Margaret Thatcher reportedly said in 2002 that her great achievement was Tony Blair and New Labour.

The epoch-defining power of her ideology, combined with the personality cult of her ‘conviction politics’ was enough to shift all discourse to the right, it seemed permanently.

David Cameron has behaved as though he can continue to ride on her coattails a quarter of a century later, given momentum not by positive ideology and charisma, but by a negative ideology of crisis, austerity and despair.

Arguably, however, this is reversing the Thatcher effect, causing the pendulum to begin its fall back. Instead of galvanizing the centre ground, the grey men of today’s political scene lack the personality or the vision to legitimate their technocratic project.

As this Parliament is dissolved, we the people stand confused and angry among the fragments of narratives the Cameron-Clegg government has tried in vain to piece together.

Austerity will ‘fix broken Britain’?

‘Labour’s mess’ has been the leitmotif which has echoed through all three acts of the drama of this Parliament, its tone at first triumphant, then resigned, and finally lost, out-of-place, pleading.

Austerity was sold to us initially on the grounds that our national debt – the result, of course, of Labour’s profligacy – was the mark of a weak economy and that reducing it was necessary to escape recession – to “fix broken Britain”.

This confused people on two counts. Wasn’t the recession actually rather something to do with a global economic collapse, initially triggered by the mortgage market in the United States? And what exactly was the link between ‘the deficit’ and ‘the crisis’ – felt as a lack of job security and a fall in income?

But the strength of our nation’s semi-loathing for Gordon Brown was at that stage enough to put these worries to the back of our minds. It was not difficult to believe that the man the Tories were keen to brand “the most unpopular Prime Minister of modern times” had left a stench behind him.

Slowly, the air began to clear. But before we could take stock, the European sovereign debt crisis loomed, giving Cameron a much-needed cache of ammunition. In fact, for the first time, the story started to make sense. National debt and economic crisis were indeed the same thing, apparently!

What was more, we were able to point to the supposed economic wrecks of southern Europe as the antithesis of the UK’s entrepreneurial spirit (using Ireland for this purpose was clearly too close to the bone), giving austerity an attractive nationalist flavour.

This was especially useful when it came to imposing austerity on the welfare system: the lazy European immigrant was the perfect enemy for us to unite behind as the safety net was pulled out from underneath us. Anti-EU sentiment, anti-immigrant sentiment, and deepening economic fears were bound together to strengthen the fasces, the swingeing axe of austerity.

But something doesn‘t add up …

In the final act, however, the contradictions have resurfaced; the ties that bind have begun to fall apart. The economy, we are informed, is now a success story. Towards the end of 2014, unemployment reached pre-crisis levels. Last month, the Institute for Fiscal Studies reported that average income was back to normal as well.

Just don’t look at either of these statistics too closely – there’s been a massive increase in the number of people who are ‘self-employed’, which in human terms means that people who had steady jobs before the crisis are now trying to scrape by as free-lancers.

According to the IFS report, what the headline income statistic hides is while the incomes of older people have recovered, the incomes of younger people are still depressed. There has been exponential growth in zero-hours contracts, and in precarity of various kinds.

Nevertheless, some kind of ‘recovery’ is clearly going on. It seems like the government is starting to succeed at jumping through the hoops it holds out for itself. Who cares about the fact that most people are on balance worse off, so long as the economy is growing?

Victim of its own success?

Where does this leave the austerity narrative? The coalition’s aim when they came into power was to reduce the deficit, and they have done this to an extent. By cutting public spending, they have reduced the shortfall between revenues and expenditure. No great success story there, just simple arithmetic.

Annual borrowing, however, is still much higher than it was before the crisis, as deficit reduction has not kept pace with the growth of national debt. George Osbourne is adding to our bill faster than Alastair Darling. So if ‘Labour’s Mess’ means the level of national debt, the coalition cannot claim to have cleared it up.

At the same time, however, we go to the polls with an economic success story being touted. Which is a problem: the link between ‘economic recovery’ and reducing our national debt, a story it took five years to spin, is clearly broken – we are back where we started.

Moreover, what kind of ‘recovery’ is it that enriches the rich, while leaving the majority – and especially the young and the poor – worse off than ever: in insecure employment, relying in increasing numbers on foodbanks, struggling to find affordable housing, subject to worsening levels of pollution and insecurity about the future?

If austerity has succeeded in generating recovery, it is not by being a means to some end: becoming “a Britain living Within Its Means”, to quote the least inspiring political slogan ever conceived.

Rather, it is now clear that austerity has been an end in itself. For this government, austerity is ‘growth’. What we have seen is a drive to cut public services not because we cannot afford them, but so that the private sector can move in to fill the gap: so it can grow by gobbling up public space and publicly-owned assets.

The more the NHS relies on private providers, the more our schools become part-owned by profit-making consortia, the more employment rights are eroded by the brutal hollowing-out of the legal system, the more potential there is for profit in every walk of life, and thus for ‘growth’.

‘Austerity’ = ‘prosperity’? Maybe, for a very few …

It is now increasingly clear to voters that business cycles have once again been used against them, as a means to make them give up their hard-won rights and privileges.

This is why Ed Miliband has chosen to make the NHS, that shibboleth of British social values, the battlefield of this election. This is why David Cameron has followed his lead, hoping that the infamous 2010 campaign poster – “I’ll cut the deficit, not the NHS” – has faded from our memories.

However this is also why voters are fleeing the ‘centre’ (the centre Thatcher marked out for a generation), into the arms of smaller parties.

The SNP, Plaid Cymru, the Green Party, and (unfortunately) UKIP are all becoming forces to be reckoned with, possible partners in coalitions in the next parliament – all, in their own way, evidence of the collapse of the austerity narrative. Because the first three of these Parties at least all reject austerity completely.

Out of the ashes, then, will something of value rise? The two trends that have emerged are arguably a genuine force for good. A more diverse political landscape has gone hand in hand with a new faith in the possibility of transcending orthodox political economy.

The prevailing ideology has culminated in a palpable contradiction: the equation of austerity and prosperity. It is becoming clear to voters that there is only one solution to this contradiction: giving up our faith in the necessary connection between the growth ‘imperative’ and our own happiness .

Rupert Read is a philosopher of ecology, of economics and of ‘the social sciences’. He is Reader in Philosophy in the School of Politics, Philosophy and Languages at the University of East Anglia, and the Chair of Green House. He is also Parliamentary candidate for Cambridge for the Green Party.

Bennet Francis is an MPhil Research Student in Philosophy at University College London.

Margaret Thatcher reportedly said in 2002 that her great achievement was Tony Blair and New Labour.

The epoch-defining power of her ideology, combined with the personality cult of her ‘conviction politics’ was enough to shift all discourse to the right, it seemed permanently.

