Back in September, before his government’s first budget, the prime minister, Keir Starmer, addressed the Trades Union Congress. “So much of our crumbling public realm – universities, councils, the care system – [are] all even worse than we expected,” he told the assembled delegates.
A Guardian analysis of the government estate in England – looking across the public sector at schools, hospitals, courts and prisons – suggests Starmer was correct to use the word “crumbling”. Other descriptors he could also have used are dilapidated, close to failure and, in some cases, posing a risk to life and safety.
