Austerity

How Will Lying About Immigration And The Deficit Improve Trust In Politics?

Samuel Hooper5 Comments

Spectator David Cameron Deficit Debt Reduction Lie 2

 

Somehow, the message still isn’t getting through.

“We just want you to level with us, own up to your past failings and tell us where you really stand on the key issues we care about”, scream Britain’s voters to their increasingly detatched political leaders, in the subtext to every single opinion poll or by-election result of 2014. In response, our political leaders scratch their heads and look confused. “So you want us to pretend as though we understand and respect you?”

Britain’s established political parties have been haemorrhaging support to the new insurgents – UKIP, the Green Party and the fastest growing bloc of all, those who have given up on politics and voting entirely – since the inconclusive 2010 general election and subsequent formation of the coalition government laid bare how vanishingly little difference there really is between the red, blue and yellow team consensus. And as the 2015 general election approaches, each of the establishment parties will come face to face with their own reckoning: David Cameron’s Conservatives face the humiliating prospect of failing to win an outright majority for the second consecutive time, Ed Miliband’s Labour Party behold the implosion of their 35% core vote strategy and Nick Clegg’s LibDems hunker down and wait for the sweet release of electoral oblivion.

In a sane world, the growing revulsion and contempt felt by the British people toward their political class might by now have led to a degree of introspection and a nagging desire among politicians and political parties to cease their endless cycle of cynical, self-destructive behaviour. But we do not live in a sane world. And so the response of Britain’s main parties to the groundswell of public anger at their inability to be honest about their past records and current policies is not to come clean and give honesty a try, but rather to double-down and turn up the brazen deceit to “maximum”.

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Ed Miliband Talks About The Deficit, Says Absolutely Nothing

Samuel Hooper3 Comments

Ed Miliband Speech Deficit Austerity Economic Policy Media SPS

 

How many times have we been told to expect a “big speech” from Labour’s ex-Leader in waiting, Ed Miliband?

Today is the day when Ed Miliband finally gets serious and fires the starting gun for the 2015 general election campaign, we were told. This is the day when the Labour party will stop being scared of its own shadow or apologetic for its past, and tackle the issue of Britain’s persistent budget deficit head-on. In fact, the latest oration by Miliband was so heavily trailed by Labour’s press team that even seasoned and cynical Westminster reporters were teased into expecting some kind of new policy proposal or big announcement. And what did we get? The same lack of specifics and anticlimactic sense of time wasted that Ed Miliband always manages to evoke.

This blog has long pointed out that Ed Miliband wouldn’t know a great political speech if one jumped off the teleprompter and hit him square in the face – a typical Miliband speech is a more or less random assortment of short, standalone platitudes, focus group-tested to ensure their bland inoffensiveness, and none of which exceed ten words so as not to tax the brain of the listener, whose intelligence is so rudely and continually insulted. This being so, it was a pity to see much of the mainstream press, starved of inspiring political oratory for so long, lazily repeating back the assertion that this was indeed a Big Speech by Miliband, just because the Labour press office labelled it so.

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The Obscenity Of Middle-Class Giveaways During Austerity

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

Middle Class Benefits

 

Are we all in this together, as George Osborne insists, or are we not?

The Labour Party and their sympathisers in the media have been asking this question non-stop since the coalition government came to power in 2010, shrieking with outrage every time a new policy was announced which failed to forcibly grab enough from the rich and scatter the proceeds over the heads of the deserving poor. And throughout this time we have been treated to some wildly over-the-top rhetoric and mischaracterisations, such as Polly Toynbee’s insistence that “people feel in their pockets … that the middle and lower half are deliberately made to pay the price, while Osborne gifts the richest the most.”

(How could it be otherwise, one might well ask. Labour spent thirteen years in government making even middle-class families reliant on benefits, tax credits and public services, so there was no way that government spending could then be cut in times of austerity without causing more pain and human suffering than should otherwise have been the case. And yet still we look wistfully at Gordon Brown as he saunters off into the sunset, and glare sullenly at David Cameron and George Osborne as they deal with Brown’s toxic legacy).

We may still be stumbling out of the crater left by the Great Recession and the dubious economic recovery, but that doesn’t mean that every tax rise or spending decision has to be, or even can be, progressive. To behave in such a way would be foolish – we would end up in a situation where we forcibly “spread the wealth around” in good times because there is more cash to be expropriated from the successful in an economic boom, and then spread the wealth around some more in lean times because that’s the “compassionate” thing to do. Meanwhile, we would have created such a universal disincentive to work hard, invest and succeed that anyone with wealth to expropriate will have dialled back their efforts or fled the country altogether.

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90,000 Followers, In Search Of A Leader

Samuel Hooper2 Comments

TUC Britain Needs A Pay Rise demonstration Anti Capitalist Protester SPS

 

Bring back Russell Brand, all is forgiven.

The comedian turned author was actually present at Saturday’s “Britain Needs A Pay Rise” demonstration in central London, showing his solidarity by marching with a contingent from the Royal College of Nursing and posing for pictures with the crowd at the rally in Hyde Park.

But good old RustyRockets appeared in a strictly unofficial capacity – in sharp contrast to his star billing at the People’s Assembly “March For The Alternative” anti-austerity protest in June, where he was rashly installed as the ceremonial figurehead of the socialist movement. And by the end of the day’s proceedings it was clear that the ideal quantity of Russell Brand to spice up your mass demonstration lies somewhere between these two extremes.

The TUC march drew up to 90,000 people onto the streets of London in support of their calls for a higher and more rigorously enforced minimum wage, and in opposition to various coalition government policies. This was almost twice as many as the People’s Assembly march back in June. And yet somehow it felt rather flat and underwhelming by comparison.

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Britain Needs A Pay Rise – If At First You Don’t Succeed…

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

TUC Britain Needs A Pay Rise Demonstration SPS

 

Back in June of this year 50,000 angry people stomped through central London and held a rally in Parliament Square, while nobody else paid them the slightest bit of attention.

When the People’s Assembly “Demand The Alternative” march against austerity failed to achieve top billing on the BBC and Sky evening news bulletins (or to make the cut at all), aggrieved protesters took to the internet with wild claims of an establishment conspiracy and sinister media cover-up.

This blog responded by observing that protest movements that deny basic economic realities, sulkily view their opponents as two-dimensional cartoon characters and choose Russell Brand as their figurehead don’t really deserve the attention or respect of the wider public, let alone hold a legitimate claim to speak for the rest of us.

Defeated, the activists retreated to plan their next move. And now they’re back for Round 2.

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