Tax in Scotland, which was suggested and supported by Oliver Letwin who was a member of Thatcher’s Cabinet, ultimately resulted in over half the Scottish Electorate receiving a notice of failure to pay the Poll Tax.3.2 The election of John Major due to absence of Poll-Tax avoiding previous votersAs the above Wikipedia reference points out:“There is also some evidence that the poll tax had a lasting effect of people not registering themselves on the electoral register to evade collection attempts. This may have had an effect on the results of the 1992 general election, which ended in a fourth successive Conservative victory, despite most opinion polls pointing to a hung parliament or narrow Labour majority.[3]”The UK Poll Tax removed millions of voters from the Parliamentary Electoral Register. All poll taxes everywhere have been implemented in order to deny the poor the right to vote and to help to elect right-wing governments. This is particularly so in the USA, but Thatcher’s Poll Tax did that in the UK in 1992.3.3 The further destruction of a fully-functioning British democracy by David Cameron’s Individual Electoral Registration Act 2013 (2013 IER)See How David Cameron’s Coalition Government Stole the 2015 General Electionwhich lists in detail all of the below and moreThe Coalition Government of Cameron-Ashdown passed the Individual Electoral Registration Act 2013 and after then Cameron had ten significant choices in the implementation of that Law. At every turn Cameron chose to reduce the number of voters on the Parliamentary Electoral Rolls in order to produce a partisan advantage for his party.At every stage in the process of implementing the 2013 IER Cameron opted forFirst, voter deletion rather than inclusionSecond, the same kind of voter deletion as had occurred in Northern Ireland in 2002, when about 10.2% (but see page 4 of the House of Commons Library Briefing Paper Number 6764, authored by Isobel White and dated 21 July 2015 which estimated a slightly higher number of 10.5%) of voters had been removed from the Parliamentary Electoral RollsIt should be noted that:“The Labour Party knew that a badly-implemented individual elector registration system would damage democracy by creating large levels of voter under-registration. These under-registered voters were mainly labour voters — students, tenants of local authority housing, ethnic minorities — so Labour had a sound democratic reason as well as a political reason for not wishing to progress this process. But the Conservative Party had no similar qualms and, as events have demonstrated, had no reservations about damaging the British democratic process if it suited their partisan objectives.”Third, the use of a limited Government database which initially reduced the electors on Parliamentary Voting Rolls by 5.5 million voters - what happened was“The DWP records used in the “Confirmation Live Run” for England and Wales initially identified voters from the DWP database only produced a voters’ roll of 36.9 million voters with 5.5 million voters not confirmed, so initially disenfranchised these 5.5 million voters — 13% of the electorate — an even larger percentage loss than 10.2% (or 10.5%?) reduction in voters in Northern Ireland.”Fourth, The abolition of the 2014 HER/Annual canvass“The abolition of the 2014 Household Electoral Review (HER) was a deliberate decision of the Coalition Government which removed the possibility of correcting the flawed early 2014 register resulting from the 2013 IER Act register by writing to the missing electors. It is impossible to conclude that this was not a deliberate partisan act to minimise non-Conservative voters.”Fifth, the absence of ring-fencing of the money allegedly provided to improve the Parliamentary Electoral Register so that Councils with government income cuts were not obliged to use that money for its stated purpose but could lessen the effect of cuts elsewhere in their budgets, which most didSixth, the denial of the suggestion that voters could register on voting day at the boothsThis is best practise elsewhere (eg in Australia) but Cameron refused to consider itSeventh, the refusal to consider the issues raised by the Electoral CommissionAll Electoral Commission recommendations about how the 2013 Act could be made fairer or more comprehensive were totally ignoredEighth, the voting down of parliamentary motions criticising the fast implementation of the 2013 IER ActThe Conservatives had the objective of creating a one-party UK state, as reported in New Commons boundaries top Conservative government agenda which saysNinth, the reduction of the penalty for non-responses to a request for voter registration from a likely £1,000 on the previous HER system to a weak comment on the IER Enquiry forms about how “You might be fined £80”The lowering of the penalty for non-responses and the encouragement of non-registration of an individual’s voting rights acts to produce a flawed PER which advantages the Conservative