:00:03. > :00:09.double-dip recession was in the mid-70s. That led to social unrest
:00:09. > :00:14.and political upheaval, but are all of the ingredients here for a
:00:14. > :00:18.similar reaction? If we don't find solutions they could have very
:00:18. > :00:23.large social ramifications, and not very nice ones.
:00:23. > :00:27.With many predicting that the worst is still to come, tonight Panorama
:00:27. > :00:37.asks whether Britain is ready and able to cope with a new age of
:00:37. > :00:47.
:00:47. > :00:57.Times are tough. People worry that we are facing a dismal future.
:00:57. > :01:03.No growth, high unemployment, deep cuts and little hope.
:01:03. > :01:09.Clapham, South-west London. For most of the past hundred years or
:01:09. > :01:14.so, this has been the home to the ordinary man on the street. Average
:01:14. > :01:19.income, average house price, average lifestyle, home for 9 "man
:01:19. > :01:22.on the Clapham omnibus". So, how is the ordinary man on the
:01:22. > :01:29.Clapham Omnibus going to cope with the financial and the economic
:01:29. > :01:39.challenges that we are facing today? Well, he's been here before.
:01:39. > :01:44.
:01:44. > :01:49.Tickets, please. The 1970s began with such hope, but
:01:49. > :01:54.ended with strikes, crippling public finances and soaring prices.
:01:54. > :01:59.It resulteded in a political and economic revolution, and massive
:01:59. > :02:06.social upheaval. The land of hope and glory has
:02:06. > :02:13.become the land of beg and borrow. It is that is ruining this country.
:02:13. > :02:16.We are not a sinking ship. This country is more like the boiler
:02:16. > :02:19.room of the Titanic every other day. The only difference is that they
:02:20. > :02:24.had a band. On the surface, we have come a long
:02:24. > :02:27.way from the dark days of the 70s, but could today's crisis
:02:28. > :02:33.destabilise the country in a similar way? Well, it is already
:02:33. > :02:38.having a severe impact on the lives of many ordinary people.
:02:38. > :02:42.Hayley Gay is a single working mum, living in south London. She is
:02:42. > :02:45.juggling her role as a school administrator and bringing up her
:02:45. > :02:50.two children. You get the wages that come in once
:02:50. > :02:54.a month. You budget that across the time. The fuel bill, for instance,
:02:54. > :02:59.whether it is energy, electricity, gas, or car bills are spiralling
:02:59. > :03:03.out of control. We either buy food or school shoes, but sometimes the
:03:03. > :03:08.school shoes are bought and therefore you downgrade on the food.
:03:08. > :03:12.It strikes me as odd that a very advanced country like the UK,
:03:12. > :03:17.places ordinary working people like you in a situation where you have
:03:17. > :03:24.to decide between buying shoes for the kids to go to school or buying
:03:25. > :03:28.food... Yes, it is a decision, yes. It is bleak? It feels that way.
:03:28. > :03:33.But Hayley's circumstances are not exceptional. One in five UK
:03:33. > :03:40.families admit that they are now financially living on the edge.
:03:40. > :03:44.I feel that we have to common miez on everything that we do.
:03:44. > :03:48.Therefore, I basically do not eat as well, necessarily, so that they
:03:48. > :03:52.can have the things that they should be provided with.
:03:52. > :03:57.One of the big financial strains for ordinary working people is the
:03:57. > :04:02.cost of housing. Back in the 70s, Clapham was seen
:04:02. > :04:05.as the stereo typical home of the average man, the man on the Clapham
:04:05. > :04:10.Omnibus. And there was good reason for that.
:04:10. > :04:15.Houses and rents here were far more affordable then.
:04:15. > :04:19.Clapham was a place where working- class people grew up, people like
:04:19. > :04:23.actor, Neil Pearson. I know it was a fairly close-knit
:04:23. > :04:27.community. I did seem to know pretty much everyone who lived on
:04:27. > :04:33.the street. When Neil was growing up on the
:04:33. > :04:40.street, living conditions were often poor and dilapidated, the
:04:40. > :04:45.kind we thought that we left behind in the archives of the 70s sitcom.
:04:45. > :04:51.Good Lord! I know it is not five- star, but it is short notice.