David Cameron has behaved as though he can continue to ride on her coattails a quarter of a century later, given momentum not by positive ideology and charisma, but by a negative ideology of crisis, austerity and despair.

Arguably, however, this is reversing the Thatcher effect, causing the pendulum to begin its fall back. Instead of galvanizing the centre ground, the grey men of today’s political scene lack the personality or the vision to legitimate their technocratic project.

As this Parliament is dissolved, we the people stand confused and angry among the fragments of narratives the Cameron-Clegg government has tried in vain to piece together.

Austerity will ‘fix broken Britain’?

‘Labour’s mess’ has been the leitmotif which has echoed through all three acts of the drama of this Parliament, its tone at first triumphant, then resigned, and finally lost, out-of-place, pleading.

Austerity was sold to us initially on the grounds that our national debt – the result, of course, of Labour’s profligacy – was the mark of a weak economy and that reducing it was necessary to escape recession – to “fix broken Britain”.

This confused people on two counts. Wasn’t the recession actually rather something to do with a global economic collapse, initially triggered by the mortgage market in the United States? And what exactly was the link between ‘the deficit’ and ‘the crisis’ – felt as a lack of job security and a fall in income?

But the strength of our nation’s semi-loathing for Gordon Brown was at that stage enough to put these worries to the back of our minds. It was not difficult to believe that the man the Tories were keen to brand “the most unpopular Prime Minister of modern times” had left a stench behind him.

Slowly, the air began to clear. But before we could take stock, the European sovereign debt crisis loomed, giving Cameron a much-needed cache of ammunition. In fact, for the first time, the story started to make sense. National debt and economic crisis were indeed the same thing, apparently!

What was more, we were able to point to the supposed economic wrecks of southern Europe as the antithesis of the UK’s entrepreneurial spirit (using Ireland for this purpose was clearly too close to the bone), giving austerity an attractive nationalist flavour.

This was especially useful when it came to imposing austerity on the welfare system: the lazy European immigrant was the perfect enemy for us to unite behind as the safety net was pulled out from underneath us. Anti-EU sentiment, anti-immigrant sentiment, and deepening economic fears were bound together to strengthen the fasces, the swingeing axe of austerity.

But something doesn‘t add up …

In the final act, however, the contradictions have resurfaced; the ties that bind have begun to fall apart. The economy, we are informed, is now a success story. Towards the end of 2014, unemployment reached pre-crisis levels. Last month, the Institute for Fiscal Studies reported that average income was back to normal as well.

Just don’t look at either of these statistics too closely – there’s been a massive increase in the number of people who are ‘self-employed’, which in human terms means that people who had steady jobs before the crisis are now trying to scrape by as free-lancers.

According to the IFS report, what the headline income statistic hides is while the incomes of older people have recovered, the incomes of younger people are still depressed. There has been exponential growth in zero-hours contracts, and in precarity of various kinds.

Nevertheless, some kind of ‘recovery’ is clearly going on. It seems like the government is starting to succeed at jumping through the hoops it holds out for itself. Who cares about the fact that most people are on balance worse off, so long as the economy is growing?

Victim of its own success?

Where does this leave the austerity narrative? The coalition’s aim when they came into power was to reduce the deficit, and they have done this to an extent. By cutting public spending, they have reduced the shortfall between revenues and expenditure. No great success story there, just simple arithmetic.

Annual borrowing, however, is still much higher than it was before the crisis, as deficit reduction has not kept pace with the growth of national debt. George Osbourne is adding to our bill faster than Alastair Darling. So if ‘Labour’s Mess’ means the level of national debt, the coalition cannot claim to have cleared it up.

At the same time, however, we go to the polls with an economic success story being touted. Which is a problem: the link between ‘economic recovery’ and reducing our national debt, a story it took five years to spin, is clearly broken – we are back where we started.

Moreover, what kind of ‘recovery’ is it that enriches the rich, while leaving the majority – and especially the young and the poor – worse off than ever: in insecure employment, relying in increasing numbers on foodbanks, struggling to find affordable housing, subject to worsening levels of pollution and insecurity about the future?

If austerity has succeeded in generating recovery, it is not by being a means to some end: becoming “a Britain living Within Its Means”, to quote the least inspiring political slogan ever conceived.

Rather, it is now clear that austerity has been an end in itself. For this government, austerity is ‘growth’. What we have seen is a drive to cut public services not because we cannot afford them, but so that the private sector can move in to fill the gap: so it can grow by gobbling up public space and publicly-owned assets.

The more the NHS relies on private providers, the more our schools become part-owned by profit-making consortia, the more employment rights are eroded by the brutal hollowing-out of the legal system, the more potential there is for profit in every walk of life, and thus for ‘growth’.

‘Austerity’ = ‘prosperity’? Maybe, for a very few …

It is now increasingly clear to voters that business cycles have once again been used against them, as a means to make them give up their hard-won rights and privileges.

This is why Ed Miliband has chosen to make the NHS, that shibboleth of British social values, the battlefield of this election. This is why David Cameron has followed his lead, hoping that the infamous 2010 campaign poster – “I’ll cut the deficit, not the NHS” – has faded from our memories.

However this is also why voters are fleeing the ‘centre’ (the centre Thatcher marked out for a generation), into the arms of smaller parties.

The SNP, Plaid Cymru, the Green Party, and (unfortunately) UKIP are all becoming forces to be reckoned with, possible partners in coalitions in the next parliament – all, in their own way, evidence of the collapse of the austerity narrative. Because the first three of these Parties at least all reject austerity completely.

Out of the ashes, then, will something of value rise? The two trends that have emerged are arguably a genuine force for good. A more diverse political landscape has gone hand in hand with a new faith in the possibility of transcending orthodox political economy.

The prevailing ideology has culminated in a palpable contradiction: the equation of austerity and prosperity. It is becoming clear to voters that there is only one solution to this contradiction: giving up our faith in the necessary connection between the growth ‘imperative’ and our own happiness .

Rupert Read is a philosopher of ecology, of economics and of ‘the social sciences’. He is Reader in Philosophy in the School of Politics, Philosophy and Languages at the University of East Anglia, and the Chair of Green House. He is also Parliamentary candidate for Cambridge for the Green Party.

Bennet Francis is an MPhil Research Student in Philosophy at University College London.

Margaret Thatcher reportedly said in 2002 that her great achievement was Tony Blair and New Labour.

The epoch-defining power of her ideology, combined with the personality cult of her ‘conviction politics’ was enough to shift all discourse to the right, it seemed permanently.

David Cameron has behaved as though he can continue to ride on her coattails a quarter of a century later, given momentum not by positive ideology and charisma, but by a negative ideology of crisis, austerity and despair.

