NB the slogan bottom right…
There is always an agenda, and we are always the last item on it
True to his name as ever, Draper Osborne will tell the EU in a speech today that it must halt the continent’s “continuing decline” by backing business and cutting welfare spending, otherwise we’ll be taking our ball home….even if it does have a slow puncture.
Those who still wonder what Nobsore’s agenda is should listen very carefully to the speech. The majority of thinking Britons don’t GAF about how the EU does or doesn’t back business: their overwhelming concerns are the cost and the undemocratic nature of decision-making. And dislike of the cost is far more to do with short-hours, overpaid bureaucrats on the take than it is with the cost of welfare. There is not, after all, a lot of welfare available in Greece at the moment, and in Spain there is zero left in the budgets for it. As for Italy, you don’t want to know.
It’s the same old same old from Robsone: cut the cost of looking after citizens, and make life cosy for banks and fat for shareholders. But that’s not really the point of the speech. The point is to establish Camerlot’s positioning prior to persuading the electorate and the Conservative Right that we can still establish ourselves as the folks in charge. And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Merkeschäuble is more than happy to play along with lots of bigged-up ‘reforms’ that amount to diddly-squat, but leave every civil servant in a job.
It is, after all, the way things work everywhere: the banks and the bureaucrats always win. So while the speech will be utter rot from start to finish, it is also entirely predictable as a move.
Pretty much the same was true of Avid Cameldung’s outburst yesterday: if you have no facts to back your argument, call your opponent mad. It was the modus operandi of the USSR for many a year, and now Camerloon has applied it to fracking. The real long-term effects of fracking are unknown, but from American experiences there are already a few signposts. However, as I keep banging on ad nauseam, America doesn’t have our poor water-supply infrastructure.
So really, the same underlying reasoning (if I can honour it with that word) is being applied: f**k the needs and safety of the citzenry, our mates want it done and it might get us out of our self-created hole, so let’s do it.
And don’t imagine this stops at national level: the same entitlement to put the citizen last permeates down almost undiluted to local level. Every year, we are using more and more packaging that has to be either burnt, buried or recycled. So in the face of growing demand, local councils have decided to restrict supply. This is not a wind-up: one in four local authorities is now supplying refuse bins which are up to 50 per cent smaller than those previously given to households. That number has almost doubled, from 59 in 2010 to 94 last year, despite protests from residents. The changes affect nearly six million homes….and come hard on the heels of moving to fortnightly bin collections.
Yet again, no thought for how to spend the money most wisely on the citizen’s behalf: just “How can we keep the gravy train going without going over budget?” or, without doubt in some cases, “How can we create an outcry and then blame the cuts?” Money and politics come first, we come last.
Within weeks of being elected, almost every official goes native and joins the “they work for us” delusion; while Civil Servants, of course, are assured of this warped reality from the day they join.
It’s not just a British problem, it’s an anthropologico-cultural problem. It probably needs some carefully thought-out, sensitive approach based on neuroscience. I’m thinking the restoration of the death penalty myself, but I’d be interested in anyone else’s views.
The Slog 