It is a delicious paradox that the one persistent theme in the Coalition’s ideology is privatising everything in the public sector that moves, yet nothing has exposed the inadequacies and incompetences of privatisation so ruthlessly as the Government’s enthusiasm for it. The highlight at the moment is the Olympics security fiasco caused by mismanagement at […]
Posts Tagged ‘Coalition’
Government drive for privatisation shows private sector not fit for purpose
Jul 16th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.You know what some people call us
Mar 24th, 2012 by David Osler.You know what some people call us,’ Theresa May famously asked the Conservative Party conference four years ago. Many readers will be tempted to supply their own punchline to that point. But the correct answer, according to Ms May, was ‘the nasty party’. The Tories, she insisted were unrepentant, narrowly based, just plain unattractive. Her […]
David Cameron: the master of cynical propaganda
Jan 16th, 2012 by Owen Jones.When David Cameron tires of this prime minister lark (don’t feel you have to take your time, Dave), he should write a self-help book for aspiring rightwing politicians. It could be titled I Got Away With It – And Here’s How You Can Too. I can think of some of the promo lines: “Are you […]
What Balls said, what Balls means
Jan 15th, 2012 by Carl Packman.Is there any reason to believe Ed Balls supports the Tory-led cuts agenda? No. He said that he accepted the cuts, not agreed with them. He also said “I cannot make commitments now for three years’ time. I won’t do that. It wouldn’t be credible.” So does Ed Balls have ideas to the contrary to […]
Labour-Lib Dem coalition: not the way ahead
Dec 13th, 2011 by David Osler.Ed Balls could not have made himself clearer when asked whether he would countenance a joint Labour-Liberal Democrat administration in 2015. As it happens, the shadow chancellor would like to see one in right this minute.
Greenest government ever? This lot is deepest brown
Dec 6th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.David Cameron’s the front man for this government, doing his PR act flitting from one issue to the next, trying to plug the holes in the dyke whenever they regularly appear. George Osborne is the real power behind the throne, the custodian of the government’s agenda. So when Cameron gets himself photographed cracking the whip […]
Unemployment – a price not worth paying
Oct 14th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.The awful rise in joblessness, so long expected, is now under way – not from a base of a million as in the 1980s, but upwards now from a very high platform of 2.5 million already. Yet the Commons exchanges debating this yesterday were disappointing. Osborne, summoning himself up to his full stature of smug […]
Hackgate: notes on political crises
Jul 18th, 2011 by David Osler.Westland didn’t bring down Thatcher, Major took on the Maastricht Bastards and lived. Not even the combination of illegal war against Iraq, the Kelly suicide and cash for peerages was enough to force Blair to quit. Prime ministers, it seems, invariably ride out a little local difficulty. I do not see anything in either the […]
Three strikes and you’re out, or is it one?
Jun 28th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.Thursday’s strike over Government proposals on public sector pensions will bring to a head simmering tensions on several fronts. Rising anger over the cuts, though the pensions dispute has nothing whatever to do with the budget deficit, will reinforce the resistance, thus far and no further, on an issue where the Government is seen to […]
The debate shouldn’t be whether to resist, but how to resist
Jun 23rd, 2011 by Owen Jones.In thirty years time, school kids studying history will be asked to answer the following question: “How did the British Conservative Party transform a private sector crisis into a crisis of public spending?” However it is answered, the maddening injustice of what the Tories are trying to pull off will scream through the ages. An […]