Party.Tenth, the Cameron Government proposes to use the reduced 2013 IER Act Parliamentary Electoral Roll produced in early 2015 as the basis for the computer-assisted gerrymandering of constituency boundaries in 2016 with the objective of locking out Labour Governments and “locking in Conservative Governments for generations”These ten factors demonstrated that David Cameron was hell-bent on destroying the previously more fully-functioning British Democracy in order to deliver the partisan advantage of continual Conservative Governments. Which is what has happened.That would not matter so much if Conservative “ruled-by-the-rich” Governments were capable of running the economy for the benefit of all and funding the SME inventions and innovations which are the growth key to more (about 75%) future developments.But for the last 900 years or so, Conservative Governments in China and the West have produced tremendous national economic decline - in Wang Anshi’s 11th century China, in the 14th century Yongle Emperor and Ming Dynasty China, and in ending the mercantile economies of the UK and the USA during the 20th century. No nation has ever become a world leader when led by the Conservatives, or remained a world leader under that Party, because their major role in history has been to end such leaderships.3.4 The election of the David Cameron Government in May 2015 due to the partisan reduction of non-Conservative previous voters through the Coalition Government’s implementation of the Individual Electoral Registration Act 2013It should be noted that:Despite the opinion polls predicting a Labour victory, the Conservatives won the May 2015 election. The Government takeover of the Parliamentary Electoral Rolls and the denial of the vote to millions of previous voters produced that result.The number of missing voters compared to the previous-to-2013 Parliamentary Electoral Rolls (PER) was somewhere between 5.5% and 12.5%. The Conservative Government, not content with removing 5.5% of voters in the first computer run, had written to a further 7% of voters challenging their right to vote and saying if they did respond by December 2014 their names would be struck off rom the PER.The distortion of the votes was mysogynist, anti-working class, anti-BME, anti-student, anti-young and racialist. This occurred becauseit was made more difficult for newly married women to re-instate their voting rightsthe greatest number of lost votes was in working class communities and in the B&ME communitystudents attending university were no longer automatically registered as voters unless they filled in an electoral registration form given them at University registrationparents could no longer register “attainers” or children about to become voters - children had to do it themselves, and about 60% to 75% of these potential voters did not registerthe greatest loss of previous voters was 40%, in the largely Black community of Hackney.The Electoral Registration Commission was struck dumb and became a Government agency, no longer suggesting ways to improve democratic registration.The head of the Cross-Bench Constituency Committee who suggested he would like to investigate the effect of the 2013 IER Act on the 2015 election results was immediately sacked by Cameron. That was not something Cameron wanted investigated or publicised.The Pollsters who promised an investigation into what went wrong with their forecasts became silent when they realised that the Government had taken over, and removed millions of electors from, the Parliamentary Voters’ Rolls. This had had removed the capability of the opinion polls to predict the outcome of elections, for only exit polls could be reliable in future. And any investigation would highlight the actions of the Conservative Government in damaging the PER, and that Government was a major customer of the pollsters.3.5 The BREXIT result which was brought about by the removal of about 8 million previous voters from the parliamentary electoral rolls3.5.1 The Brexit Result WAs Not A Reflection (as regularly claimed in the House Of Commons) of the Will Of The British People But The Result Of Cameron’s Reduced Parliamentary Voter RollsDavid Cameron wrongly judged on the basis of the opinion polls that the REMAIN vote would win. He bet his premiership on that result, and lost.Theresa May came into power when David Cameron resigned. May was a leader of the Remain movement and for three years she developed, and tried to persuade the House of Commons, about her so-called BREXiT negotiation which was a Remain document in all but name. May knew that an actual BREXIT would be economically disastrous for the UK and did her best to get a Remain result under a Brexit banner. That did not work.3.6 The destruction of the NHS as a government-funded service due to the redefinition of doctor’s GP services as emergency services and the almost complete conversion of nearly all NHS hospitals into cash-limited privatised NHS hospital trusts.The total costs