I have been on medication recently and, as well as addressing the illness, it had side effects, in my case dry and itchy skin. But then it's well known that most drugs have unintended or unexpected side effects. What is less well known is that Tory Governments also have unpredicted (not unpredictable) side effects.
There is a post on ConservativeHome asking "What is Conservatism?". The answer involves subtle philosophical and historical judgements, referencing Margaret Thatcher, the Whigs and the philosopher Burke (but not Hare).
It's not clear to me that the question is actually answered but, to my mind, it misses the point in any case. Conservatism may indeed be a product of historical and philosophical forces (how could it not be), it may indeed range across a number of possibilities and outcomes. But, if I may be practical for few minutes, it's not the esoteric roots of Conservatism that concern me, it's the actual effects of Tories in government that worry me the most. And these are visible as much from the indirect as direct consequences of having Tories run the show.
Everybody knows that the Tories want "small Government". In their eyes, Governments interfere and are bossy and unpredictable, and are better out of our lives, taverymuch. Which sounds commonsensical, until you experience the practical results of this philosophical stance.
Example. The Conservatives believe that Government "shouldn't tell you what to think". So they have stopped public information advertising: it's expensive and a waste of money. We don't need to be lectured. Nanny state. Blah blah blah. One effect is that this year there is no government funded campaign to get people to take their flu jabs. No TV advertising, no spreading of the message that vulnerable groups should get the jab from their doctor or the local NHS clinic.
But then there is the "unintended" consequence. No advertising of the message means that fewer people get the flu jab and, lo and behold, more people get flu. But winter flu is deadly to some people. So, more people getting the flu means more people seriously ill from the flu and more people dying from swine flu this year than last (last year swine flu was a pandemic, this year it's just around...).
There you have it. People may buy the message to vote Conservative for a "smaller government". But they forget to tell you that a "smaller government" can be a less effective government. So you save a few pennies on tax, and don't get bothered with TV adverts for flu jabs, but a few more people die early and unnecessarily.
I'm sure that many people voted Tory in May in the expectation of "small government": that's what they wanted. I'm also sure that none of them voted on a platform of more deaths from swine flu. Unfortunately, in the real world, it amounts to the same thing: it's just the unexpected side effect of having a Tory Government.
Sunday, 26 December 2010
Monday, 20 December 2010
Vince Cable threatens to resign....
Vince Cable has been caught in a "sting" by the Telegraph, threatening to "go nuclear" in neotiations within the coalition...
The journalists wake up.
It has always puzzled me that people are taken in by David Cameron's "nice guy" act. I was never taken in. Cameron joined the Tory Party when Maggie Thatcher was at the height of her powers, when the mantra was "there is no such thing as society" and when Mrs T's policies were designed to back up that judgement with actions to cut "society" (read caring for your fellow citizen) down to size. David Cameron was Norman Lamont's (if it isn't hurting it isn't working) adviser on the day the pound collapsed on Black Wednesday. That's no background of a caring and moderate "one-nation" MacMillanite wet.
No idealistic youngster would join the 1980s Tories to make things better for the majority. If you were willing to join Maggie in her crusade against all things "socialist" (i.e. decent and caring), you were no bleeding heart Tory wet.
It has been obvious for months to any sentient observer that Cameron and (at least) the Tory segment of the ToryDem coalition are no moderate modernisers either. That was the plot to get them elected. They are, in deep reality, still Mrs Thatcher's boys, and they were determined to move at breakneck pace to get their planned revolution implemented. They also saw that Tony Blair had been cautious in his first term and had lost some momentum after that, and they did not intend to be caught in that way.
The first indication was Michael Gove's dedication to getting his "free" schools established. Even before the legislation had been enacted by Parliament he was active, claiming 1100 schoos had volunteered (only 20 or so have actually decided to open next year, but that's another story...) and pushing local groups and local authorities to adopt his model.
The June budget with its immediate £8 billion in cuts was another signal, as was Eric Pickles "localism" drive to destroy local government, another example of a Minister being too impatient to wait for the legislation. Andrew Lansley at Health is eagerly cutting away at structures and abolishing PCTs while at the same time forcing GPs to take on organisational and budgeting responsibilities. Constitutional changes like fixed term Parliaments, cutting the number of constituencies and bringing in the Alternative Vote system have all been pushed through with effectively no consultation and very little scrutiny. The privatisation of university teaching (disgiused as "raising tuition fees") is the latest radical Tory policy which has been railroaded through.
It's all rather breathless and uncordinated. Hit-and-miss might be a better way of putting it (the poor get hit, the bankers get missed).