Arguably, however, this is reversing the Thatcher effect, causing the pendulum to begin its fall back. Instead of galvanizing the centre ground, the grey men of today’s political scene lack the personality or the vision to legitimate their technocratic project.

As this Parliament is dissolved, we the people stand confused and angry among the fragments of narratives the Cameron-Clegg government has tried in vain to piece together.

Austerity will ‘fix broken Britain’?

‘Labour’s mess’ has been the leitmotif which has echoed through all three acts of the drama of this Parliament, its tone at first triumphant, then resigned, and finally lost, out-of-place, pleading.

Austerity was sold to us initially on the grounds that our national debt – the result, of course, of Labour’s profligacy – was the mark of a weak economy and that reducing it was necessary to escape recession – to “fix broken Britain”.

This confused people on two counts. Wasn’t the recession actually rather something to do with a global economic collapse, initially triggered by the mortgage market in the United States? And what exactly was the link between ‘the deficit’ and ‘the crisis’ – felt as a lack of job security and a fall in income?

But the strength of our nation’s semi-loathing for Gordon Brown was at that stage enough to put these worries to the back of our minds. It was not difficult to believe that the man the Tories were keen to brand “the most unpopular Prime Minister of modern times” had left a stench behind him.

Slowly, the air began to clear. But before we could take stock, the European sovereign debt crisis loomed, giving Cameron a much-needed cache of ammunition. In fact, for the first time, the story started to make sense. National debt and economic crisis were indeed the same thing, apparently!

What was more, we were able to point to the supposed economic wrecks of southern Europe as the antithesis of the UK’s entrepreneurial spirit (using Ireland for this purpose was clearly too close to the bone), giving austerity an attractive nationalist flavour.

This was especially useful when it came to imposing austerity on the welfare system: the lazy European immigrant was the perfect enemy for us to unite behind as the safety net was pulled out from underneath us. Anti-EU sentiment, anti-immigrant sentiment, and deepening economic fears were bound together to strengthen the fasces, the swingeing axe of austerity.

But something doesn‘t add up …

In the final act, however, the contradictions have resurfaced; the ties that bind have begun to fall apart. The economy, we are informed, is now a success story. Towards the end of 2014, unemployment reached pre-crisis levels. Last month, the Institute for Fiscal Studies reported that average income was back to normal as well.

Just don’t look at either of these statistics too closely – there’s been a massive increase in the number of people who are ‘self-employed’, which in human terms means that people who had steady jobs before the crisis are now trying to scrape by as free-lancers.

According to the IFS report, what the headline income statistic hides is while the incomes of older people have recovered, the incomes of younger people are still depressed. There has been exponential growth in zero-hours contracts, and in precarity of various kinds.

Nevertheless, some kind of ‘recovery’ is clearly going on. It seems like the government is starting to succeed at jumping through the hoops it holds out for itself. Who cares about the fact that most people are on balance worse off, so long as the economy is growing?

Victim of its own success?

Where does this leave the austerity narrative? The coalition’s aim when they came into power was to reduce the deficit, and they have done this to an extent. By cutting public spending, they have reduced the shortfall between revenues and expenditure. No great success story there, just simple arithmetic.

Annual borrowing, however, is still much higher than it was before the crisis, as deficit reduction has not kept pace with the growth of national debt. George Osbourne is adding to our bill faster than Alastair Darling. So if ‘Labour’s Mess’ means the level of national debt, the coalition cannot claim to have cleared it up.

At the same time, however, we go to the polls with an economic success story being touted. Which is a problem: the link between ‘economic recovery’ and reducing our national debt, a story it took five years to spin, is clearly broken – we are back where we started.

Moreover, what kind of ‘recovery’ is it that enriches the rich, while leaving the majority – and especially the young and the poor – worse off than ever: in insecure employment, relying in increasing numbers on foodbanks, struggling to find affordable housing, subject to worsening levels of pollution and insecurity about the future?

If austerity has succeeded in generating recovery, it is not by being a means to some end: becoming “a Britain living Within Its Means”, to quote the least inspiring political slogan ever conceived.

Rather, it is now clear that austerity has been an end in itself. For this government, austerity is ‘growth’. What we have seen is a drive to cut public services not because we cannot afford them, but so that the private sector can move in to fill the gap: so it can grow by gobbling up public space and publicly-owned assets.

The more the NHS relies on private providers, the more our schools become part-owned by profit-making consortia, the more employment rights are eroded by the brutal hollowing-out of the legal system, the more potential there is for profit in every walk of life, and thus for ‘growth’.

‘Austerity’ = ‘prosperity’? Maybe, for a very few …

It is now increasingly clear to voters that business cycles have once again been used against them, as a means to make them give up their hard-won rights and privileges.

This is why Ed Miliband has chosen to make the NHS, that shibboleth of British social values, the battlefield of this election. This is why David Cameron has followed his lead, hoping that the infamous 2010 campaign poster – “I’ll cut the deficit, not the NHS” – has faded from our memories.

However this is also why voters are fleeing the ‘centre’ (the centre Thatcher marked out for a generation), into the arms of smaller parties.

The SNP, Plaid Cymru, the Green Party, and (unfortunately) UKIP are all becoming forces to be reckoned with, possible partners in coalitions in the next parliament – all, in their own way, evidence of the collapse of the austerity narrative. Because the first three of these Parties at least all reject austerity completely.

Out of the ashes, then, will something of value rise? The two trends that have emerged are arguably a genuine force for good. A more diverse political landscape has gone hand in hand with a new faith in the possibility of transcending orthodox political economy.

The prevailing ideology has culminated in a palpable contradiction: the equation of austerity and prosperity. It is becoming clear to voters that there is only one solution to this contradiction: giving up our faith in the necessary connection between the growth ‘imperative’ and our own happiness .

Rupert Read is a philosopher of ecology, of economics and of ‘the social sciences’. He is Reader in Philosophy in the School of Politics, Philosophy and Languages at the University of East Anglia, and the Chair of Green House. He is also Parliamentary candidate for Cambridge for the Green Party.

Bennet Francis is an MPhil Research Student in Philosophy at University College London.

Margaret Thatcher reportedly said in 2002 that her great achievement was Tony Blair and New Labour.

The epoch-defining power of her ideology, combined with the personality cult of her ‘conviction politics’ was enough to shift all discourse to the right, it seemed permanently.

David Cameron has behaved as though he can continue to ride on her coattails a quarter of a century later, given momentum not by positive ideology and charisma, but by a negative ideology of crisis, austerity and despair.

Arguably, however, this is reversing the Thatcher effect, causing the pendulum to begin its fall back. Instead of galvanizing the centre ground, the grey men of today’s political scene lack the personality or the vision to legitimate their technocratic project.