:04:51. > :04:58.There is water running down the walls! You expect champagne? Your
:04:58. > :05:02.house is on the corner? Yes, the one with the royalist Union Jacks.
:05:02. > :05:06.This two bedroom flat was home to Neil, his brother and sister and
:05:07. > :05:12.mother. All three children shared one bedroom. There was no bathroom,
:05:12. > :05:22.just a tin bath on the sitting room floor.
:05:22. > :05:26.This is... As I remember it. This is the kitchen.
:05:26. > :05:31.This is the living room, also unchanged.
:05:32. > :05:38.This is pretty much as it was. I haven't been in here for 42 years.
:05:39. > :05:43.It's a little overwhelming. Yvonne Hunt and her husband have
:05:43. > :05:47.rented the flat since Neil's family moved out 40 years ago. While
:05:47. > :05:51.inside has remained remarkably unmodernised, outside of the front
:05:51. > :05:57.door it is now a very different world.
:05:58. > :06:02.Do you recognise much of Taybridge Road or Clapham as a whole from
:06:02. > :06:07.those times? It has all changed. You are a lone recommend naent of
:06:07. > :06:12.that period? Yes. There are more people with more money and sort of,
:06:12. > :06:16.the people that we know have either died or moved on.
:06:16. > :06:22.Yvonne is one of the last survivors of a class which is no longer
:06:22. > :06:30.living on streets like this. It was soldly, what we would see
:06:30. > :06:34.now as working-class? This was a solid working-class area? I would
:06:34. > :06:39.not have art I can lated it like that, but I recognise everyone as
:06:39. > :06:44.being like me it was monolithically one class then. I think it is now
:06:44. > :06:50.also, but it is a different class. The middle-classes moved in and
:06:50. > :06:56.gentrified the area, but the rise of financial services as the new
:06:56. > :07:00.engine of Britain's economy, brought in an even wealthier class.
:07:00. > :07:04.Yuppies. ! It is them that is pushing the
:07:04. > :07:10.rents up. These houses were five bob a week rent once. I could
:07:10. > :07:17.afford to own. Not now, though. What sort of people could buy a
:07:17. > :07:21.house today? It will be bankers, flavour of the month, obviously.
:07:21. > :07:26.Definitely bankers, accountants, lawyers, it is a fact if a house
:07:26. > :07:31.costs �1 million, you must be well paid or independently wealthy to
:07:31. > :07:36.afford it These price tags have put Clapham
:07:36. > :07:41.beyond the man on the ordinary Clapham Omnibus. In the 70s house
:07:41. > :07:45.prices were three tievs average earnings u, now it is over five
:07:45. > :07:51.times. In London it is worse than that. Pricing people out of their
:07:51. > :07:55.traditional neighbourhoods have v has made many working-class
:07:55. > :08:00.families marginallised. The discrepancies between the house
:08:01. > :08:05.prices and the wages is so great now to when it was in the 70s, when
:08:05. > :08:09.this was affordable. We are now coming to a point where that is not
:08:09. > :08:14.the case and aspiration starts to fall back. Once it starts to go,
:08:14. > :08:19.the aspiration, the hope disappears. For ordinary working professionals,
:08:19. > :08:27.getting the keys to a family- sized home can involve moving many miles
:08:27. > :08:31.and hours from your place of work. It's a move that the Pilditch
:08:31. > :08:34.family felt forced to make, leaving their Clapham flat behind for a
:08:34. > :08:40.house 06 miles away in rural Berkshire.
:08:40. > :08:47.We needed to put our roots down and purchase, to get on the ladder. We
:08:47. > :08:52.could have done a tiny little two- bedroom flat in Clapham. For the
:08:52. > :09:00.money it would absmall shoe box. Now, Justin, a website designer and
:09:00. > :09:02.Rosanne who works as a personal manager, each spend three hours a
:09:02. > :09:06.day compute commuting two and fro work in London.