Now the journalists are beginning to wake up to the pace and breadth of the revolution that is being carried out under our noses. Andrew Rawnsley in the Observer detects a "Maoist" backbone to the Tory programme. "In 5 years everything must be different. Everything". Steve Richards on R4 today judges that the changes are faster and bigger than 1945. The valuable Diary of a Civil Servant blog in the Guardian has a similar message, with (in his view) the NHS changes being particularly rapid, unformed and potentially dangerous.
At bottom it's about philosophy. Conservatives believe in the past. It worked then and will work now. Except it didn't work then. We have publicly owned and run schools and hospitals because the old system failed the majority of the population. We have (or had) publicly subsidised university teaching because the old system favoured (even more than today) a restricted and constricted class of applicant. It was unsuiatble for a modern democracy and economy. Parish councils are all very well in prospect (remember John Major's old ladies cycling to church on a summer evening), but they are not the vehicle for serious decisions and spending at any level of reality. As for giving GPs the responsibility for £80 billlion of commissioning in the NHS: it's frankly bonkers. They don't want it, there's no guarantee that they can handle it any better (probably much worse) than it is currently handled. The real expertise in budgeting and commissioning is meanwhile being sacked, the skills lost, the individual is no longer payng taxes while picking up dole money!
And we haven't even mentioned George Osborne's gamble with the economy.
Hold onto your hats, it's gonna be a bumpy ride!
No idealistic youngster would join the 1980s Tories to make things better for the majority. If you were willing to join Maggie in her crusade against all things "socialist" (i.e. decent and caring), you were no bleeding heart Tory wet.
It has been obvious for months to any sentient observer that Cameron and (at least) the Tory segment of the ToryDem coalition are no moderate modernisers either. That was the plot to get them elected. They are, in deep reality, still Mrs Thatcher's boys, and they were determined to move at breakneck pace to get their planned revolution implemented. They also saw that Tony Blair had been cautious in his first term and had lost some momentum after that, and they did not intend to be caught in that way.
The first indication was Michael Gove's dedication to getting his "free" schools established. Even before the legislation had been enacted by Parliament he was active, claiming 1100 schoos had volunteered (only 20 or so have actually decided to open next year, but that's another story...) and pushing local groups and local authorities to adopt his model.
The June budget with its immediate £8 billion in cuts was another signal, as was Eric Pickles "localism" drive to destroy local government, another example of a Minister being too impatient to wait for the legislation. Andrew Lansley at Health is eagerly cutting away at structures and abolishing PCTs while at the same time forcing GPs to take on organisational and budgeting responsibilities. Constitutional changes like fixed term Parliaments, cutting the number of constituencies and bringing in the Alternative Vote system have all been pushed through with effectively no consultation and very little scrutiny. The privatisation of university teaching (disgiused as "raising tuition fees") is the latest radical Tory policy which has been railroaded through.
It's all rather breathless and uncordinated. Hit-and-miss might be a better way of putting it (the poor get hit, the bankers get missed).
Now the journalists are beginning to wake up to the pace and breadth of the revolution that is being carried out under our noses. Andrew Rawnsley in the Observer detects a "Maoist" backbone to the Tory programme. "In 5 years everything must be different. Everything". Steve Richards on R4 today judges that the changes are faster and bigger than 1945. The valuable Diary of a Civil Servant blog in the Guardian has a similar message, with (in his view) the NHS changes being particularly rapid, unformed and potentially dangerous.
At bottom it's about philosophy. Conservatives believe in the past. It worked then and will work now. Except it didn't work then. We have publicly owned and run schools and hospitals because the old system failed the majority of the population. We have (or had) publicly subsidised university teaching because the old system favoured (even more than today) a restricted and constricted class of applicant. It was unsuiatble for a modern democracy and economy. Parish councils are all very well in prospect (remember John Major's old ladies cycling to church on a summer evening), but they are not the vehicle for serious decisions and spending at any level of reality. As for giving GPs the responsibility for £80 billlion of commissioning in the NHS: it's frankly bonkers. They don't want it, there's no guarantee that they can handle it any better (probably much worse) than it is currently handled. The real expertise in budgeting and commissioning is meanwhile being sacked, the skills lost, the individual is no longer payng taxes while picking up dole money!
And we haven't even mentioned George Osborne's gamble with the economy.
Hold onto your hats, it's gonna be a bumpy ride!
Thursday, 16 December 2010
George's "Age of Austerity" Debunked.
This Video is just brilliant at exposing the falacy that "austerity" is the answer to our economic problems.
It takes (at least it took me) a while to load. But stick with it it's worth the effort.
It takes (at least it took me) a while to load. But stick with it it's worth the effort.
VAT, Cynicism and the ToryDem Coalition
Left foot forward has a very good post on the cyniism behind the VAT rise.
It includes this graph ....
....showing that VAT rises under the Tories and that it will become, in January, equal to the basic rate of tax.
The Lib Dems made much of raising the tax threshold to £7000, taking some people out of paying income tax. But the VAT rise will hit the poorest hardest.
