Posted on 2016-11-14 | 02:12

Speaking at a meeting in his constituency Roger gave his views on the result of the American Elections. Said Roger: “A lot of people were shocked that somebody with as many flaws in his character as Donald Trump could become President of the most powerful country on earth but while I very much regret the result I have to say that I was not at all surprised.

"It has been obvious since the financial crash in the western world in 2008/9 – caused by the greed of some people in the banking and financial sectors who took advantage of the lax regulations which had been brought in at their request - that there was an ever increasing anger and rage throughout the western world by the many people who had suffered, and been victims of, the march towards increasing globalisation and the neoliberal economic policies of privatisation and deregulation which had accompanied it.

"Many people in the western world have seen their jobs destroyed or transferred to Asian or South American countries; their communities in which they lived allowed to stagnate and die as once thriving town centres turned into ghost towns; inequality within societies rise as those at the top amassed vast fortunes while the vast majority of people saw their living standards decline. The beneficiaries of globalisation have been workers in Asian and South America whereas the victims have been working people in many parts of the United Kingdom and in the once prosperous industrial mid-west of America.

"If you had held a job in the car industry in Michigan or the steel industry in Ohio and had been earning $70,000 a year but had seen your job disappear to somewhere else in the world and you were now only earning $30,000 a year made up of doing two jobs you were obviously going to be very disillusioned with the established politicians who had presided over this and if a demagogue like Donald Trump came along and said that he understood your anger and was going to do something about it then why wouldn’t you vote for him even if you did not really believe what he was saying.

"The victory by Donald Trump was a massive vote against the established status quo and against multi-national companies who avoid paying their fair share of taxes by sending their profits to exotic tax havens and against trade deals which are promoted by big business in order to increase their profits.

"If Donald Trump does not honour the promises he has made, particularly with regard to jobs and free-trade deals, then public opinion in America could turn very quickly against him but if 2016 proves to be the end of the financial orthodoxy which has prevailed since the Reagan/Thatcher period then one good thing might have come out these elections."