The government argument for their deliberate distortion of the truth is that their first duty is to re-establish international and then national confidence in the British Financial system and therefore glossing over the more likely reality of the need for severe restrictions on public expenditure and increases in taxation is essential to restore the confidence of the financial markets and consumer spending both at home and abroad. To have done otherwise would be to make the present recession more painful for many more and to delay the process of recovery.
This approach also is politically helpful in that it enables the government to undertake measures to soften the pain for the majority of the electorate especially its traditional vote, and to respond to public anger about those who caused the present situation to occur. This aspect was covered by two measures. The first to remove the significant taxation advantage for those able to invest heavily in private pension arrangements, with the second, increasing income taxation to 50% for those earning over £150000 a year. There is concern that this will be avoided by those able to restrict their income to below £150K and take the otherwise additional income in the form of capital -dividends, shares and such like.
There was also a raft of measure designed to help the economy move forward, stimulate the housing market with a continuing reduction in stamp duty, limiting the period when people will be out of work by improvements in training and further education opportunities, the appointment of individual counsellors and such like, plus the protection of those children with increases in child benefits, and the elderly with the ability to hold more savings before benefits are reduced and improvement to the total funds investable in ISSA’s each year. For me there is a £2000 incentive if one buys a new car and scrap older one and which in turn should reduce the price of second hand vehicles.
The outcome of the budget policy, if it works, is that there will be indications of checks in the downward spiral of trade loss and job loss, and in people losing their ability to pay for their homes and confidence will return. However, this is unlikely to restore political confidence in the government unless there are major mistakes by the main opposition party, hence the political decision to try and create a loss of confidence in the opposition through false accusation and smear. The idea that one individual could generate such a campaign within a political party is absurd, although it is important not to underestimate the power which determined and creative individuals can wield and how quickly false accusation can become popular fact. The intention of the campaign was to damage the Opposition sufficiently to prevent losing power or to damage to such extent that the Opposition would not last in control for more than the next Parliament. The outcome is that it will make it doubly difficult to attack the Conservative opposition except on issues of policy
By equal token it is the responsibility of an Opposition to criticise everything the government does irrespective of whether if in power it would have done or will do differently, or argue that the government is only doing what it has been pressing for and that in general the government is protecting itself and trying to win the next election rather than face the political consequence of the international and national situation. The Opposition must try and ensure that if it is successful it is not handicapped by having to take twice as political damaging expenditure cuts because of government political based measures or is also forced to raise taxes in a situation where it has a tradition of reducing the tax burden and reducing the emphasis on state and local government expenditure, extending personal freedoms from state intervention and controls.
The main problem facing the electorate is that it has become just as cynical and suspicious of Conservative alternative what ever the present opinion polls might say. There are two problems. First, everyone other than first time voters remembers the approach of the Thatcher and subsequent governments. Secondly there are major doubts about the style and personality of Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne. The performance of Mr Cameron in response to the Budget speech by Alistair Darling was extraordinary. He had a great script which should have delivered devastating wounds upon the personal positions of the Prime Minister and his Chancellor, but instead of delivering it with gravitas he sounded like a first student trying to make a name for himself at the Oxford Union. Mr Osborn whose talents I have never understood, until now, delivered one of the most effective TV broadsides on the Chancellor’s statement that I can remember. It was not just the excellence of the script but his delivery was exceptionally convincing. I had to make a hasty reassessment of the man and his potential as a political leader. Like Peter, Lord Mandelson, he promises to become an important come back kid on the political stage.
However they are all being up staged by one individual who goes from strength to strength, that is the Liberal Democrat Vince Cable who would make the ideal Chancellor in a Labour or Conservative electoral pact or administration in a hung Parliament. However the problem is that he is not the Leader of his party and my solution is to make Nick Clegg Foreign Secretary, sorry David, unless he, Nick that is, is willing to accept a Peerage and become government Leader in the House of Lords. This could leave Gordon as Prime Minister, Nick controlling the Lords, until the second chamber is reformed as apart of a overall change in the constitution which would see the UK becoming a Republic after the death of the Queen and a political structure similar to the USA, although without the negative and criminal features of the system.
The idea that the constitution needs to be changed was raised during this week’s TV edition of Question Time in which the Historian and TV personality David Starkie let rip his contempt for politicians and the Labour Government in particular. This arose out of discussion of the Prime Minister’s proposal that Members of the House of Commons would not receive allowances for needing two homes but would be paid in effect an expenses attendance allowance, without having to submit receipts although I understand that for the E.E C the approach of some Members is to SISO... which stands for sign and then sod off, their words not mine).
The Opposition leader chose to use his six questions at Prime Ministers Questions on economic and financial matters, which appeared to be a surprise given that that he had opportunity to make the same points in his reply to the budget. The tactic was obviously to discredit the Prime Minister and the Chancellor before the details of the statements were known.
It is also suggested that he did not want to raise the issue of the smear campaign because this could put Conservative tactics under the spotlight. Similarly there were as many problems on his side the House as Labour on the issue of expenses and when in the future the publication of receipts for previous expenses would become available and more uncomfortable revelation are anticipated. The Conservative opposition with its tradition of supporting the military and the police regardless of what they do, also has difficulties in taking up the cause of the complainants at police tactics and individual police behaviour.
On the TV Any questions one visitor/refugee from Somalia made the valid point that whatever occurred in the UK it is harmless compared to what happens in countries as his own. Others made the point that in the USA armed State Troopers are deployed and in mainland Europe there is regular use of water cannon. Everywhere the police are now trained and deployed wearing protective gear to avoid personal injury and which is intended to be intimidating to demonstrators.
I was interested to read a view of the demonstration and police tactics by Laurens Otter, now well into his 70s and he and his wife, Celia are still campaigning for peace against wars. Together they hit their local headlines recently when they protested during a visit of the Prime Minister to their area. They were arrested, held for several hours and then released without charge according to the media report. Then Laurens published a piece about his experience at the G20. I first encountered Laurens, an Anglo catholic anarchist pacifist and vegan when I obtained a short term job at Houseman’s, the bookshop and he participated in the Wednesday evening posting out of the latest edition of Peace News. We journeyed subsequently together to two Liverpool to Hull Youth CND marches and he was also one of the six month Operation Foulness prisoners.
He, like me operated direct action according Gandhian principles of non violent action in which any action was part of a campaign of persuading people to change their actions and outlook and where any action which involve breaking the law or ignoring police requests to not to sit or to move away was detailed in advance to the authorities and the media. It was anticipated that the authorities would agree to protests, demonstrations and marches as long as they conformed to police and local authority requirements but in relation to anything outside the law or which refused to accept police directions then while the police welcome the information we provided they would never disclose their tactics and response in advance. As I have written before it was part and parcel of organisations which question or challenged the state whether of the left or right, religious or secular for the authorities within the UK, and from other nations to infiltrate for information and to disrupt and similarly the media would also be involved officially and unofficially. At times it was difficult to separate the plants from the genuine demonstrator. This all came back o the fore this morning when a young member of a climate change action organisation provided tape evidence of being offered financial incentives to provide information on the organisation which she supported to the authorities. No doubt she will become a Member of Parliament and eventually a right wing minister explaining why even more individual freedoms have to be compromised because the threats have become greater and more difficult to combat. Such is the circle of life as each new generation rediscovers what their grandparents learnt when they were of the same age.
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