:09:06. > :09:12.I think if you are professionals, bankers, lawyers, those are the
:09:12. > :09:18.people who can have the houses. There is talk of a squeezed middle,
:09:18. > :09:22.do you feel squeezed? Yes, definitely. The costs and the
:09:22. > :09:25.expenses in life are going up. Not least of which the train fares, the
:09:25. > :09:31.electricity and everything else like that, but salaries are not
:09:31. > :09:35.going up in the same way that they did 20 years ago. You have to draw
:09:35. > :09:41.the balance between what you are going to eat, not the meat, you
:09:42. > :09:46.have to get them meat for their diet, but if food, fuel, everything
:09:46. > :09:49.is increasing, the challenge is harder and harder, you run out of
:09:49. > :09:55.options. The notions of a squeezed middle is
:09:55. > :10:00.more than middle-class mooning. Average real earnings fell by 3% in
:10:00. > :10:04.2011, that is the largest one-year fall for 30 years.
:10:04. > :10:12.Little wonder the Government's just reversed its plans to raise duty on
:10:12. > :10:17.fuel. That squeeze is also felt in the
:10:17. > :10:21.falling amount of money we have in our pockets for essential weekly
:10:21. > :10:26.shopping. Although average inflation has been relatively mod
:10:26. > :10:32.estover the past few years, the cost of things that we buy each day
:10:32. > :10:38.has gone up dramatically. My daily cup of coffee, for instance, is
:10:38. > :10:43.around 30% more expensive than it was just four years ago. That is
:10:43. > :10:48.around 2.5 times the rate of inflation.
:10:48. > :10:55.Tastes the same, though. It's not just coffee, over the past
:10:55. > :11:01.year or so, fuel and utility bills have rocketed. Gas is up 16%, the
:11:01. > :11:05.cost of childcare is up nearly 6% and this while we are told that
:11:05. > :11:12.official inflation is just 2.8%, but what many notice the most is
:11:12. > :11:18.the rising cost of food. Been here before as well! Yesterday
:11:18. > :11:23.I went in the same shop it were 7.5 for a tin of tomatoes. They have
:11:23. > :11:29.gone to so.5. They were doing them like that that is in a day! In the
:11:29. > :11:34.70s, in flaigs pressures were clear to everyone, but -- inflation
:11:34. > :11:39.pressures were clear to everyone, but are they so cleared to today?
:11:39. > :11:45.We are at a fish stall, what has happened to the price of white?
:11:45. > :11:49.What do you say? Shout it out, what do you think? Gone up. It has gone
:11:49. > :11:53.up 12%! So that is something like four times the actual rate of
:11:53. > :11:57.inflation. That's just the past year! What
:11:57. > :12:03.about over the last four years? What do you think may have happened
:12:03. > :12:06.to the price of rump steak in the past four years? 10%? 10%? It is
:12:06. > :12:15.worse than that. Is a%.
:12:15. > :12:19.Is a%? It is worse than that. It is worse than that. 20%.
:12:19. > :12:24.22% it is worse than that, over the past four years, the price of meat
:12:24. > :12:30.is up 26%. Despite the fact that the inflation
:12:30. > :12:34.rate is not up to the levels of the 70s, people are feeling the pinch.
:12:34. > :12:37.Poorer people spend a higher proportion of income on basic
:12:37. > :12:41.products like food and fuel. Exactly the feigning thing thats
:12:41. > :12:45.that have gone up the most. There is a big difference between
:12:45. > :12:49.the general inflation rate and the rate at which the things that we
:12:49. > :12:54.really need, food, housing or childcare are becoming more
:12:54. > :13:00.expensive. At the same time, their incomes are stagnant or sometimes
:13:00. > :13:06.going down. So you are trying to pay for the same thing, with more
:13:06. > :13:13.for it and less money to spend. The lowest-paid are the worst
:13:13. > :13:18.affected. Their pay fell by almost 5% between 2010 and 2011.
:13:18. > :13:25.While so many are struggle, there is a growing feeling that the rich,
:13:25. > :13:32.by contrast, have never had it so In fact, the share of income of the
:13:32. > :13:34.top 1% doubled between the years The highest earners often justify
:13:34. > :13:36.those kinds of rewards by claiming they're creating wealth for
:13:36. > :13:46.everyone, producing jobs, businesses and money that would
:13:46. > :13:55.