As this Parliament is dissolved, we the people stand confused and angry among the fragments of narratives the Cameron-Clegg government has tried in vain to piece together.

Austerity will ‘fix broken Britain’?

‘Labour’s mess’ has been the leitmotif which has echoed through all three acts of the drama of this Parliament, its tone at first triumphant, then resigned, and finally lost, out-of-place, pleading.

Austerity was sold to us initially on the grounds that our national debt – the result, of course, of Labour’s profligacy – was the mark of a weak economy and that reducing it was necessary to escape recession – to “fix broken Britain”.

This confused people on two counts. Wasn’t the recession actually rather something to do with a global economic collapse, initially triggered by the mortgage market in the United States? And what exactly was the link between ‘the deficit’ and ‘the crisis’ – felt as a lack of job security and a fall in income?

But the strength of our nation’s semi-loathing for Gordon Brown was at that stage enough to put these worries to the back of our minds. It was not difficult to believe that the man the Tories were keen to brand “the most unpopular Prime Minister of modern times” had left a stench behind him.

Slowly, the air began to clear. But before we could take stock, the European sovereign debt crisis loomed, giving Cameron a much-needed cache of ammunition. In fact, for the first time, the story started to make sense. National debt and economic crisis were indeed the same thing, apparently!

What was more, we were able to point to the supposed economic wrecks of southern Europe as the antithesis of the UK’s entrepreneurial spirit (using Ireland for this purpose was clearly too close to the bone), giving austerity an attractive nationalist flavour.

This was especially useful when it came to imposing austerity on the welfare system: the lazy European immigrant was the perfect enemy for us to unite behind as the safety net was pulled out from underneath us. Anti-EU sentiment, anti-immigrant sentiment, and deepening economic fears were bound together to strengthen the fasces, the swingeing axe of austerity.

But something doesn‘t add up …

In the final act, however, the contradictions have resurfaced; the ties that bind have begun to fall apart. The economy, we are informed, is now a success story. Towards the end of 2014, unemployment reached pre-crisis levels. Last month, the Institute for Fiscal Studies reported that average income was back to normal as well.

Just don’t look at either of these statistics too closely – there’s been a massive increase in the number of people who are ‘self-employed’, which in human terms means that people who had steady jobs before the crisis are now trying to scrape by as free-lancers.

According to the IFS report, what the headline income statistic hides is while the incomes of older people have recovered, the incomes of younger people are still depressed. There has been exponential growth in zero-hours contracts, and in precarity of various kinds.

Nevertheless, some kind of ‘recovery’ is clearly going on. It seems like the government is starting to succeed at jumping through the hoops it holds out for itself. Who cares about the fact that most people are on balance worse off, so long as the economy is growing?

Victim of its own success?

Where does this leave the austerity narrative? The coalition’s aim when they came into power was to reduce the deficit, and they have done this to an extent. By cutting public spending, they have reduced the shortfall between revenues and expenditure. No great success story there, just simple arithmetic.

Annual borrowing, however, is still much higher than it was before the crisis, as deficit reduction has not kept pace with the growth of national debt. George Osbourne is adding to our bill faster than Alastair Darling. So if ‘Labour’s Mess’ means the level of national debt, the coalition cannot claim to have cleared it up.

At the same time, however, we go to the polls with an economic success story being touted. Which is a problem: the link between ‘economic recovery’ and reducing our national debt, a story it took five years to spin, is clearly broken – we are back where we started.

Moreover, what kind of ‘recovery’ is it that enriches the rich, while leaving the majority – and especially the young and the poor – worse off than ever: in insecure employment, relying in increasing numbers on foodbanks, struggling to find affordable housing, subject to worsening levels of pollution and insecurity about the future?

If austerity has succeeded in generating recovery, it is not by being a means to some end: becoming “a Britain living Within Its Means”, to quote the least inspiring political slogan ever conceived.

Rather, it is now clear that austerity has been an end in itself. For this government, austerity is ‘growth’. What we have seen is a drive to cut public services not because we cannot afford them, but so that the private sector can move in to fill the gap: so it can grow by gobbling up public space and publicly-owned assets.

The more the NHS relies on private providers, the more our schools become part-owned by profit-making consortia, the more employment rights are eroded by the brutal hollowing-out of the legal system, the more potential there is for profit in every walk of life, and thus for ‘growth’.

‘Austerity’ = ‘prosperity’? Maybe, for a very few …

It is now increasingly clear to voters that business cycles have once again been used against them, as a means to make them give up their hard-won rights and privileges.

This is why Ed Miliband has chosen to make the NHS, that shibboleth of British social values, the battlefield of this election. This is why David Cameron has followed his lead, hoping that the infamous 2010 campaign poster – “I’ll cut the deficit, not the NHS” – has faded from our memories.

However this is also why voters are fleeing the ‘centre’ (the centre Thatcher marked out for a generation), into the arms of smaller parties.

The SNP, Plaid Cymru, the Green Party, and (unfortunately) UKIP are all becoming forces to be reckoned with, possible partners in coalitions in the next parliament – all, in their own way, evidence of the collapse of the austerity narrative. Because the first three of these Parties at least all reject austerity completely.

Out of the ashes, then, will something of value rise? The two trends that have emerged are arguably a genuine force for good. A more diverse political landscape has gone hand in hand with a new faith in the possibility of transcending orthodox political economy.

The prevailing ideology has culminated in a palpable contradiction: the equation of austerity and prosperity. It is becoming clear to voters that there is only one solution to this contradiction: giving up our faith in the necessary connection between the growth ‘imperative’ and our own happiness .

Rupert Read is a philosopher of ecology, of economics and of ‘the social sciences’. He is Reader in Philosophy in the School of Politics, Philosophy and Languages at the University of East Anglia, and the Chair of Green House. He is also Parliamentary candidate for Cambridge for the Green Party.

Bennet Francis is an MPhil Research Student in Philosophy at University College London.

Margaret Thatcher reportedly said in 2002 that her great achievement was Tony Blair and New Labour.

The epoch-defining power of her ideology, combined with the personality cult of her ‘conviction politics’ was enough to shift all discourse to the right, it seemed permanently.

David Cameron has behaved as though he can continue to ride on her coattails a quarter of a century later, given momentum not by positive ideology and charisma, but by a negative ideology of crisis, austerity and despair.

Arguably, however, this is reversing the Thatcher effect, causing the pendulum to begin its fall back. Instead of galvanizing the centre ground, the grey men of today’s political scene lack the personality or the vision to legitimate their technocratic project.

As this Parliament is dissolved, we the people stand confused and angry among the fragments of narratives the Cameron-Clegg government has tried in vain to piece together.

Austerity will ‘fix broken Britain’?

‘Labour’s mess’ has been the leitmotif which has echoed through all three acts of the drama of this Parliament, its tone at first triumphant, then resigned, and finally lost, out-of-place, pleading.