It includes this graph ....
....showing that VAT rises under the Tories and that it will become, in January, equal to the basic rate of tax.
The Lib Dems made much of raising the tax threshold to £7000, taking some people out of paying income tax. But the VAT rise will hit the poorest hardest.
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
Give us a break, Nick
It's reported that the writ for the Oldham and Saddleworth by-election will be moved tomorrow - by the Lib Dems!
What's unusual about that? you may ask: well, it was a Labour seat and usually the sitting party gets to move the writ and choose the date of the election. Not that "constitutional experts" are saying that the Lib Dems are doing anything "wrong" within our ancient, unwritten and ramshackle "constitution". It's just unusual. It hasn't happened in my lifeteime.
So why are they doing it? Why have a by-election on the 13th of Januray...virtually in the Festive Season, in the depth of winter and with the weather we've been having?
Suspicion falls on the students: they'll be off home for the break and not organised to oppose the Lib Dem campaign.
Can it be as simple as that?
Anyone else got a better idea?
What's unusual about that? you may ask: well, it was a Labour seat and usually the sitting party gets to move the writ and choose the date of the election. Not that "constitutional experts" are saying that the Lib Dems are doing anything "wrong" within our ancient, unwritten and ramshackle "constitution". It's just unusual. It hasn't happened in my lifeteime.
So why are they doing it? Why have a by-election on the 13th of Januray...virtually in the Festive Season, in the depth of winter and with the weather we've been having?
Suspicion falls on the students: they'll be off home for the break and not organised to oppose the Lib Dem campaign.
Can it be as simple as that?
Anyone else got a better idea?
Fashionistas to the rescue...
As a rule, I don't pay much attention to fashion, but every so often it impinges....
Last Saturday's Guardian had an article in the News pages, not the Fashion section, which got me thinking.... it seems that someone called Patrick Grant, who is apparently "menswear designer of the year" thinks that;
Tuition fees riots, NHS cuts, Educational Maintenance Allowances cut for the most vulnerable youngsters, Wikileaks and Julian Assange under attack by all the governments in the world and besieged by the UK Justice System, Religious extremists bombing Stockholm, Siberian weather blocking our transport system........ all of these trivial issues claiming our attention.
But not for Mr Grant and the fashion industry. He and they keep an unrelenting focus on the real meat of the important issues that the man on the Clapham Omnibus finds so troubling.
Declining sales of gentelemens' neckwear, now there's a subject that raises the blood pressure in all true British households. Even so, the matter has mysteriously failed to grab the attention of governments and movers and shakers. Haven't they seen the bank managers rioting in the streets for the return of the bowler hat as compulsory business uniform? A good pair of brogues, that'll solve all our problems. In our hearts we know these to be eternal truths which we ignore at our peril.
It's good to know that there are, in our midst, modern day heroes like Patrick Grant and the Guardian fashion editers. Heroes who refuse to be led astray by the minor issues (wars, famine, natural and man-made disasters) that break out on the far horizon of the news agenda. Heroes who remind us, at great cost to themselves and against a blizzard of mainstream scorn, of the really important things in this life and vale of tears.
Cravat wearers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your sense of proportion....
Last Saturday's Guardian had an article in the News pages, not the Fashion section, which got me thinking.... it seems that someone called Patrick Grant, who is apparently "menswear designer of the year" thinks that;
"British men are too scruffy....."It is tragic, you have to admit, this widespread laxness of masculine dress. Mr Grant is, naturally, devastated: "It makes you want to cry how scruffy everybody is", he says. And you can see his point.
Tuition fees riots, NHS cuts, Educational Maintenance Allowances cut for the most vulnerable youngsters, Wikileaks and Julian Assange under attack by all the governments in the world and besieged by the UK Justice System, Religious extremists bombing Stockholm, Siberian weather blocking our transport system........ all of these trivial issues claiming our attention.
But not for Mr Grant and the fashion industry. He and they keep an unrelenting focus on the real meat of the important issues that the man on the Clapham Omnibus finds so troubling.
Declining sales of gentelemens' neckwear, now there's a subject that raises the blood pressure in all true British households. Even so, the matter has mysteriously failed to grab the attention of governments and movers and shakers. Haven't they seen the bank managers rioting in the streets for the return of the bowler hat as compulsory business uniform? A good pair of brogues, that'll solve all our problems. In our hearts we know these to be eternal truths which we ignore at our peril.
It's good to know that there are, in our midst, modern day heroes like Patrick Grant and the Guardian fashion editers. Heroes who refuse to be led astray by the minor issues (wars, famine, natural and man-made disasters) that break out on the far horizon of the news agenda. Heroes who remind us, at great cost to themselves and against a blizzard of mainstream scorn, of the really important things in this life and vale of tears.
Cravat wearers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your sense of proportion....
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