:13:55. > :13:59.It wasn't restraint that started the Industrial Revolution. It
:13:59. > :14:06.wasn't restraint that inspired us to explore for oil in the North Sea
:14:06. > :14:13.and bring it ashore. It was Positive, vital, driving,
:14:13. > :14:19.Margaret Thatcher became leader of the Conservative Party in 1975, the
:14:19. > :14:25.last time the UK was in a double- dip recession. Her answer to that
:14:25. > :14:28.economic chaos was to release the full force of the free market.
:14:28. > :14:35.We'll do it by letting profits rise to a level which offers a real
:14:35. > :14:44.One of the biggest long-term beneficiaries are the bankers and
:14:44. > :14:48.Fund manager Crispin Odey is one of the new class of Britain's super-
:14:48. > :14:57.rich. According to the Sunday Times Rich List in 2010, he took home
:14:57. > :15:07.Together we shall meet the crisis of this country, and tomorrow the
:15:07. > :15:07.
:15:07. > :15:13.Show me the incentive, and I will show you the outcome. If you're
:15:13. > :15:16.wanting a vibrant economy, you are going to have winners and losers.
:15:16. > :15:22.We will only basically save ourselves if we start forgiving the
:15:22. > :15:26.bankers, because we've got to allow banking to be profitable. If
:15:26. > :15:30.banking is profitable, people will lend money. If people lend money,
:15:30. > :15:33.the economy will grow. So you're saying it's actually good for the
:15:33. > :15:38.whole nation to have an elite group who are wealth creators, because
:15:38. > :15:42.they drag, in your view, the whole of the nation up. That's what I'm
:15:42. > :15:46.saying. There's been no shortage of
:15:46. > :15:49.incentives for the top earners in recent years. It's a reward many
:15:49. > :15:55.feel is unpalatable, given others in the City are today accused of
:15:55. > :15:59.sharp practice and potential illegal behaviour. The wider
:15:59. > :16:05.question is whether the rewards at the top trickle down to the rest of
:16:05. > :16:08.the working population. If we have an economic model which
:16:08. > :16:10.increasingly concentrates the fruits of that economy at the very
:16:10. > :16:13.top, then what happens is you create consumer societies without
:16:13. > :16:23.the capacity to consume, and that is because you're cutting
:16:23. > :16:25.
:16:25. > :16:30.Do you want a vibrant economy in which there is change, and where
:16:30. > :16:35.there is improvement, and there is a general sort of entrepreneurism?
:16:35. > :16:40.In which case, you're going to get these inequalities. Or do you want
:16:40. > :16:44.a much more stable society that might not move at all? You can
:16:44. > :16:49.either all be richer, or you can all be more equal, you can't be
:16:49. > :16:52.both? That's what I'm saying. And in fact the gap between rich
:16:52. > :16:57.and poor has grown faster in Britain than in any other developed
:16:57. > :17:00.country in recent decades. We've done research that's looked into
:17:00. > :17:07.the future, looked to the year 2020, and what that's telling us is that
:17:07. > :17:12.gap's going to continue to get The gap's even more obvious when
:17:12. > :17:21.times are tough, as in this recession. This is a rare sight
:17:21. > :17:27.South Yorkshire was once synonymous with coal, but now the industry is
:17:27. > :17:33.all but dead. Hayley Taylor is among those trying to pick up the
:17:33. > :17:36.pieces. Half a mile below the wet streets of Dennerby lies the seam
:17:36. > :17:39.of coal upon which the town's poor fortunes are literally built.
:17:39. > :17:44.There's over a million unemployed now, in't there, so where else can
:17:44. > :17:47.we go? There's nothing else round here.
:17:47. > :17:52.Pit villages like Stainforth grew up around Doncaster to service the
:17:52. > :17:58.mines. Once models of activity and industry, they are now among the
:17:58. > :18:06.worst unemployment black spots in the country. OK, who's got a mobile
:18:06. > :18:09.phone on them? What's that mobile phone doing right now? I want it
:18:09. > :18:14.off. Employment consultant Hayley Taylor
:18:14. > :18:16.is running a jobs workshop for young unemployed people. Almost a
:18:16. > :18:22.quarter of under-24-year-olds here are not in work, education or
:18:22. > :18:26.training. You don't read the paper, how do you find a job in the paper
:18:26. > :18:28.if you don't read it? Hayley finds that the youngsters she meets are
:18:28. > :18:35.ill-prepared for the harsh realities of today's employment
:18:35. > :18:39.market. They don't understand what a CV is, they don't know how to
:18:39. > :18:42.apply for a job, it's never taught. What is required of them in work,
:18:42. > :18:46.what a National Insurance card is for, what happens in the working
:18:46. > :18:51.world, what are the expectations of an employer from an employee.
