How working-class children ended up paying for the financial crisis – Owen Jones

From special educational needs funding to youth centres, post-crash cuts have wrought havoc in Britain’s poorest communities. A decade ago, the banks and their powerful allies tipped much of the western world into crisis. They were never going to pay for it: in Britain, a Conservative party they kept financially afloat has made sure of it. The richest 1,000 families resident in Britain – bankers and financiers among them – have more than doubled their net worth during an era of austerity and stagnating living standards. Instead, the crisis would be paid for with the future of an entire generation, not least youngsters from working-class backgrounds. Last week the BBC broadcaster Andrew Neil tweeted that he’d “treat people who want to start class war as same as race war”, in effect comparing leftists who believe in challenging gross disparities of wealth and power with white supremacists. But as the billionaire Warren Buffett put it: “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” Read more.