Yup. As was pointed out here the other day, we're one of the only countries in the world that allows enlistement at 16 (and basically every other country that does is either tiny and at war or it's a way for pre-enlisting for mandatory conscription at 18 anyway).

Public schools have also historically promoted, supported, and given resources to 'cadet' programmes which are basically the militarised boy-scouts where they pressure kids to pre-enlist or actually enlist at 16 (it's just like all those cool camping trips and visits to France we did!)

British reliance on and recruitment of child soliders is extremely fucked.

Obviously I'm talking about the actual material economy that affects ordinary people here, not GDP numbers and extractive profiteering but, in brief, the service economy that New Labour pivoted oh so smartly too before decades of recession and austerity seems to be dying on its arse.

• Commercial rents saw a massive dip toward 2008 levels last year, but the 'silver lining' recently is that commerical landlords have seen a 10% increase in claiming commercial rents. The only problem is that seems to be from increasing the cost, not the number of filled vacant units. Towns and high streets are increasingly offering empty business premises to pop-ups, galleries etc because the number of empty units has gotten so bad. The only problem is that after these extremely cheap temporary deals expire, they can't afford the rents and rates.

• Part of the reason for the above is that traditional retailers and franchise locations of chains are dropping like flies. A worrying amount of major British retailers have gone bust in the last couple of years, including ones that actually did better during the pandemic rather than worse. Most of the biggest coffee, pub, and retail chains not in financial trouble are still planning on closing a significant number of locations.

• Worse still is that there's been a massive decrease in local availability of businesses that are actually pretty important services. Some of the biggest declines in specific locations are things like post offices, chemists, newsagents (local shops), and bank branches. Increasing these are now based miles away on retail and business parks outside towns and cities, only easily accessible by car, which means people have to travel away from town centers to where everything is a massive supermarket or fast food chain, which further depresses the local economies of everything else.

• Small businesses (actual ones, not I run a call centre with 1000 employees) had a brief boost post-Covid, in part due to the discount rents and rates mentioned above, but the failure rates are also pretty disasterous. Last year failure rates for new businesses were higher than they have been since 2008 and I've seen reporting that as many as 80% are now failing in the first couple of years which is way higher than usual. Naturally some of this is that living costs have exploded, so people have less money to spend in general but then there's also...

• Energy prices are fucked. Obviously it matters most for people not freezing to death in their own homes, but it's also ripping through small businesses and the hospitality sector in general. A lot of those small businesses that were plugging the gaps were cafes, restuarants, micropubs, and the energy costs of running kitchens, coolers, or even the lighting and heating in things like barbershops has become exorbitant. Most are just clinging on, usually with reduced opening hours or days, but hundreds of thousands have closed at record rates.

• The energy issue also hits suppliers for nightlife and leisure hospitality though, with almost all but the biggest macro-brewers annoucing closures weekly and breweries that own pubs consoldiating and selling the properties. Nightlife like gig venues and clubs have been closing steadily for years due to increased costs and the issue of expensive property developments being built in those areas and then having their licenses over noise and opening hours pulled with the support of police and councils who don't want to deal with the policing 'requirements' in general. Gig and cultural leisure venues have also seen a massive decline (and increased cost for) touring musicians or events due to Brexit and our genuinely insanely visa system that basically makes it prohibitively expensive and complicated for bands or touring events.

• Then there's the 'managerial services' sector. The big plan of New Labour and again after 2008 when average people were increasingly broke due to endless recession and austerity, was to pivot to professional services and consultancy with a heavy focus on export. Think business services, 'creative' services like marketing, and more recently digital/tech. These made up the overwhelming amount of our exports as well as a lot of employment at higher wages. Brexit fucked it. I'm not one to wail that everything is the fault of Brexit, but it's badly hurt those sectors. We're now much harder to do business with and more expensive than the US or Europe, never mind the growth of remote teams from lower paid countries.

• From the point above you can then add the great venture capital rug pull and interest rates to the digital/tech sector here too. A massive amount of investment capital basically disappeared over night and while people have made noise about it being tough for tech (assuming you're not one of the massive monopolies) I don't think we're seeing the scale and reality of how close to failing a lot of these small and mid-sized digital businesses are. It's an industry I know a lot of people in and work with occassionally and in pub-talk rather than official statements near everyone is freaked by costs and the potential lack of long-term viability.

Unrelated, but I’m a little embarrassed at the fact that I call myself an ML but haven’t read any Lenin yet. Would you suggest starting with State & Revolution, or Imperialism? Or something else?

I think they've just come to terms with the fact that Ukraine is losing, and now they've got to switch to "scary Russia" rhetoric to justify the situation to their populaces. I don't see why either side would actually want hot conflict with the other, especially not for the Amerikans' sake.