Austerity was sold to us initially on the grounds that our national debt – the result, of course, of Labour’s profligacy – was the mark of a weak economy and that reducing it was necessary to escape recession – to “fix broken Britain”.

This confused people on two counts. Wasn’t the recession actually rather something to do with a global economic collapse, initially triggered by the mortgage market in the United States? And what exactly was the link between ‘the deficit’ and ‘the crisis’ – felt as a lack of job security and a fall in income?

But the strength of our nation’s semi-loathing for Gordon Brown was at that stage enough to put these worries to the back of our minds. It was not difficult to believe that the man the Tories were keen to brand “the most unpopular Prime Minister of modern times” had left a stench behind him.

Slowly, the air began to clear. But before we could take stock, the European sovereign debt crisis loomed, giving Cameron a much-needed cache of ammunition. In fact, for the first time, the story started to make sense. National debt and economic crisis were indeed the same thing, apparently!

What was more, we were able to point to the supposed economic wrecks of southern Europe as the antithesis of the UK’s entrepreneurial spirit (using Ireland for this purpose was clearly too close to the bone), giving austerity an attractive nationalist flavour.

This was especially useful when it came to imposing austerity on the welfare system: the lazy European immigrant was the perfect enemy for us to unite behind as the safety net was pulled out from underneath us. Anti-EU sentiment, anti-immigrant sentiment, and deepening economic fears were bound together to strengthen the fasces, the swingeing axe of austerity.

But something doesn‘t add up …

In the final act, however, the contradictions have resurfaced; the ties that bind have begun to fall apart. The economy, we are informed, is now a success story. Towards the end of 2014, unemployment reached pre-crisis levels. Last month, the Institute for Fiscal Studies reported that average income was back to normal as well.

Just don’t look at either of these statistics too closely – there’s been a massive increase in the number of people who are ‘self-employed’, which in human terms means that people who had steady jobs before the crisis are now trying to scrape by as free-lancers.

According to the IFS report, what the headline income statistic hides is while the incomes of older people have recovered, the incomes of younger people are still depressed. There has been exponential growth in zero-hours contracts, and in precarity of various kinds.

Nevertheless, some kind of ‘recovery’ is clearly going on. It seems like the government is starting to succeed at jumping through the hoops it holds out for itself. Who cares about the fact that most people are on balance worse off, so long as the economy is growing?

Victim of its own success?

Where does this leave the austerity narrative? The coalition’s aim when they came into power was to reduce the deficit, and they have done this to an extent. By cutting public spending, they have reduced the shortfall between revenues and expenditure. No great success story there, just simple arithmetic.

Annual borrowing, however, is still much higher than it was before the crisis, as deficit reduction has not kept pace with the growth of national debt. George Osbourne is adding to our bill faster than Alastair Darling. So if ‘Labour’s Mess’ means the level of national debt, the coalition cannot claim to have cleared it up.

At the same time, however, we go to the polls with an economic success story being touted. Which is a problem: the link between ‘economic recovery’ and reducing our national debt, a story it took five years to spin, is clearly broken – we are back where we started.

Moreover, what kind of ‘recovery’ is it that enriches the rich, while leaving the majority – and especially the young and the poor – worse off than ever: in insecure employment, relying in increasing numbers on foodbanks, struggling to find affordable housing, subject to worsening levels of pollution and insecurity about the future?

If austerity has succeeded in generating recovery, it is not by being a means to some end: becoming “a Britain living Within Its Means”, to quote the least inspiring political slogan ever conceived.

Rather, it is now clear that austerity has been an end in itself. For this government, austerity is ‘growth’. What we have seen is a drive to cut public services not because we cannot afford them, but so that the private sector can move in to fill the gap: so it can grow by gobbling up public space and publicly-owned assets.

The more the NHS relies on private providers, the more our schools become part-owned by profit-making consortia, the more employment rights are eroded by the brutal hollowing-out of the legal system, the more potential there is for profit in every walk of life, and thus for ‘growth’.

‘Austerity’ = ‘prosperity’? Maybe, for a very few …

It is now increasingly clear to voters that business cycles have once again been used against them, as a means to make them give up their hard-won rights and privileges.

This is why Ed Miliband has chosen to make the NHS, that shibboleth of British social values, the battlefield of this election. This is why David Cameron has followed his lead, hoping that the infamous 2010 campaign poster – “I’ll cut the deficit, not the NHS” – has faded from our memories.

However this is also why voters are fleeing the ‘centre’ (the centre Thatcher marked out for a generation), into the arms of smaller parties.

The SNP, Plaid Cymru, the Green Party, and (unfortunately) UKIP are all becoming forces to be reckoned with, possible partners in coalitions in the next parliament – all, in their own way, evidence of the collapse of the austerity narrative. Because the first three of these Parties at least all reject austerity completely.

Out of the ashes, then, will something of value rise? The two trends that have emerged are arguably a genuine force for good. A more diverse political landscape has gone hand in hand with a new faith in the possibility of transcending orthodox political economy.

The prevailing ideology has culminated in a palpable contradiction: the equation of austerity and prosperity. It is becoming clear to voters that there is only one solution to this contradiction: giving up our faith in the necessary connection between the growth ‘imperative’ and our own happiness .

Rupert Read is a philosopher of ecology, of economics and of ‘the social sciences’. He is Reader in Philosophy in the School of Politics, Philosophy and Languages at the University of East Anglia, and the Chair of Green House. He is also Parliamentary candidate for Cambridge for the Green Party.

Bennet Francis is an MPhil Research Student in Philosophy at University College London.

The Green Party has today published its manifesto for the General Election, and it contains one especially welcome promise – to protect people from exposure to toxic pesticides. On page 14 it pledges to:

“Secure protection of rural residents and communities from exposure to pesticides sprayed on nearby crop fields and prohibit the use of pesticides in the locality of homes, schools and children’s playgrounds.”

Rural residents all over the country who live in crop sprayed areas will be delighted to see the Green Party’s manifesto pledge. It is heartening to see a political party actually standing up for the citizens in this country, especially those most vulnerable, rather than the usual big business interests.

This is a policy area that should be a priority for all political parties and which cannot be compromised on, as it involves public health protection. After all, the primary duty of any Government is to protect its people.

So far, the Greens are the one and only party that has vowed to act. Therefore the UK Pesticides Campaign calls on all the political parties to pledge to take action on this issue considering the catastrophic failure, to date, to protect rural residents from the cocktails of poisons sprayed on crops, and throughout every year.

Serious failures in assessing pesticide risks

The failure to protect residents is as a result of fundamental failings in the way that pesticides have been approved.

