Tuesday 7 January 2014

Politics into 2014

I once knew a Linda Jack. Her dad was a prison officer. Apparently there's a private prison costing loads because they have to get in public servants to calm the prisoners down because the private cost-cutters don't know the tricks of managing a prison. The prisoners do, so the lunatics have been running the asylum.

That's what this government is like. The lunatics are in charge, whether Michael Gove in education or George Osborne as Chancellor. The latter is despicable, who positively enjoys policies to grind the poor into the dirt. He works on one little tribe to oppose another, like the working poor he also grinds into the ground becoming more hateful of the poor who can't get a job, while of course Cameron talks about immigrants and benefits. This is one nasty bunch.

But there is no narrative of the Liberal Democrats being the good guys in all this. Linda Jack reminds us that Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander do not speak for the Liberal Democrats. I think they are more influential and action-making than Linda Jack and by their deeds we judge them. No one likes poodles and fewer still like turncoats, and the Liberal Democrats are both. Without them propping up the Tories like wooden legs, the Tories could do none of what they are doing and want to do. Political parties cannot go about saying please vote for us on one basis and then acting on an entirely different basis. That's what the Liberal Democrats have done and it is called stealing votes. I voted for them on the basis of their manifesto and I was robbed, as were so many others. For years the Liberal Democrats were even to the left of Blair's Labour, but now in power they have lurched to the hard right, made the hard right possible and actual.

Cameron was once himself a kind of 'progressive' approach to being a Tory, if such is possible, but the criticism of Major about this government (because of where Major grew up, the people now suffering under this lot) has shown this up. Basically Cameron is a Public Relations air-head, and never stood for anything other than appearance. During the floods he went to Kent not to do anything or learn so to offer practical help but to be seen. His PR stupidity was shown when he said he was with 'Team Nigella' during the recent court case involving her employees, causing the judge to have to say words. He is a pathetic Prime Minister because he is allowing all the right wing nut jobs to run amock, and of course he easily joins in (because he doesn't believe in anything himself). He gets on well with his mate Nick Clegg, and Danny Alexander gets on well with George Osborne.

Linda Jack should be mobilising what remains of her party to kick out said Clegg and Alexander. That's if the electorate doesn't get them first. If I lived in Sheffield I'd be after Clegg's blood, and get him out and hope the massacre of the Liberal Democrats teaches them a lesson they'll never forget.

Meanwhile, even if my friends tut tut I'm becoming more impressed with Ed Miliband. I wish he did have the outlook of his father Ralph, but a bit might just rub off. The insight that the economy is there to serve us (cost of living) and not the other way around might just begin a sea-change in policies. No more privatising prisons, for example, and let's have a State investment bank and, leave the East Coast Main Line provider alone and indeed bring more that way so that we can get a return to British Rail and save money on how the railways are run. Oh yes, that was Mr Major. We forget that the Prime Minister who wrecked the railways was John Major, bringing massive bureaucratic costs to an industry that best competes with road and air rather than itself (which it doesn't, anyway).

Let's hope the coalition government collapses in 2014. But don't bet on it. The Liberal Democrats will cling on and cling on. But like their own Vince warns, this recovery may not be a recovery. There is still debt and liquidity swilling around, and one nudge and back it has gone into property again. It will all end in tears again, and Osborne will be as clueless as he is ideological. What a nasty piece of work. I'd never vote Tory in a thousand years (I did in 1979!) but the Liberal Democrats now may have to wait as long, certainly with this bunch in charge and with a rump of a party left after the next election as destroyed by the props, poodles and turncoats that run the party today.

1 comment:

Jonathan Clatworthy said...

Sounds like you're a bit of a floating voter. In that case, presumably your opinions are mostly sympathetic to what the 3 big parties have in common with each other. On the other hand you do say that the economy is there to serve the people, not the other way round. To support a party that takes that on board, you'll have to vote Green. For all I know Miliband may have some personal sympathy for this view but as long as Ed Balls is Shadow Chancellor all we can say for Labour is that they will try a little harder to offset some of the effects of continuing to do the wrong things. Given current Labour policies the gap between rich and poor would continue to increase under them, and we'd carry on destroying the environment at an ever-increasing rate.