As 2011 draws to a close, a raft of reports confirm the dire line of travel which should make all socially-minded people weep for the future of our country.

Mary Dejevsky's comment on the Oxford Street Killings; Greg McClymont's report on the, er, 'way forward' for the Labour Party; and John Kampfner's report on the implications for "our sense of identity as a nation" posed by the growth of Brazil and the other BRICs nations, jointly confirm the range of problems thrown up by the recession, and the coalition's abject surrender to the demands of the market.    [MD]   [GMcC]  [JK]

An earlier report indicating hard-core support for leaving the EU among Tory supporters adds to the sense of a nation disappearing up its own rear orifice.    [Ind]

The gross failings of the European Union - run, we need to remind ourselves, by its collective heads of state, and not by that all-purpose term of abuse 'Brussels' - is a collective failure of those same heads of state who - in some cases - seem to find strutting and preening themselves on the European stage an opportunity for ego-enhancement.

The failings of the Merkozy 'fiscal union' plan are dealt with elsewhere on this site.   [MP]

I am concerned here with the attitude of mind of the Thatcherite majority in England and its consequences for the future of the country.    [TB]

It is possible - at one extreme - to conceive of an English Norway, but not one with a population heading towards 70m that needs to import everything except the printing of money.

It is also possible to conceive of an English North Korea, and it is this ghastly prospect which is the more likely of the two extremes.

No, I am not talking about an England in which people weep and wail in the street over the death of a dictator, though the evidence suggests that when St Margaret of Thatcher, Patron Saint of run-down public services, finally shuffles off this mortal coil there will be a state funeral complete with the corporate media 'on message', and a eulogy from Cameron - and others - not entirely removed from the histrionics of Pyongyang.

Whatever.

The central message remains: the English have largely bought into Thatcherism, are not particularly fussed about the plight of its victims, and worse, are not particularly fussed about high levels of unemployment, or an economy eviscerated by The Lady and her acolytes in New Labour.    [A free market train wreck]    [No such thing as society]

Which is why the plight of the current Labour Party should concern everyone who is not taken in by the Cameron-Osborne-Clegg austerity show.

What emerges from a report commissioned by Lord Mandelson's 'think tank' is the fact that the Blair-Brown conflict is still the only game in town for the Labour Party ...

"Labour can sidestep the electoral trap being sprung by the Conservatives by refusing to be driven back to its core support.

"A patriotic appeal to the nation to improve growth and living standards, not a simple defence of the public sector and public spending, is crucial to foiling Conservative attempts to render Labour the party of a sectional minority."   [Gdn]

This is the familiar Mandelsonian message: the 'core support' - ie the marginalised - can whistle, the important thing is 'a patriotic appeal to the nation'.

It's difficult to know whether to laugh or cry at such a crass comment.

As Dr Johnson famously put it, patriotism "is the last resort of the scoundrel", and certain it is that the noble lord hasn't exactly displayed the most accurate moral compass over the years.

However, the Labour Party needs to move on from the battles that consumed it's final years in office, and go back to the concerns of Kier Hardie's generation when the previous incarnation of neoliberalism - laissez faire - was also bipartisan policy.

Currently, as Anthony Seldon and Guy Lodge suggest in their intro to "Brown At 10", this is unlikely ...

The party will never fully move on until it comes to terms with the history of these fifteen years ...

If they are to succeed they will have to ... reach out far wider in search of fresh ideas to renew the party.

It will not be easy for them as they have known little beyond the world of Brownite politics, but having to reach out is sine qua non ...

Indicatively, the greatest success Ed Miliband has enjoyed to date ... has not been in advocating fresh policies, but in reacting to events.

Pages xxvi - xxvii   Brown at 10

The evidence suggests that Mary Dejevsky's Dystopia 2018 is coming along just fine, and the coalition have got over three more years to crank it up.

BTW, I haven't had to search beyond the last two weeks to get these pointful headers:

Britain's dysfunctional railways: iain carstairs blog

Tories say they want to leave EU and prefer Boris to Cameron

Third of unemployed are convicted criminals

Unemployment 'set to rise in 2012'

UK jobs outlook is the 'worst for 20 years'

Number of job-hunters chasing every post jumps to 23

UK faces bleak 2012

Britain will be back in recession this winter, warns OECD

Britain's poorest hit by £2.5bn 'stealth tax'

Cameron in command: politics in the slump

Homeless die 30 years before the average person

Number of empty houses rises by 12,000

Incomes fall for fifth year in a row says Bank

Thousands of households 'in danger of eviction'

Revealed: how City fees are eating into our pensions

The Tories - Going Forward to Yesterday

The party conference season is as good a time as any to re-pose Mary Dejevsky's 'Whither Britain?' question.

A raft of concurrent reports suggest that the answer is something along the lines of 'to hell in a handcart'.

The Tories, its been suggested, are going forwards to yesterday.

High on the list of 80s-style policies, the 'we feel you pain' party wants to making sacking staff easier.    Gdn

It also wants to re-heat Maggie's council-house sales. (Will Dame Shirley Porter return from Israel to offer advice?) Gdn

Whether or not some latter-day Sid will be offering us shares in 'our' newly-privatised local hospital remains to be seen.  

Growth, it seems, is playing second fiddle to deficit reduction. [Ind]

MP Andrew Tyrie clearly thinks climate change is a policy irrelevance; while peak oil is the elephant in the room that no one mentions. [BBC]

The Big Society was also rubbished by Mr Tyrie, but the truth is the real evidence for the existence of a society - quite separate from politicians' nostrums - is confirmed by the growing demands made on food banks in one of the world's richest countries.   [Gdn]

Just above the queues at food banks are the working poor, paid a minimum wage which is at least £1 an hour short of what is required.

Inequality turns to poverty, but is on no mainstream political agenda.   [LP]

It would be good to see Cameron & Osborne visiting a local food bank and actually finding out what their fellow citizens are suffering. Unlikely!

Evidence of a more 'normal' lack of care and concern for the suffering of others is confirmed by the plight of mothers suffering from post natal depression.   [Gdn]

'Pull yourself together' continues to be the longterm response to mental illness, and the current recession - while creating more such health problems - inevitably enhances the same FYB response. [FYBD]

We may be going to hell in a handcart, but we go by different routes, and suffer alone, while 'Divi' offers the Blair Mark II smirk to the cameras.   [Ind]

For Dave and George, as for Tony, life is very good.   [C4]

There's not a handcart in sight round Chipping Norton.

But they still have a workhouse, which might offer a policy hint - of the 'back to yesterday' variety - to one of the area's more famous local residents in his search for a solution to the problem posed by unemployment, and the potential for further riots.   [WH]

The answer to your question, Mary, is that we are speeding - out-of-control - down the road to Dystopia 2018. [WB]

A very 'third face of power' Autumn Statement