Just as Thatcher ploughed ahead with her ideological totem, the poll tax, in the face of clear evidence that it was deeply unpopular, so her modern-day acolytes around Cameron seem determined to do exactly the same thing over fracking, with very likely the same results. Despite the intense resistance demonstrated against Cuadrilla’s plans to set up drilling at Balcombe in the Sussex Weald, the government pressed ahead with their determination to allow fracking beneath people’s homes which, given Tories’ obsession with the sacred rights of property, is an extraordinary revelation that for them commercial interests now trump everything.
As required under Whitehall rules, the government then undertook a consultation about their plans. It turned out that there were 40,647 responses, of whom 99% were opposed. The government then, with the typical arrogance of the Westminster establishment which proved so toxic in the Scottish referendum, decided nevertheless to go ahead regardless. In a breathtaking illustration of their contempt for public opinion they put out the following statement: Continue reading
No-one forgets that the poll tax was the trigger that brought down Thatcher. Then a Tory government was pushing its ideology to extremes – a flat-rate tax system, a brutal destruction of manufacturing industry, defenestration of the trade unions, a blindness to community and altruism in favour of selfishness and individualism, a deliberate huge wedge driven into the abyss between rich and poor. 