of all UK health services in 2017 was £197.4 bn, then 9.6% of GDP. Government expenditure on the NHS was 79% of total expenditure at £155.6 bn, so private health costs were 21% of health expenditure at £41.6 bn that year.3.6.1 The redefinition of doctor’s GP services as emergency servicesFor decades after the NHS was created, patients could see their doctor within a day or two. Now all the NHS GP services have been redefined as an “emergencies only” service and only what the patient regards, and the surgery agrees, as an emergency will receive immediate treatment. It takes on average about six weeks to see a doctor. The new “emergencies only” system assumes that parents can always accurately diagnose childhood illnesses. Unfortunately they cannot always that.3.6.2 The End Of Increases in UK Life Expectancy After 2018 Because of Austerity And Cuts In NHS FundingAn American Report Life expectancy in the UK has previously increased every year since records began in Scotland in 1945 and in England in 1979 but in recent years that is no longer happening. See one press report based on an American report atUK life expectancy drops while other Western countries improvewhich says“The Mail Online reports that "Britain and the US are the only 2 western nations where life expectancy is falling," describing a study looking at changes in longevity in high-income countries.”The changes are significant:“The researchers found a number of countries, including the US and the UK, experienced decreased life expectancy from 2014 to 2015.In the UK, life expectancy at birth declined by 0.19 years for women and 0.26 years for men.But while most other countries bounced back from 2015 to 2016, the US and the UK did not.“That US-based report typically blames the victims and suggests increasing opiate use might lie behind the decrease in lifespan - not so valid for the UK as it may be in the USA. A more insightful British analysis based upon research by the Institute of British Actuaries indicates life expectancy in the UK has fallen considerably since 2010:Life expectancy falls by six months in biggest drop in UK forecastsA Report From The British Institute and Faculty of Actuaries(Longer term influences driving lower life expectancy projections)“The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, which calculates life expectancy on behalf of the UK pension industry, declined to speculate on why longevity is deteriorating for men and women in England and Wales. Some analysts, however, blame austerity and cuts in NHS spending, others point to worsening obesity, dementia and diabetes.”And“The actuaries said the evidence of slowing life expectancy that first emerged around 2010-11 is “a trend as opposed to a blip”.Falling longevity has accelerated. Last year’s analysis cut forecasted life expectancy by two months. This year it took off another six months.Compared with 2015, projections for life expectancy are now down by 13 months for men and 14 months for women.”And:“Pension companies have already begun to cash in on falling expectations. This week Legal & General said it was releasing £433m of the reserves it holds to pay future pensions because of the reductions in longevity expectations.”The UK reduction of life expectancy is obviously a very real effect.A more relevant report by Sir Michael Marmot, the Director of UCL’s Institute of Health Equity -see Life expectancy rises 'grinding to halt' - paints a relevant and accurate picture. That source says that“Using data from the Office for National Statistics, Sir Michael's research, widely reported in the media, has shown that the rate of increase in life expectancy has dropped by almost 50% since 2010. Between 2000 and 2015, life expectancy at birth increased by one year every five years for women and by one year every 3.5 years for men. Post-2010, however, life expectancy for women has only increased by one year every 10 years, with men's life expectancy increasing by one year every six years.Sir Michael says this shows that life expectancy growth is "pretty close to having ground to a halt", which is "historically highly unusual" given the increases seen over the past century. "I am deeply concerned with the levelling off, I expected it to keep getting better," the Epidemiology and Public Health Professor commented, noting that although conclusions about the lack of increase are not readily apparent, it is "entirely possible" austerity has had an impact.” The issue of geographical inequality is highlighted:“InequalityThe 2017 Marmot Indicators clearly show that inequalities in life expectancy between and within local authorities have persisted. Life expectancy for men varied from 74 in Blackpool to 83 in Kensington and Chelsea - a nine-year gap. Among women it varied from 79 in Manchester to 86 in Kensington and Chelsea - a seven-year gap.Within local authorities there was considerable variation in the inequality gradient in life expectancy between small areas based on level of deprivation. For