Talk in Swindon, 12th December

This Friday, 12th December, from 7.40pm at the Friends Meeting House, Kevin Lister will be speaking on “The Cost of the Illusion” and positing the further question - can we avoid a decent into a totalitarian state.

The talk comes at an apposite time. It is shortly after the government’s autumn spending statement and the climate change talks in Peru.

In the spending statement, the government has revealed the many stark conflicting messages that it must manage.  The Chancellor claims that GDP has increased, yet tax receipts are down, wages are down and the budget deficit is worse than expected. But, we are told not to worry because it will be okay be 2018.

The talk will explain why these contradictions in financial policy exist and that things will definitely not be okay in 2018. In fact, the opposite is true; things will be an awful lot worse driven by the economic impacts from climate change. However just as the Chancellor does not want to acknowledge these drivers, nor do the organisers of the UN climate change conference.

The result is that an illusion of affordability is created, which is masking a dangerous drift towards a new form of totalitarianism.