A Tory dystopia

[Thinking Man's Idiot]

2014: A Tory dystopia

David Cameron’s apple-pie promises and feel-good rhetoric might sweep him to power in 2010, but there’s a yawning gap between the vagueness of his words and the likely consequences of his policies.

Alex Nunns takes us on a trip into the future to see how Britain might look after four years of Tory rule

http://www.rinf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3113

[Thinking Man's Idiot]

Exercise in sophistry

(Wednesday 01 October 2008)

DAVID Cameron's speech to the Tory Party conference was an exercise in sophistry, which betrayed the reality that he has no more idea than Gordon Brown how to respond to the current financial crisis or the crises to come.



"To do difficult things for the long term or even to get us through the financial crisis in the short term, it's not experience we need, it's character and judgement," he declared.

And how do we begin to estimate a candidate's character and judgement? Why not look at what they and their colleagues have done?

Mr Cameron's record includes close association with Tory chancellor Norman Lamont in the days of Black Wednesday when interest rates went through the roof and negative equity for homeowners was rampant.

He was also implicated in drafting the repressive and xenophobic Tory Party manifesto on which Michael Howard sailed into oblivion.
How much character and judgement went into deciding to be involved in these twin disasters?

And how much went into the defence that he and his shadow chancellor George Osborne dreamed up to justify taking the tarnished financial donations of hedge funds and short-sellers of shares to the Tory Party?

It wasn't illegal at the time and other parties take donations from bankers summed up their defence. Doesn't that just ooze integrity and sincerity?
But the Tory leader's shortcomings are not confined to the past. What are his answers to today's crisis?

He, as usual, speaks in code, refusing to spell out what the "difficult and unpopular things for the long-term good of the country," to which he is committed, may be.

But his close cohorts have made it clear that holding down public spending will be a clear priority, with many of them employing the same Tory central office-inspired reference to families having to tighten their belts and extending it to public services.

Needless to say, trimming public expenditure will not apply to the armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Tories backed new Labour on these adventures and remain committed to them.

Nor will the Tories be planning to hack the tens of billions of pounds of public money extended to the banking sector, without any transfer of equity, to set the City gravy train back in motion at the earliest possibility.

No. The Tories' prime targets will be the same ones to which they return without fail at every general election.

Those are health, education, the Civil Service, local authorities and welfare spending and, as ever, they will claim to be capable of identifying areas of inefficiency where huge savings can be made without affecting service delivery.

This is not just because Tories prefer private provision to public but also because they intend to transfer funds meant for public services to finance cuts in direct taxation, which will benefit the wealthy at the cost of the poor.

The gap between rich and poor in Britain is already too wide and getting wider. In times of economic crisis, social services stand between survival for the poor and falling through the net.

Allowing David Cameron to slash already inadequate social provision would be cataclysmic for low-paid workers and those on benefits.

[Thinking Man's Idiot]

Cameron vows return to Thatcherism

(Wednesday 01 October 2008)

by PAUL HASTE

WORRYING: David Cameron at the Tory conference, declaring: "Thank God for Margaret Thatcher."

TORY leader David Cameron tried to divert attention from the collapse of the unrestrained free market that his party has championed by vowing to make the next election a contest between personalities rather than policies on Wednesday.


Making his set-piece speech at the Conservative conference in Birmingham, Mr Cameron threatened to do "difficult and unpopular things for the long-term good of the country" should he become Prime Minister.

And, responding to Gordon Brown's biting critique of the Tory leader as a "novice" who is out of his depth at a time of crisis, Mr Cameron insisted on claiming that his "judgement and character" were needed to lead Britain.

"To get us through the financial crisis, it's not experience we need. Experience is the argument the incumbent uses when they want to stop change," he said.

But he declared to the usual Tory collection of mostly white, wealthy men in the conference hall that Thatcherite policies would definitely be on the agenda in a Cameron-led administration.

"The first duty of government is sound money," he said, making it clear that his priority would be tax breaks for the rich and cuts in public services for working people.

"Thank God for Margaret Thatcher," he added.
But the Labour Party hit back, claiming that the Tory leader's address was "slick PR but failed to answer the tough questions.

"Cameron opposed the national minimum wage when Labour introduced it to stop workers being legally paid just £1.20 an hour. Now, he needs to explain why, instead of helping people on modest incomes, he wants to divert £1 billion to the 3,000 richest people with new tax cuts," a spokeswoman said.

Unite union general secretary Derek Simpson added that the Tories had "remained silent when everyone else was calling for bankers" and City traders' excesses to be reined in.

"Now, the country knows why. Their calls for tax cuts for their friends shows that they are the same old Tories who cannot be allowed to win the next election," he stormed.

Communist Party general secretary Robert Griffiths also warned that "Cameron can't wait to start imposing his anti-working-class policies on the rest of us.

"He is clearly intent on carrying out the wishes of his tax-dodging City paymasters, but what workers need is a Labour government that is as loyal to its class as the Tories are to theirs," he insisted.