To date, the official method used by regulators for assessing the risks to people from crop spraying – and under which many thousands of pesticide products have been approved – has been based on the model of a short term ‘bystander’, occasionally exposed, for just a few minutes, and to just one individual pesticide at any time.

This means that pesticides have been approved for decades without first assessing the health risks for people who actually live in crop sprayed areas. The real life exposure for residents, as opposed to a mere bystander, is both repeated acute and chronic exposure over the long term, it is cumulative, and is to mixtures and cocktails of pesticides used on crops.

There are approximately 2,000 pesticide products currently approved for agricultural use in the UK alone. Each product formulation in itself can contain a number of active ingredients, as well as other hazardous chemicals, such as solvents, surfactants and other ‘co-formulants’.

This includes the astonishing fact that there has been no assessment at all before the approval of any pesticide for babies and children that live in the crop-sprayed areas, nor pregnant women, or people already ill.

A scandalous and illegal experiment with lives and health

Considering how many millions of citizens will be living in this situation then this is, without a doubt a public health and safety failure on a truly scandalous scale – especially considering the absolute requirement in EU law (a law honoured strictly in the breach) that pesticides can only be authorised for use if it has been established that there will be no immediate or delayed harmful effect on human health, including for residents.

The absence of any such risk assessment for residents means that no pesticide should ever have been approved for use in the first place for spraying in the locality of homes, schools and children’s playgrounds.

Further, unlike operators, residents will not be in filtered cabs and/or have any personal protective equipment, and in any event, they would obviously not be expected to wear it on their own property and land.

Rural citizens have been put in a massive guinea pig-style experiment and for which many of us residents have had to suffer the serious, devastating – and in some cases fatal – consequences.

There are so many horrific stories of people being poisoned from crop spraying near to their homes, and many involve children.

Despite this, both the previous Labour Government and the current Conservative / LibDem Coalition have failed to act to secure the protection of rural residents in the UK from toxic pesticides.

The Coalition did announce in December 2013 that it was going to change its policy for assessing the risks to people from crop pesticides (although the stated changes were still woefully inadequate), and DEFRA confirmed that the changes due to take place could lead to some pesticides being withdrawn, and affect new ones coming through the system. But it has since failed to implement any of the promised changes.

A truly enormous public health issue

This cannot be construed as merely a ‘green’ issue, as it is actually a serious public health issue of major importance which affects millions of people with greater or lesser severity.

Reputable scientific studies and reviews have concluded that long-term exposure to pesticides can disturb the function of different systems in the body, including nervous, endocrine, immune, reproductive, renal, cardiovascular, and respiratory systems.

The pesticide manufacturers product data sheets themselves can carry various warnings such as “Very toxic by inhalation,” “Do not breathe spray; fumes; vapour,” “Risk of serious damage to eyes,” “Harmful, possible risk of irreversible effects through inhalation,” and even “May be fatal if inhaled.”

Cornell University’s teaching module ‘Toxicity of Pesticides’ clearly states that, “Pesticides can: cause deformities in unborn offspring (teratogenic effects), cause cancer (carcinogenic effects), cause mutations (mutagenic effects), poison the nervous system (neurotoxicity), or block the natural defenses of the immune system (immunotoxicity).”

It goes on to warn that “Irreversible effects are permanent and cannot be changed once they have occurred. Injury to the nervous system is usually irreversible since its cells cannot divide and be replaced. Irreversible effects include birth defects, mutations, and cancer.”

There has been a significant increase in recent years of a number of such chronic health conditions. According to latest cancer statistics an estimated 14.1 million new cancer cases and 8.2 million deaths occurred worldwide in 2012.

And in the UK 331,487 people in the UK were diagnosed with cancer in 2011, and 161,823 deaths from cancer were recorded in 2012. That’s around 910 people every day. It is now 1 in 2 people who will develop some form of cancer at some point in their lives.

Just as alarming is the incidence of Parkinson’s disease – a progressive, neurodegenerative disease that has been repeatedly linked to pesticide exposure in scientific studies.

One such study published in March 2009 found that exposure to just two pesticides within 500 metres of residents’ homes increased the risk of Parkinson’s Disease by 75%. Currently 127,000 people live with Parkinson’s in the UK, or 1 in 500 people. There is currently no cure.

Other parties must now match the Greens’ pesticides pledge

Whichever party or parties forms the next Government here in the UK, they must as a matter of urgency secure the protection of people in the countryside by prohibiting the use of pesticides within a sizeable range of homes, schools, children’s playgrounds, and other areas where such high exposure is likely to result.

Small buffer zones won’t protect anyone considering how far pesticides are known to travel. Scientific studies have found pesticides miles away from where they were originally applied. For example, a study in California found pesticides as far as three miles away from the treated areas.

Another study involving nearly 700 Californian women showed that living within a mile of farms where certain pesticides are sprayed, during critical weeks in pregnancy, increased by up to 120% the chance of losing the baby through birth defects. 

It is an absolute no brainer that no pesticides should be sprayed where people live and breathe, especially babies, young children, pregnant women, people already ill or disabled, and the elderly.

Rural residents constitute a large proportion of the voting public. The leaders of all political parties canvassing for votes in the hope of forming the next Government need to remember that the first duty of any Government is to protect its citizens, especially those most vulnerable, rather than the multi-billion pound pesticides industry and big business.

I would like to say thank you to the Greens for being the one party that has so far pledged to put an end to this public health scandal. Quite aside from the human suffering and misery these measures would bring, they would also save the NHS – and taxpayers – vast sums of money.

We must all hope that the other parties will now also follow suit. Better still, let’s all put our sitting MPs and Parliamentary candidates on the spot, demanding that they commit to taking action if elected!

Georgina Downs is a journalist and campaigner. She runs the award-winning UK Pesticides Campaign.

The future of the world’s biggest nuclear reactor, under construction at Flamanville in northern France, is now in doubt after a serious flaw was found in its steel pressure vessel.

Examination has shown that parts of the vessel contain too much carbon, which can weaken the vessel’s structure and breaches safety rules.

China, which has two similar 1,600 megawatt European Pressurised Reactors (EPRs) under construction, has been warned that they too may share the potentially catastrophic problem.

Investigations are continuing to check whether the problem can be rectified, but whatever happens it will add more delays and greater costs to the already troubled projects.

The problem also casts doubt on the much-heralded nuclear renaissance in Europe, where EPR reactors are being built not only in France but also in Finland.

Hinkley C – same reactor design, same dangers

Four more EPRs are planned for Britain, where they form a cornerstone of the UK government’s policy to fight climate change.

A decision on whether to go ahead with the first two in the UK, at Hinkley Point C in Somerset, has already been postponed twice amid threats of legal action from Austria and Greenpeace Energy, and fears that the design is “unconstructable”. This revelation will cause further delays.

