The Politics of ...

The Politics of ...

Sunday 24 October 2010

Reality Bites

Apparently, I'm a 'Deficit Denier'.

This is the term used by Tory boys for anyone who either doesn't feel the cuts are fair or doesn't believe that Lord Snooty's plans aren't the best thing since torturing fags at Eton.

I don't think there are many people who are actively denying that cuts were needed. Britain, like most of the rest of the world, is in debt and something needed to be done about it. It's just an even more massive insult to intelligent people to be told by pompous 'I'm all right Jack' Tories that we actually know nothing.

On Nick Clegg's Facebook page there was, at first, a stampede of insults aimed at the political equivalent of a Transformer (he's a Tory in disguise!) and then, quite remarkably, a backlash against the backlash. Ironically, very few of the people defending Cleggatron were actually Liberals, most of them were Tories. One in particular, a guy called Andrew, was a self-employed financial advisor from Oxford who like Neil O'Brien, the Director of the Tory supporting Policy Exchange, was calling for more money to be taken away from the poor; because giving them less will encourage them to get jobs. An idea which would possibly work if there were jobs to apply for. Andrew also spouted on about people having to make difficult decisions and these cuts not being about fairness but about being in the national interest. Like most politicians, when casual readers of the Facebook page asked him for specifics or to explain himself, he suddenly was no where to be seen.

I've been slightly bemused by the way the press seems to have drawn a line under the affair. On Thursday there was 11 pages devoted to Lord Snooty; by Saturday, The Guardian's coverage had dropped to less than 2 pages. But, I realised that the editors probably felt having page after page of commentators forecasting the end of civilisation as we know it would probably not be good for sales. Obviously the Daily Mail thrives on such stories, yet amazingly they seemed to be in full support of Blackadder's sanctioned cuts. After all, of the 1.8million unemployed in the UK, probably 1.7999million are scroungers, fraudsters and are purposefully screwing the rest of us while laughing into their Pinot Grigios, watching their flat screen TVs and driving their Lamborghinis (without tax or insurance) around the filth laden streets of Britain's council estates...

The main thing we all need to understand is that a lot of these massive cuts will not happen for a few weeks or months. This allows us (and Dave Blackadder & Nick Baldrick) to prepare for the changes. It makes me wonder how this entertaining double act is going to deal with the mass unemployment that will undoubtedly kick in once Georgie's cuts kick in. I mean, even if the Private sector has faith in the future of this country, it's going to take a while for that to actually happen. It'll also be interesting to see how the ConDems deal with the fact that the so-called Export-led Recovery will only work if other countries decide to buy anything from us. It seems the ConDems are the only people in the country that haven't noticed that every other country in the world are having the same economic problems that we are.

On a moral standpoint; how long is it going to be before the conscientious Liberals (because there must be a few of the left) realise that the unfairness of making the poor pay for the mistakes of the bonus greedy bankers has placed them in an untenable position; one which is likely to see them all out of work and joining the swelling ranks of unemployed and hopeless people?

Of course, there could be a school of thought in Westminster that is actively waiting and hoping that there is some form of civil unrest; because governments love the peasants revolting, as it suddenly gives them the moral high ground regardless of how wrong their policies are. Violence solves nothing and neither does industrial action. If there were mass strikes once the cuts start to bite you might get a high percentage of the populace actually supporting them; but once the rubbish starts to pile up, or the buses stop running, or X Factor isn't on the screens, the support will waiver and crash. Just look at France: 79% of the population supported the industrial action; but once the petrol started to run out and the bins started overflowing with effluence, that support has dropped to 59% and it will continue to drop; because, essentially, the majority of people will only support something as long as it doesn't impact on their own lives for long.

So, the long and the short of it is, the ConDems know that however much a percentage of the country will moan about it; the support and sympathy of the rest of the country will not stick for long. The reason for this is because about 25 years ago, a very evil woman destroyed community spirit, made the unions out to be the spawn of Satan and turned a large percentage of the country into greedy bastards.

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When this woman finally dies there is going to be some crazy things happen. There will be a goodly percentage of people who will demand that she is given a state funeral and that she is honoured in some way - maybe a statue in Trafalgar Square or even Parliament Square. These people will campaign tirelessly for the woman to be given the send off she deserves.

On the other hand there will be a goodly percentage of people who will spontaneously break out in celebration; these people will organise street parties and the streets will be over run by people for whom that day has been a long time coming. It might be viewed by people as a horrendous display of disrespect to the dead; especially one who achieved so much for this country. The people celebrating her death will undoubtedly campaign tirelessly for the woman to be given the burial she deserves - either dropping down an abandoned colliery or left in a dustbin on a council estate in Toxteth. Perhaps they could just cut her body up into pieces and give parts to any one who can prove that she was responsible for the downfall of whatever part of the country they live in.

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