Cameron’s Britain

Here we sit in Cameron’s Britain, and it’s not that bad, we still have running water, the hospitals haven’t been privatised (yet), and the angry masses are all at home watching Hollyoaks.

So, one might think I was a little hasty when I wrote a protracted rant predicting the apocalyptic future of Conservative Britain. I was also too harsh on the target of my anger; a young conservative. I find the whole idea of ‘young conservatives’ bizarre, because the youth are by their nature revolutionary. The youth have repeatedly throughout history challenged the ideas of those which came before them. That’s why the establishment is so scared that we might vote, because if we could we’d have rebelled against our masters at almost every opportunity.

There’s a wider point here that young people are often misled into thinking they’re challenging society by conforming to it. But I’ll ignore that for the moment, were my predictions correct?

1. They have an obsession with privatisation. Last week Mr. Cameron announced his ‘big society’. In theory the people could take ownership of their services and run them as co-operatives, make them accountable to regional soviets. In practice it means handing over public services to unaccountable institutions such as private companies and charities.
   Furthermore the corrupt Health Secretary Andrew Lansley wants to privatise the NHS. Tick.
2. The Conservatives will ‘take from the poor and give to the rich’. Did everyone see George Osborne announce the emergency budget? I watched it unfolding live, then took to the streets in protest. The 20% rise in VAT is a regressive tax which will hurt the poor most. The government predicts at least 500,000 public sector jobs to be lost as a result of their budget. According to the government the economy will expand to absorb the newly unemployed, the glorious private sector entrepreneurs will emerge like shining gods and create magical new jobs everywhere. Liars. Anyway, some Capitalists enjoy having a high unemployed population, it keeps their wage slaves from going on strike. Tick.
   Oh and it’s a lie to say that only ‘non-jobs’ are being cut. I met some of these ‘non-jobs’ and their work is definitely useful.
   
3. The Conservative party is still homophobic. The new Minister for Women and Equalities is Theresa May, and in the past she’s voted against repealing Section 28. Tick.
4. They supported both the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan with great enthusiasm. Still true. Although the junior partner in this government, Nick Clegg, declared the Iraq war illegal during Prime Minister’s Questions. It stings, doesn’t it? When your lackey describes the conflict you supported as nothing less than a war crime. Despite that the position of the government is to support the occupation of Afghanistan, so they’re still up for imperialism. Tick.
5. Disdain for human rights. This one’s a bit murky now that the Lib Dems are involved, we still have yet to see a British Bill of Rights in an encoded constitution which keeps the rights granted to us in the European Convention on Human Rights.
6. They refuse to take climate change seriously. As with human rights there’s no solid evidence for this yet. What we do know is that as part of George Osborne’s budget he’s decided to cut the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s budget, this isn’t really a surprise as pretty much everything’s being cut at the moment.
7. According to the Conservatives ‘it’s not racist to talk about immigration’. Theresa May, remember her? wants a ‘border police force’. While they’re at it, why not string barbed wire around the beaches. Tick.

I’ve definitely got to point out that the ideology of the government is ‘Liberal Conservative’, and therefore the Lib Dems had best step up and take the blame for some of this. Most of the links I’ve provided follow through to the Guardian, sorry about that, it’s because they reinforce what I’m trying to say.