The French nuclear engineering firm Areva, involved in the EPR’s design and development, found the flawed steel and reported the problem to the country’s nuclear regulator, ASN, which has ordered an investigation. 

According to ASN, “The nuclear pressure equipment regulation requires that the manufacturer limits the risks of heterogeneity in the materials used for manufacturing the components most important for safety. In order to address this technical requirement, AREVA carried out chemical and mechanical tests on a vessel head similar to that of the Flamanville EPR.

“The results of these tests, in late 2014, revealed the presence of a zone in which there was a high carbon concentration, leading to lower than expected mechanical toughness values. Initial measurements confirmed the presence of this anomaly in the reactor vessel head and reactor vessel bottom head of the Flamanville EPR.”

The French energy minister, Ségolène Royal, says the results of tests to check the extent of the problem will be released in October.

Danger of early cracking in steel

It is understood that the maximum allowable carbon content of steel in the pressure vessel is 0.22%, but tests have shown 0.30% in parts of the Flamanville vessel. This could render it subject to cracking in operation and shorten its intended lifespan.

The discovery is another serious blow to the French nuclear industry, which already faces severe financial problems, partly because of lengthy delays and massive cost over-runs to the reactors at Flamanville and at Finland’s Olkiluoto site.

The Finnish reactor, which is not affected by this problem because its pressure vessel steel comes from Japan, not France,, is already nine years behind schedule for other reasons and has more than doubled in cost.

Following the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan any compromise on minimum safety standards would be hard to sell to the public, especially since nuclear power has fallen out of favour with the French government, which wants to invest heavily in renewables.

France’s nuclear industry facing meltdown

France is already considering merging Areva and Électricité de France (EDF), the two nuclear companies in which it owns the majority of shares. Areva is building the Flamanville reactor on behalf of EDF, Europe’s largest electricity producer.

EDF recently estimated the construction costs of Flamanville at €8 billion (US$8.7bn) compared with an original estimate of €3.3bn, and that was before this setback. The plant was due to have been working by now, but its start date had already been put back to 2017 – which is now looking optimistic.

It is understood that the parts of the pressure vessel found with excess carbon were manufactured in France at the Creusot Forge, in Burgundy, owned by Areva. It was this same company that made parts for the two Chinese reactors, hence the fears that they too will contain carbon above safety limits.

Even before the news emerged, Areva was already experiencing severe financial problems. Potentially massive liabilities for supplying faultly reactor vessels, and the consequent loss of investor confidence, could just finisht eh company off altogether.

One problem is the pressure vessel’s sheer size and the fact that it was already in place when the fault was detected. The vessel weighs 410 tonnes and cannot now be removed, and it is hard to see how it could be repaired or modified.

The problem was discovered in December but made public in a low-key website announcement only on 7 April.

Hinkley investors slow to come forward – before the news broke

One knock-on effect might be to seriously damage the British government’s own energy policy, which relies on building four similar reactors in England. Work has already been completed on preparatory works for a double EPR at Hinkley Point C, in the west of England, using the Flamanville design.

The UK government has agreed large subsidies to support the projects, but EDF has repeatedly delayed signing a final deal to build them, because of a lack of investors. Two Chinese utilities were negotiating to back the project financially, but the discovery of a flaw at Flamanville may complicate matters.

In particular, it will force a revision of the UK Government’s plan to offer EDF £10 billion in construction finance guarantees for Hinkley C. The discovery of the flaw in the Flamanville must now cause an upwards re-valuation of the guarantees – raising the cost of the development, as it raises the likelihood that UK taxpayers will have to shell out under the deal.

The decision on whether to go ahead with the two reactors at Hinkley Point had already been postponed until the summer and now seems certain to be postponed yet again until the issue of the safety of the French and Chinese pressure vessels has been resolved.

EPR design ‘bedevilled with problems’

“The report of serious and fundamental safety defects with the EPR design at reactors identical to those being planned for Hinkley Point and Sizewell is another devastating blow to the proponents of new nuclear build in the UK”, commented Councillor Mark Hackett, chair of the UK’s Nuclear Free Local Authorities group.

“The EPR design has been bedevilled with problems and it is looking increasingly likely that it is impossible to build. With an election just a few weeks away, it is incumbent on the new government to make an immediate and fundamental review of this project and wider UK energy policy.

“NFLA advocates a simpler, cheaper, more cost effective, waste free, low carbon and sustainable alternative energy policy. Renewable energy with energy efficiency and decentralised microgeneration has to be prioritised at the expense of new nuclear. The time is surely right to move on from new nuclear as part of our future energy mix.”

The UK Conservative / Lib-Dem government has repeatedly insisted that the expansion of nuclear power is vital to its energy security and its ability to meet its greenhouse gas reduction targets.

The country is currently in the middle of a general election campaign. Whichever government gets into power may have to rapidly rethink its energy policy as regards the role of nuclear power in general, and the Hinkley C project in particular.

Paul Brown writes for Climate News Network.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

This article is an extended version of one originally published by Climate News Network.

Sometimes you just fall right into a story.

In late 2005, I returned to Tibet intent on updating my guidebook to the troubled region, and to check out the completion of the new railway linking China with Tibet for the first time.

The new Golmud-Lhasa line was completed at a cost of over US$4 billion, more than the entire budget spent in Tibet on education and healthcare since the Chinese invasion in 1950. This railway was not built for philanthropic purposes.

My railway investigation got derailed when, out of curiosity, I decided to take a one-day rafting trip from Lhasa. This was a pure adrenaline rush: riding the wildest whitewater I’d ever been on. But the rafting guides lamented the fact that the rivers were being compromised by the building of massive dams by Chinese engineers.

I’d never heard of major dam-building in Tibet. And yet it made perfect sense: the biggest drops of any river in the world are in Tibet, so there’s huge hydro potential. The more I delved into this hydro development, the scarier it became.

It soon became evident that China had its hand on the tap for the water that feeds most of Asia through Tibet’s mighty rivers-the Mekohng, Salween and Yarlung Tsangp (Brahmaputra) in particular.

I took as much undercover video footage as I could on this trip not knowing what I would do with it, but shooting anyway. I figured, as a guidebook writer, if I didn’t know anything about these new megadams, few Westerners would know about them either.

Video: Plundering Tibet TRAILER from ThunderHorse Media on Vimeo.

China’s reign of terror over Tibet

China severely restricts access to foreign journalists entering Tibet, and imposes a reign of terror to silence Tibetans within Tibet. Despite this, Tibetans have bravely protested against dams and mining at great risk, with a number killed, injured or locked away for long prison terms.

Under the highly repressive Chinese regime, Tibetans have been given sentences of five years or more for simply writing an email, making a phone-call or singing a song critical of Chinese policy.