:18:51. > :18:56.Teresa is 17. She left school last year but has so far failed to find
:18:56. > :19:00.work. You don't believe in yourself, why? What is there not to believe
:19:00. > :19:06.in? I don't know, I've had experience, but when you've tried
:19:06. > :19:11.so much, it just... I don't know, it makes you feel worthless and
:19:11. > :19:15.you're not going to get anywhere. It kind of makes you want to give
:19:15. > :19:24.up, but you don't want to, because you want to get out there and get a
:19:24. > :19:27.For youngsters like Teresa and her friend Amy, prospects are bleak.
:19:27. > :19:32.The employment landscape is wholly different to what it was in the
:19:32. > :19:35.'70s. It was an automatic assumption that all the guys that I
:19:35. > :19:39.was at school with would follow in their fathers' footsteps, which was
:19:39. > :19:42.to go and work in the mining industry. The girls, they were very
:19:42. > :19:45.much evolved in wanting to work for the farm stores, which was packing
:19:45. > :19:47.food for the supermarkets at that time, whereas now those openings
:19:47. > :19:54.don't exist, because you know those industries, unfortunately, in
:19:54. > :19:58.Yorkshire have all gone. Teresa may lack confidence, but she
:19:58. > :20:02.certainly doesn't lack determination.
:20:02. > :20:09.When you come into town looking for work, you often can't afford the
:20:09. > :20:15.bus, can you? No, we walk. How long is it? It's like six or seven miles
:20:15. > :20:21.each way. That's a long walk. it's tiring. But it shows we're
:20:21. > :20:31.trying and not just sitting at home doing nothing. It shows we're up
:20:31. > :20:39.early and wanting to get out there In places like this, the journey
:20:39. > :20:41.back to work is not one that people can make without help. 20 years
:20:41. > :20:47.after the coal mining industry largely left the region, there is
:20:47. > :20:54.still nothing to replace it. It has therefore fallen to the public
:20:54. > :20:58.purse to support much of this A third of all jobs in Doncaster
:20:58. > :21:05.are in the public sector. Around a fifth of the working population are
:21:05. > :21:10.on benefits. How many jobs do you apply for?
:21:10. > :21:15.week, I would say about 12 or 13. Like two a day. You're not fussy
:21:15. > :21:21.about the jobs you take? anything. You just get nothing,
:21:21. > :21:24.just like e-mails, you're either too young or inexperienced.
:21:24. > :21:30.ruins your confidence, just trying and trying and just getting shot
:21:30. > :21:36.down. There is talk about an actual lost generation of youth, do you
:21:36. > :21:39.think that's accurate? I think that's totally accurate. Their
:21:39. > :21:42.opinion is that there there's no hope, there is no hope for them.
:21:42. > :21:47.There is no hope of opportunities, no hope of employment, there's no
:21:47. > :21:54.new business being created. You know, this is just an existence and
:21:54. > :21:56.not a life, and to hear that is so Though the latest figures show a
:21:56. > :22:02.slight drop in overall unemployment, more than a million under-24-year-
:22:02. > :22:07.olds are still out of work. That's one in five, just down from its
:22:07. > :22:13.record high early this year. The consequences of cutting off a
:22:14. > :22:17.generation from work and opportunity could be severe.
:22:17. > :22:21.Those people who are taking the biggest pain are people who had no
:22:21. > :22:23.responsibility for this crisis. There is a danger of, you know,
:22:23. > :22:25.spreading social unrest and antagonism towards a society that
:22:25. > :22:35.seems to deny a significant proportion of the population decent
:22:35. > :22:39.
:22:39. > :22:42.opportunities and decent Though the causes were complex and
:22:42. > :22:52.hotly debated, we caught a glimpse of what that kind of social unrest
:22:52. > :23:03.
