 There was once a lady called Thatcher, in helping the rich, no one could match her, till a lady called Liz Truss said, what's all this fuss? And now she's a greater welfare snatcher. Okay, apologies for that lame limerick right there, but why am I talking about Margaret Thatcher when this video promised us to be an explainer about UK's economic crisis? Why? Margaret Thatcher, her economic policies are exactly what the current prime minister of the UK Liz Truss was trying to revive. She's taken a step back, but she's still defending them. And I'm going to explain what those are. In the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher took a series of economic decisions to change the course of the British economy. He had four key features, tax cuts for the rich, welfare cuts for the poor, privatisation of public assets, and big bank deregulation of the financial sector, especially the stock markets. Now it's not a term that I'm using, big bank, that is what these reforms or the deregulation of the financial sector was called back then. It would turn London into the mecca of global finance over the next two decades where a small number of bankers, brokers and investors would enjoy a life of extreme riches. But if the rich got richer under Thatcher, UK's economy faltered and tripped over. Britain, which was once the biggest industrial power in the world, got slowly deindustrialised. Once flourishing mining villages and industrial townships became centres of unemployment and crime. When Thatcher came to power, manufacturing accounted for 30% of Britain's economy. Now it accounts for less than 10%. But this has shown up in the distribution of income in the UK from the 1980s. The share of the richest 10% has risen dramatically while that of the bottom 50% has fallen. They almost slipped below the richest 1% in terms of share of income till the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 stalled that process. If things had continued like that, by now the top 1% as a whole would have earned more than the poorest 50%. The Thatcher at Turn and UK's economic policies meant that UK became increasingly dependent on imports for everyday goods. From being one of the biggest exporters of goods, it became one of the biggest importers. So much so that in 2020, out of 127 countries, it was ranked 126 in terms of balance of trade making it one of the two biggest import dependent nations in the world. But for most of the 2000s, the first decade of the 2000s, the urban middle class didn't feel this because of the massive boom in stock markets and real estate prices that took place, which caused a general wealth effect amongst the middle class. But when the global financial crisis hit the UK in 2008-2009, it simply could not recover because it was so heavily dependent on financial services and real estate in its economy. The unemployment and despair caused by the UK's continuous economic slump helped create widespread support for the Brexit campaign in 2016. Working class people celebrated the break with Europe. They blamed immigrants for their unemployment and Europe for causing Britain's factories to shut down. But Brexit has made it even worse for UK's economy. Between 2017 and 2021, Britain's trade in goods and services has declined by 6% while most large European countries have seen a big jump. Finally, Covid broke the economy completely. Workers now have to spend 10% more than what they did last year because of runaway inflation and many simply can't cope anymore. Community kitchens and organizations which give free food are having to deal with many more people looking for free meals. And what remedy did Listeros Britain's newly appointed Prime Minister come up with? Tax cuts for the rich? Incentives for corporates? It's a throwback to the days of Margaret Thatcher, the days of trickle down economics which has failed across the world. And normally the stock markets love freebies for the rich but this time they voted with their feet. Why? Because they simply don't trust UK's government anymore. They don't trust the British economy that it would be able to sustain more government spending and even that untargeted spending to feed the rich. So money rushed out of the UK causing the biggest monthly fall in the palm since 2008 and its value against the dollar had dropped to the lowest level seen in nearly four decades. The trust government has since reversed some of those tax cuts but it is still defending its policies and the pound and the British stock markets have recovered some of their losses. But nothing has changed on the ground for the average British citizen and as long as the UK continues with these disastrous pro-rich, pro-market, pro-privatization policies, nothing will change for the average person in England. That's the show today. Keep watching NewsClick. Subscribe to us, like this video and share it as well.