Back in 1986, when I cycled from Lhasa to Kathmandu, I had been dazzled by Tibet’s incredible wide-open spaces, drinking in the towering snowcaps, the ethereal lakes, and huge grasslands. When you are on a mountain bike, you feel rather insignificant next to the highest peaks on earth.

Our small group of mountain-bikers had skirted Lake Yamdrok Tso, a turquoise beauty that is highly revered by Tibetans. But ten years later, the lake had been defiled by a highly controversial pumped-storage hydro system, supplying energy to Lhasa. Tibetan protest to save the sacred lake fell on deaf ears.

I assumed that Tibet’s incredible natural beauty would always be there for future travellers to enjoy. But instead, I found it changing right before my eyes. What struck me was the incredible speed of change accelerated by the arrival of the new railway in Lhasa.

The building of that railway was facilitated by the involvement of Montreal-based Bombardier and Power Corporation (building special high-altitude rail-cars), Nortel (communication network for the Lhasa railway), and other corporations from Canada.

That railway makes it possible to exploit Tibet’s resources on a large scale, by bringing Chinese migrants workers in by the train-load, and by shipping minerals out economically. The migrant workers build dams or work at mining sites. Up to 20,000 Chinese migrant workers might descend on a remote valley in Tibet to build a megadam.

The documentary I had to make

Returning to Vancouver in 2006, I could find very little about damming Tibet’s rivers in Western media, so I set out to make a short documentary about it-a film called Meltdown in Tibet. I didn’t know how to put a film together, but in the digital age, you can basically do it all on a laptop.

There is a steep learning curve involved in mastering the software. One skill transferable from years of writing was the ability to edit video to forge a storyline. Cutting and pasting of video, stills and music came naturally to me. The documentary was finally completed in 2009.

It screened on the fringes of the UN Climate Change Conference, in Copenhagen, in December that year, and at dozens of other venues worldwide. It didn’t screen as a great visual experience. It screened because few people had heard of the environmental issues portrayed.

In 2010, I went back to Tibet to shoot video for another short documentary about the sad demise of Tibetan nomads who have been forcibly shifted off their traditional grassland habitat and moved into concrete ghettoes.

Paper ‘national parks’ to expel nomads, make way for development

On an earlier trip, my guide Dorje told me that Chinese officials created massive national parks in Tibet, but these were ‘paper parks’ – made as an excuse to get rid of nomads.

Tibetan nomads are the stewards of the vast grasslands of Tibet. Over the course of 4,000 years, they have developed an ingenious culture that depends on their herds of yaks, sheep and goats.

The yak provides everything from milk, cheese and curd to shelter (yak-hair tents), clothing (yak-skin boots) and ropes. The comical yak resembles a cow with dreadlocks. They derive from wild yak stock.

Wild yaks are double the size of domesticated yaks, and your chances of spotting one are rare: there are thought to be fewer than a thousand wild yaks remaining on the Tibetan plateau.

Their numbers were annihilated by Chinese settlers and military, who machine-gunned them for food and for sport. The wild yak has gone the way of the bison in 19th-century America. Similar to native American peoples like the Blackfoot Indians, Tibetan nomads have become beggars in their own land, with their culture decimated by the Chinese policy of resettlement.

The great Tibetan mining disaster

As an excuse to settle Tibetan nomads, Chinese propagandists blame deteriorating grassland quality on overgrazing by nomads, but the fact is that extensive Chinese mining is the main culprit. Tibet has huge reserves of lithium, copper, gold and other precious metals.

And here, Canadian mining corporations have been at the forefront. These mining companies are exploiting mineral, oil and gas resources in a region occupied by an invading force (China), without regard for the environment, and without consulting the Tibetans – who vigorously oppose mining because it poisons their rivers, their livestock and their crops.

The poisoning of rivers due to extensive mining in Tibet now has the potential to go all the way downstream into Asia, threatening the lives of millions of people stretching from Vietnam to Pakistan.

A handful of Canadian mining corporations, mostly based in Vancouver, set up operations in Tibet: they were needed for their advanced technology and know-how. These included Continental Minerals, Sterling Group; and Inter-Citic, El Dorado Gold Corp and Tri-River Ventures.

But as the mines moved closer to production, Chinese officials stonewalled on permits, and most of those companies were forced to sell out to state-run mining ventures.

This has not happened to China Gold International Resources, based in Vancouver because it is essentially owned by the Chinese Communist Party, which is using the Canadian stock market to raise revenue to exploit Tibet’s valuable resources.

In 2010, China Gold acquired the extensive copper-gold mining site of Gyama, east of Lhasa. The venture was touted as a model mine, using the best mining practices. But on March 29, 2013, a massive mud-rock avalanche buried 83 miners at a mountain location near Gyama. Critics of the operation claim this tragedy occurred due to hasty mining done without concern for safety.

The story of Tibet’s destruction must be told!

Security is very tight at remote mining locations. I couldn’t go to Tibet to get video footage of mines. Instead I dropped in on mining sites from 400 kilometres overhead, virtually riding a satellite relaying Google Earth satellite imagery.

After obtaining permission from Google Earth to use flyovers, I put together a short documentary about mineral exploitation in Tibet, called ‘Plundering Tibet‘, released for film festival screenings in conjunction with the new book.

With the mountain of research accumulated from making these three short documentaries, I starting thinking about a book. I approached a literary agent who shopped it around and landed a major publisher in New York: Palgrave-Macmillan.

Nine years after that rafting trip in 2005, the book version of ‘Meltdown in Tibet‘ has finally been published. It took the legwork of three documentaries to pull all the research together. The challenge was to take the mass of information and distill it and make the situation clear to the average reader. That’s a skill I learned from writing guidebooks.

The story of the devastation of Tibet’s environment, and the tremendous impact this will soon have on the nations downstream in Asia, simply must be told.

This environmental horror story has been under-reported by Western media or not reported at all, hence the necessity of an unusually long subtitle for the book: China’s reckless destruction of ecosystems from the highlands of Tibet to the deltas of Asia.

The story chose me. I fell into it. It has been a wilder and scarier ride than any rafting trip.

Michael Buckley is an adventure travel writer, environmental investigator, author of ‘Meltdown in Tibet: China’s Reckless Destruction of Ecosystems from the Highlands of Tibet to the Deltas of Asia‘, and the maker of the documentary film ‘Plundering Tibet’.

The book: ‘Meltdown in Tibet: China’s Reckless Destruction of Ecosystems from the Highlands of Tibet to the Deltas of Asia‘ by Michael Buckley is published by Palgrave MacMillan.

The film: ‘Plundering Tibet‘ is a documentary about damming Tibet. See also the Facebook page: facebook.com/MeltdowninTibet/.

This article was originally published on BC Booklook.