Recently I heard that the Tory-Lib Dem alliance which runs Birmingham Council and which recently announced the cutting of 2,000 jobs there, call themselves "The Progressive Alliance". Well if that is progressive, then I am an alien. The devaluation of political language and terminology began, of course, with Thatcher who called herself and her government's policies "radical". They were anything but and "19th century reactionary" would have been more apt.For they were a retun to the laissez faire economic and political ideology of 19th century Toryism.
I wonder what Clegg and the Lib Dems think of the generations of unemployed produced by Thatcher's government? Of her destruction of manufacturing industry in this country which produced the current situation of being totally reliant on the services industries and finance? She also created the notion of there being no such thing as society and the resultant social breakdown and poverty, which we see in the most unequal country in Europe. These are all the fruits of Thatcher and the half baked ideology which she spawned and which has produced our current mess also. To idealise such a destructive and pernicious politician is nothing short of criminal and shows the bankruptcy of Liberal Democrat thinking.
Clegg also refers to the destruction of the unions. It is because of having the weakest union movement in Europe, held back by Thatcher's anti trade union laws that UK workers have the longest hours in the EU, the least number of holidays and have virtually no power to call a strike or defend their working conditions from ruthless employers. It is clear now that Clegg is prepared to jump into bed with the Tories after the election and will not even be asking for a hot water bottle to protect the country against the deep economic freeze which they will preside over. As Thatcher presidede over years of unemployement and a lost generation of young people and workers, so Clegg will collaborate with Cameron's death by a thousand cuts. A vote for Lib Dems is a vote for reaction - blue in tooth and claw.
Greens will campaign for more jobs and more public spending and against another generation of young people sacrificed on the high altar of the market.
He’s just using Thatcher like Blair and Brown did, a narrative a Conservative audience will understand. Surely the Greens will want to deal with vested interests like the bankers.
ReplyDeleteAnyway isn’t Maggie a hero for some Greens. We can object to the brutal way she destroyed the industries, but they needed to be closed down. Most were high CO2 emitters, others were gobbling up the Earth’s finite recourses, in the hope of infinite growth. I don’t imagine you are proposing we return to reliance on coal – even if you don’t like the way Maggie treated the miners.