Equality of sacrifice? No chance. Cameron, Osborne and Clegg as true class warriors will look after the rich.

David Cameron says that there will be “difficult decisions” on pay, pensions and benefits.  He says that there will be “painful” cuts ahead, but that in dealing with the deficit “our whole way of life” will be affected but not in a way that hits the vulnerable or “divides the country”.  Pull the other one, Dave.  Already cuts are being announced in services for vulnerable people in Brighton and in East Sussex.  Council funding from central government has been cut.  These cuts are being passed on to the poor and vulnerable.

I haven’t used illustrations in this blog before (other than the almost photographic likeness of me).  But this cartoon from the Great Depression, reflects to a certain extent what I think will happen over the next few years.  The mantra will be that there will be ‘pain for everyone’,  ‘We will all be in this together’. and that ‘There must be equality of sacrifice’.

My only disagreement with this cartoon (apart from the gender limitations – in my last post I said low paid women will suffer the most) is that I think the rich and the very rich will benefit from the shock and awe approach planned by Cameron, Osborne and Clegg.  They are true class warriors, disciples of Milton Friedman, and they will look after their own, the rich and the very rich.

Did Lib Dems really vote for cuts that will hurt the poor and benefit the rich?

David Cameron has said, predictably, that the UK’s economic problems are “even worse than we thought” and that painful cuts to tackle the deficit would affect “our whole way of life”.

This is straight from the Milton Friedman approach to crisis response. First the shock – a financial crisis that requires painful action; and then the awe – cuts that affect our whole way of life.

So what should we expect now? First, massive cuts in public expenditure, far more extreme than the cuts in the Thatcher era. Then wholesale privatisation, a token amount to the voluntary sector, but mainly to the private sector where huge profits, made fo by the tax payer, will be made.  And there will be tax cuts to “incentivise” private sector investment.

This will produce a redistribution of wealth from the public sector to the rich and the very rich.

Anyone who objects will be ridiculed by the media, particularly the media controlled by Murdoch and Desmond. They will ignore or dismiss alternatives to cuts.  For example, why does the government not first begin with the £40 billion of uncollected taxes?  Because it is their friends who would be required to pay what they owe.

Instead there will be cuts to the “welfare bills”, public sector pay, and funding to the voluntary sector.

Just wait and see: there will be new tax exemptions allowing further billions of tax revenues to go uncollected, and it will be the rich and the very rich who will benefit, the friends of Cameron, Osborne and Clegg.

If Cameron is purely motivated by society’s well-being, he should ensure that those with the greatest ability to pay, do so.  And those who struggle even at the best of times, be spared. But no, everyone will pay, and the pain will be felt most by low paid men and women.  And given that low pay affects women more, it will be women who will be most adversely affected.

Is this what those who voted Lib Dem thought that they were voting for?

The policies of Milton Friedman are being implemented by the ConDem Coalition, and Labour isn’t even paying attention

I’m finding it hard to blog these days.  What is happening nationally is too depressing and Britain and the Left are sleep walking into the restructuring of British society.  No, I don’t mean the Big Society.  I don’t even mean severe cuts to public services.  No, something more fundamental is happening. 

Labour and media pundits agonise over aspects of government cuts, and Labour leadership candidates are obsessed about positioning themselves against each other.  Meanwhile the economic extremists in both the Tories and Lib Dems (David Laws having been in the vanguard and he will no doubt remain influential before returning to the Cabinet) are embarking on a programme of privatisation, dismantling the welfare state, and (in due course) tax cuts.

If anyone has read Naomi Klein’s brilliant ‘The Shock Doctrine’ will recognise that what is happening in Britain today comes directly from the philosophy of Milton Friedman.  Klein explains the concept of ‘Disaster Capitalism’ where there are “orchestrated raids on the public sphere” in the wake of a disaster or crisis, the crisis at this time being the near collapse of the banks and the ensuing economic crisis which is being used to justify just about anything.  And the Labour Leadership contenders fiddle while Britain is burnt.

Friedman wrote: “Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change.  When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around”.  Klein say that “some people stockpile canned goods and water in preparation for major disasters; Friedmanites stockpile free-market ideas”.  Friedman believed that once a crisis happens, it is crucial to act swiftly to impose rapid and irreversible change before society slips back into what he describes as the “tyranny of the status quo”.

Friedman wrote that “a new administration has some six and nine months in which to achieve major changes; if it does not act decisively during that period, it will not have another such opportunity”.

The ideas of Milton Friedman are alive and well and thriving in the Conservative Party and on the right of the Lib Dems.  Both Cameron and Clegg worked for Moneterist ministers in Thatcher’s government, and their economic philosophies have evolved since then.  The only difference is that their presentational skills have also developed to ensure that they are seen as ‘compassionate’.  But the political and economic intentions are just the same.  David Laws gave the game away when he said that he wanted the cuts he proposed to send shock waves throughout Whitehall. 

The Welfare State is being dismantled before our very eyes.  Education (as in the USA where Charter schools are taking over) is being privatised through the acceleration of Labour’s Academies programme.  In due course the NHS will be privatised.  And Cameron and Clegg’s friends (and also those of Blair) are ready for some very rich pickings. 

And the Labour leadership contenders continue to fiddle.