“This emergency Budget deals decisively with our country's record debts. It pays for the past. And it plans for the future. It supports a strong enterprise-led recovery. It rewards work. And it protects the most vulnerable in our society. Yes it is tough; but it is also fair.”
And those of course were indeed, the opening, pinging words of our newly installed filthy rich kid, snobby and very aristocratic Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne. But first let me just say, ever since that dreadful day when Conservative and Liberal fell into each others capitalist loving arms, a cloud of agitated depression has fallen over me, and I guess, that I’m not on my own as the true horror of a coalition made in hell unfolds in front of our eyes.
So for a time on Wednesday, numbed and gyrating still from the previous days Budget (mugging) which we were told was an emergency I decided to listen to the England/Slovenia World Cup Mach on the old radio, there was two reasons for this, not that suddenly I’ve been converted into an England fan or a national flag waver, no such transformation. I was intrigued after the first two games to discover and to learn if the team was able to perform any better after and following the media and fan lambasting of the team, and to check out the contribution of Jermain Defoe throughout the game. I was not disappointed, with Defoe that is. This sudden interest can only, and I do assure you, attributed in the fact that Jimmy Defoe who is father to the above mentioned now hero of England’s stumbling cheering, no longer barracking fans, happens to be my nearby neighbour here in Canning Town. I can tell you that Jimmy is one proud dad; he was elated, exultantly proud and joyful when I spoke to him yesterday, he told me that Jermain not only scored the first goal of the campaign, but was the first black player to score a goal for England in a World Cup tournament – So well done Jimmy and well done Jermain!
My only fear is that the coalition would take some course credit for the England performance, and up till now haven’t seen anything, just hope it stays that way?
What's especially significant about the emergency Budget has been the advanced and careful PR surrounding it? Clegg and David Cameron both have experience and training and PR backgrounds and its plain to see. Every day a minister or other stands up to tell everyone the problem is far worse than expected, and the public are then softened up for the bad news. Clegg then spouts progressive messages to keep the lefties in his party on side, even if they remain ill at ease with the general thrust of what is happening. This entire process has been rigidly mapped out, not just economically and politically, but also in terms of public relations.
Well three day’s on from the Budget delivery, we are still analyzing its possible impact on working people, and will dissect, break down and examine what is clearly an attack on the working classes in due course.
Meanwhile we think, that’s Brian Hopper and myself who is just back from his holidays (Cyprus) lucky bugger, that Clement Attlee’s last years in office may be of some interest because most of the welfare state (now under attack) as we still know it was put in place in the post war Labour government. The National Health Service (NHS) provided universal health care, State secondary education was free for all. The state was building social housing on council estates. There were new unemployment and sickness benefits (now under attack), free school dinners and milk (now under renewed attack). Yet the government that had done all this barely scraped back at the polls, its majority slashed from 146 to just five. The next year, it was gone.
Why did this happen?
The seemingly endless austerity measures were the main reason. Food rationing ended in West Germany on 6 January, 1950. However in victorious Britain, though, everything except preserves was still on ration. An adult had an ounce and a half of cheese a week, an ounce of cooking fat, and six ounces of butter, then there was the eight ounces of sugar, two pints of milk and the one egg. To the (and Brian will remember this) dismay of children everywhere, sweets, which had gone off-ration in April 1949, were restricted again in August. ‘Unexpected demand was blamed, a poor excuse in a nation that had not been able to indulge its notoriously sweet tooth for almost a decade.
The meat ration was at its lowest level. During the war, it had stood at 87 per cent of pre-war consumption. The government now cut it to 69 per cent. The reason was a breakdown in talks with Don’t Cry for me Argentina, which supplied much of the imported beef. The Tories seized the publicity opportunity and splashed the matchbox-sized meat ration across its election campaign posters. The bacon ration, too, was less than in the war, down on three ounces a week, or three medium-cut rashers, which was not going to make a government popular in a country that, loved the full English breakfast.
Well that’s something to think about, when Labour try to run capitalism, we can see the pitfalls.
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5 comments:
Thanks for the picture of a full english breakfast while I'm at work. It's all I can think of now!
I'm currently reading Trotsky's The Revolution Betrayed and he puts forward that one of the failures of the early Soviets was not meeting the material 'wants' of the masses, ie surpassing capitalism in production. Perhaps that's relevant to the end of the Attlee government?
Chris you are welcome and I've just had a lovely fry-up, mouthwatering and delicious, and of course its a lovely day out, may grab a book and make a day of this heavenly blissfulness!"
Interesting point you have made, need to think about that?
Labour did not tell us the true version of the debt they kept to much off the books like PFI, it upset the peoples, and they voted for a Tory, then Labour had a brain wave and said if you do not want to vote Labour vote Liberal vote Lib Dem, and now look.
But in the end the people think we are in debt they think welfare is evil and people like me who are paraplegic are lying shits who can run around playing football even if it's in a wheelchair.
In the end people did not want or believe Brown and who can blame them, now we have to live for the next five ten or twenty years with Cameron, not sure about Clegg, and I think Cable will have had enough by the next election moving onto the house of lords.
Welfare reforms a new labour regime, last month I was deemed fit to work.
I'm paraplegic have no bowel or bladder function no sexual function, I go around with a PCA which gives me a dose of Morphine, I have an implanted gadget which helps me sit up, and I'm deemed fit to work, so I go down to sign on the dole to get my JSA, to be told your obviously do not meet the requirements for JSA, so you cannot sign on.
Life is fun is it not especially when your at the bottom of the ladder. This is labour not the Tories mind you
Thanks Anonymous,
How long is a piece of string? Or is it part of the whole,altogether problem?
At one end the Tories, at the other the Labour, Liberals whatever we call them they are holding that string, and telling the majority; that's us, how to skip, jump and dive!
That's what they do the establishment's political parties, that, and then tell us we are in debt, but don't they mean the bankers who's extensive liabilities, we are being made to pay for, and that's what people know, but we who are socialist will keep reminding our people of this simple fact.
A society in which the disabled, the unemployed and the vulnerable are made the scapegoats is a society that needs brooming away!
Good point about Cable anonymous. His integrity is shot to pieces and the yellow coat of paint is scuffed and showing through the blue underneath. The Lords may be the only place that will have aim.
Jim, a full breakfast and spending all day in the sun reading a good book? You're either one of the idle rich or a welfare scrounger! You need to get on yer bike or put a jumper on. Least says the Tories.
Only joking!
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