men, in Barking and Dagenham these inequalities were equivalent to a two and a half year gap while in Stockton on Tees and Kensington and Chelsea the figures exceeded 16 years.” Education is also a significant factor in life expectancy. And the conclusion of Sir Michael’s summary report is:“Standards of LivingThe Marmot Indicators suggest that the UK is falling behind other G20 countries, and that despite reductions in unemployment, there have been significant increases in the numbers of people who do not have sufficient income to live an acceptable standard of living since the Marmot Review of 2010.The Marmot Indicators illustrate that across all regions the numbers not having enough money have increased. In London, the West Midlands, the North East, North West and Merseyside, and Yorkshire and Humberside, 3 out of 10 individuals live in households with insufficient income to meet a healthy standard of living.Having sufficient income is important for physical and mental health, children's wellbeing and development, and to enable people to afford or be in the mind set to prioritise a healthy lifestyle.”Clearly it is not just the NHS which is not safe in Conservative hands but the living standards of the whole economy are at risk and the lack of sufficient money to pay for a healthy standard of living is a major reason for the observed reductions in life expectancy.4 ObservationsIf you really know the hidden history of the United Kingdom, the current and recent actions of politicians become almost hilarious. For exampleex-Prime Minister John Major [who was only elected due to the removal of millions of voters because of the Poll Tax, which was devised by the now-Sir Oliver Letwin who might have been knighted for that service to the Conservative Party] is now objecting tothe suspension of Parliament by Boris Johnson (who is only in office because the BREXIT vote succeeded, and that happened because David Cameron disenfranchised millions of non-Conservative voters through the takeover of the Parliamentary Voters Rolls via the IER2013 Act -and these missing voters, as the opinion polls show, would have tipped the balance to produce a REMAIN vote) andBoris Johnson seems the epitome of Oswald Spengler vision of a “modern Caesar” with inadequate political or diplomatic skills as evidenced by his almost-immediate loss of control of Parliament and his absence of a realistic negotiating position with the EUAn election during October 2019 would have unpredictable results - the opinion polls cannot predict because far too many voters have been disenfranchised by the 2013 IER Act and the erratic behaviour of Conservative MPs must have loosened voter loyalty to that party.The BBC announcement that Nicaragua isn’t a democracy is little short of hilarious. The BBC has had over a hundred programmes discussing BREXIT and not one of these has mentioned the responsibility of the 2013IER Act in producing that undemocratic BREXIT result.5 Conclusions5.1 Britain is not now, and has not been since 1980, a democratic country. Ruled-by-the-rich economies not only become undemocratic but become low-growth and much less significant economies.5.2 The major reason why once-great mercantile economies such as the UK in 1890 and the USA after 1945 become low-growth economies is because the British Conservatives and the American Republicans not only rule in the interests of the rich but attack the living standards and social support systems of their working class. That phenomena explains the fall in the British and American economies during the 20th century and even now.5.3 Quite why the Conservatives and Republicans not only rule for the rich but also attack the incomes of the their working classes is a mystery to me, but the observation that they do so cannot be denied. Much of the origin of that policy may lie in the prejudices of rich businessmen who think their wealth could be increased by underpaying their workers.5.4 Britain’s nearly 800 banks supporting SME invention and innovation - its workshop of the world -has been mainly reduced to four London-based banks, none of which support SME invention and growth. British industry is minor except when foreign funded, and likely to be shut down where so funded.5.5 FDR’s great mercantile economy in 1945 has been reduced to a relatively minor low-investment low-growth manufacturing economy with disproportionate military clout.5.6 Even today, with more than century of British mercantile decline and with over 70 years of US mercantile decline, the major priority of national leaders is tax cuts for the rich. That’s what Trump’s tax cuts - 80% of which were paid to the richest 1% of families - are about. After a few days in office, Boris Johnson announced his intention to provide tax cuts for the rich. Neither policy has anything to do with increasing SME invention and innovation in the UK and USA, so both countries are losing their higher-development futures.This Answer may be too long to be popular on Quora.