A new future for the UK is unlikely – thanks to a dissolute past.

Before the New Year ends – and in response to the many requests for me to stop moaning or provide a positive alternative to our current way of life – today and tomorrow I’ll have a two-stage final shot* at summarising what I think would be a far better approach to government, politics, economics and social problems in Britain.

In this first part (if only for the sympathy vote) I will try to show that the fiscal, economic and financial superstructure weighing down on those who even try to construct such a thing is horrendous.

Let me demonstrate this via a personal experience of recent history.

Around the middle of 2004, under the blog banner Not Born Yesterday, I began to bash on (about how the overheated property market, the ridiculous value of the bank-to-bank selling sector, the dependence of individuals on credit, and the lending policies of UK banks) were as mad as any soci0-economic situation could get.

This led me to researching what proportion of the UK economy consisted of developing or selling and distributing financial services. The amount of obfuscation and obviously nonsensical data I was offered firmed up my feeling that Gordon Brown’s ‘end of bust’ policies were based on a chimera. The final statistic given to me by the Department of Business was 7.3%, an estimate out by a factor of at least 8.

I then began trying to calculate the size of Britain’s manufacturing sector. The least exaggerated figure given me by ‘government’ was three times the size of the reality. In turn, this led to an attempt at calculating what banks actually lent money on, and who to. And during that exhausting period, I stumbled over the derivatives sector.

When a very senior banking chum had finished explaining this activity to me, I toddled off (dazed and alarmed) to find out what percentage of their time banks spent swapping these worthless bits of paper. Not only did it seem to be the main thing they did, the sector was worth – allegedly – fifteen times the entire GDP of the global economy.

So in short, I went in a complete circle from bank-to-bank business at one end, and derivatives at the other – which are, on the whole, largely interchangeable terms.

On the way, I had discovered the crazy imbalance of the British economy, the entirely complicit role of the political Establishment in that….plus the obvious strangulation of the small business sector in favour of tasty globalist megamergers.

Thirty years ago when Margaret Thatcher won the 1979 General Election, Britain had almost run out of socio-economic options – thanks to socialist spending and trade union activist greed. Thatcher then destroyed the idea of communal values, but put Britain’s finances back on a reasonably sound footing. Last May, when David Cameron’s incompetence forced him into Coalition government, Britain had almost run out of socio-economic options – thanks to socialist spending and banking sector ativistic greed.

Seven months later, our options have narrowed still further, because the costs of our EU membership and debt servicing have easily outstripped all the cuts made, the banks are behaving as badly as ever….and the ability of our weakened private sector to help us out of the spiral is something of a fantasy.

So we are in a bit of a hole, and thus root-and-branch change (while necessary) is rendered a hundred times more difficult.

But there’s more: thanks to the EU – and the  globalisation of business and banking – we have nowhere near enough control over our destiny.

Britain’s problems are multi-layered, and almost none of them are mutually exclusive. In business terms, there is a global economy affecting an EU performance, exacerbated by a long-term decline in UK manufacturing skills. Similar considerations apply politically. Socially, there is a familial breakdown alongside community apathy compounded by a Labour Opposition either in denial about it – or secretly in favour of it.

Second, not only has power shifted away from the individual and the police towards the State, crime and banking systems, our culture now perceives many unethical acts as perfectly allowable in the pursuance of profit. This in turn is made more vivid by the Bourse system, its short-termist, greedy shareholders….and the increasing blackmailing of governments by banks.

Third, we have the disappearance of religion’s moral force, while the increasing dominance of the media is helping to dictate what we should say and think. More and more, this is being codified into the legal system – hardly surprising given the ridiculous preponderance of lawyers in senior political and governmental forms. Media content is dictated by Free market capitalism, a process about to swamp even the BBC. Put all those factors together, and any wannabe revolutionary is going to have to blow up a lot of buildings.

Fourth, the education system is being tailored towards an unthinking acceptance of what is – rather than contrarian or creative thought about what could be. In this sense (and via overt pc) it is becoming increasingly politicised. And worst of all, its standards are being diluted by brainless equality-think.

So the ‘what is to be done?’ question is not conducive to answers like ‘instead of heading north, we should be heading south’. It requires the initial acceptance of one of two options: manage it to minimise inconvenience, or perform the most radical Year Zero operation since the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

The first option clearly isn’t working, but ‘forced’ Year Zero always ends in disaster. However, since 2006 I have been very consistently saying that  econo-fiscal disaster and change (China’s rise and debt’s growth, to be specific) could provide the catalyst for a socio-political metamorphosis.

I was wrong about 2008, and I accept that: I didn’t believe that even the asylum’s inmates would simply roll up the problem for another day. But they did. Not only that, they increased the insolvency of Europe and the US to such a degree, only turning the mileometer back to nought is ever going to solve the problem.

From 2011 onwards, the West has another two choices: allow China to take over our finances (a process already under way) or blag China into writing off the debt. The first would represent an obvious geopolitical surrender, and is therefore not recommended. And there are two chances of the second option coming to pass.

So in other words, we are going to get a lot poorer, and a lot more impatient with a bunch of soundbiters who have nothing to offer beyond balm, spin, tears and debt.

Before technology and desperation force the Elite to shut it, therefore, this is the last window of change we are going to get. I will be writing about what needs to be done tomorrow.

* I have actually been through this exercise many times before, as the search engine will testify.