:23:03. > :23:06.In August last year, this corner of Clapham descended into chaos. The
:23:06. > :23:16.shops were looted, buildings burnt on and pitched battles fought with
:23:16. > :23:16.
:23:16. > :23:26.There were similar scenes in other city centres. More than 4,000
:23:26. > :23:31.At times of crisis, we've traditionally turned to our
:23:31. > :23:37.political leaders, trusting they'll have the answer. Today that's no
:23:37. > :23:40.longer true. In a survey for Panorama, we found that over two-
:23:40. > :23:50.thirds, 67% of the population, have little or no confidence in our
:23:50. > :23:54.
:23:54. > :24:04.politicians' ability to get us out Most of the country believes our
:24:04. > :24:08.political class are simply not up If you had to pick a word to
:24:08. > :24:12.describe this situation that we're all in now, what would that be?
:24:12. > :24:14.Quite angry in a lot of ways, because I think the way I see it is
:24:14. > :24:18.that the people who are actually making the decisions for the
:24:18. > :24:20.country are people who are out of touch with the people who are
:24:20. > :24:24.actually at the bottom, who are actually suffering. And also a
:24:24. > :24:34.sense of not being able to change it, not just being frustrated but
:24:34. > :24:35.
:24:35. > :24:40.being... Helpless. Helpless, yeah, A lack of faith in politicians is
:24:40. > :24:46.only part of the problem. Today there is an increasing sense that
:24:46. > :24:56.we are not all in this together. There are symbols of growing
:24:56. > :25:02.
:25:02. > :25:05.inequalities everywhere. Take our In the 1970s, footballers on the
:25:05. > :25:08.pitch felt much like they were the same people who were on the
:25:08. > :25:14.terraces, there was a continuity between the two. That simply
:25:14. > :25:20.doesn't exist anymore. Footballers have become so well paid that the
:25:20. > :25:23.connection between the supporters and the players has disappeared.
:25:24. > :25:26.Today you have to come down to football's lower leagues, to places
:25:26. > :25:29.like Brentford, to recapture the togetherness of the '70s, where
:25:29. > :25:37.supporters still feel they're living in the same world as the
:25:37. > :25:40.players they're watching. There was a sense that we were, to coin a
:25:40. > :25:44.phrase, all in it together, that I think is going to be very difficult
:25:44. > :25:47.to recapture now. Because I think people will look at the super-rich,
:25:47. > :25:55.the elite in society, and say, well, clearly we're not all in it
:25:55. > :25:58.together, there are things that I don't know how I'll get through.
:25:58. > :26:01.Cheer up, could be worse. The state this country's in, you could be
:26:01. > :26:07.free. Stuck outside, with no work and a crumbling economy. How
:26:07. > :26:14.The visibly growingly gap in inequality in society is adding to
:26:14. > :26:17.a sense of tension and anger. Even those who have benefitted the most
:26:17. > :26:24.in recent years agree that their advancement has caused a sense of
:26:24. > :26:27.frustration. I think that when the train stops, like it's stopped,
:26:27. > :26:34.it's then that everybody starts to say who's in first class and who's
:26:34. > :26:41.in second class, and basically, you know, let's storm the first class.
:26:41. > :26:44.The disadvantaged feel increasingly lost and isolated. The gap has
:26:44. > :26:47.widened between those who have and those who have not. People just
:26:47. > :26:51.don't know where to go. Every time they turn around, there's more
:26:51. > :26:54.money been taken off them and more charges been put on them. One of
:26:54. > :26:59.the fears about the country is that there's what they're calling a lost
:26:59. > :27:06.generation. Do you feel lost? without a job, a job's mainly all I
:27:06. > :27:09.want, just to get out there and just to do something with every day.
:27:09. > :27:12.At the end of the 1970s, Britain found an answer to the economic
:27:12. > :27:19.chaos by identifying the unions as a common enemy and turning to the
:27:19. > :27:24.free market instead. This time it seems we have a new common enemy,
:27:24. > :27:27.City bankers. But unlike the '70s, there's no obvious radical
:27:27. > :27:37.alternative, even though the sense of frustration and anger which lead
:27:37. > :27:41.
:27:41. > :27:43.to such huge change back then is Next week, Panorama is on the trail