So a year ago today the country got rid of the pox that was Gordon Brown (and he’s only been back to parliament once despite being re-elected). So what’s happened since then, well we’re onto our second consultation about repealing laws with no laws yet repealed* (we obviously asked for the wrong ones to be repealed last time so they’ll keep asking till we give the right answer).
The coalition is still holding together despite, or because of, rapid jettisoning of principles by the LibDems. Meanwhile we’ve had violent protests from people threatened with the reduction of the cash they get from the state – even though in the most notable occasions it wouldn’t affect them. The national debt is still growing, with no sign of actual spending reduction. After printing loads of money to fight possible “deflation” we have growing inflation making sure what’s left of our wages after tax goes even less far. MP’s found fiddling expenses get suspended for 7 days and told to say sorry.
So no real change, our liberties are still being whittled away, we’re still ruled by an unaccountable elite. But it’s still somehow not quite as depressing as under the last lot – not yet at any rate. Especially if you manage to forget about the bail outs. They are at least making the right noises in a slightly more convincing manner than the last lot even if they still make a right horlicks of it and then leave it to the same bunch of civil servants and placemen to implement their shiny new policies in such a way as nothing at all changes.
One year on and the new boss does indeed seem to be much the same as the old boss, just upsetting different people for different reasons whilst doing pretty much the same thing. Maybe one day we’ll actually be bold enough to demand to be treated as adults and see real change.
*I’ve not missed them repealing any have I? Update I’ve been reminded that they did Scrap ID cards so hoorah for that at least.
Having muttered about the student “demo” previously I find myself returning to the subject due to comments made by other commentators and people that were there. From the title of this post you can probably gather that I disagree with their points really quite strongly. But of course it’s not just supporters of the student demo’s advocating violence, elsewhere there are green candidates whose response to the cuts impacting “a genuinely shocking number of important animal welfare initiatives” and thus creating the kind of world they don’t wish to live in, is not to look at how they could fund or support those initiatives themselves but to instead suggest that they’re
“going to hack David Cameron’s nose off and make him live in a cage, only removing him in order to whip him, make him dance, kick him about a bit and then cut his throat while he’s still half-alive.”
Which obviously in line with the two recent twitter cases is a serious threat which as an up standing citizen I should probably report to the police.
Back back to the demo/riot first off via Harry’s place a musical response to the student idiocy:
Now back to the idiocy, despite the NUS claiming it was a small minority of bad sorts causing trouble and spoiling the demo others seem to disagree, with a group called “We need unity – defend the Millbank protestors” claiming that it was a peaceful demo and the people arrested need to be defended with a united front. (H/t Harry’s place). The Guardian is claiming that the cuts are the real vandals as putting up university fees is a “great injustice”. Apparently it seems that ignoring one demo of maybe 50,000 students shows no commitment to legitimate process, yet I suppose ignoring multiple demos involving many times that number is fine to pursue a war of aggression. And heaven forefend that maybe they’ve looked at the costs and decided that maybe the rest of us can no longer afford such an inflated university system. As commentators over at Harry’s place have observed more and more jobs now require a degree, which I can’t help but think is due to the larger numbers now going to uni, if only 10% of people go to Uni, then lower qualifications count, but as that number increases to the much sought after 50%, then lower qualifications count for less and even a university education becomes worth less. Thus the value of education is inflated and devalued in the same manner as our currency has been by successive governments. Surely it can’t be long before we’re all millionaires with PHD’s fighting over who gets first dibs on the rat stew?
Anyway back to the idiocy, and I’m going to force myself to comment on someone I generally avoid commenting on (I probably need to sacrifice some of my social scene sometime soon, ah well). The ever coherent Laurie Penny has two article of actually increasing idiocy on the new statesmen about the student demo of which she reports herself as being an active participant. I’m not going to fisk both articles properly because it would be really too easy. First up Inside the Millbank Tower riots.
The students she admits were armed with sticks and smoke bombs, so certainly no peaceful protest in mind, having been on a few peaceful protests before one generally doesn’t go to them armed.
Of course whilst celebrating sticking it to the man, the statist in Laurie creeps out when a fellow miscreant offers her a cigarette she notes that:
“he is at least two years too young to be in possession”
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought there was only a restriction on age to the sale of tobacco not the possession – still can’t keep a good statist down. She seems impressed that there are school children there, but then she won’t recall the poll tax riots and demo’s through the years where there’s always a school element as any excuse to bunk off for a day and cause mischief is a good excuse.
But the point from this article I really want to pick up is to just brink these few sentences into closer proximity:
“What unites them? A chant strikes up: “We’re young! We’re poor! We won’t pay any more!””
And yet:
“A shy looking girl in a nice tweed coat and bobble hat ducks out of the way of some flying glass”
““It’s a party out here!” one excited posh girl tells her mobile, tottering on Vivienne Westwood boots ”
So about that poverty thing, couldn’t those better off students maybe organise to help out their less well off brethren, or is only the state allowed to help those that need it. The thing I’m left most puzzled over from this article is she states repeatedly that the youth are angered by repeated broken promises, and being repeatedly ignored by the government through out their young lives and yet despite being only in shared power for not even 6 months it’s the tories fault.
And on the subject of that 6 months in her next article Laurie compares the idiocy of the student demo’s with the suffragette movement. Presumably because they both broke windows, though of course (if I recall correctly) the suffragettes then stood politely by to be arrested so they could make their point in court, likewise the only people they ever endangered where themselves. The same cannot be said of the student protesters, if they are so sure of their point, why not stand by their actions, get arrested, hand themselves into the police, and like the suffragettes stand in court and make their point. Can they imagine the power of such a statement if even just 1,000 students turning up to hand themselves in to stand together in court to make their protest. That of course isn’t as much fun as smashing things up with your mates. Laurie seems to also neglect that the suffragettes only started taking direct action after trying other avenues of protest over a considerable time, which given the afore mentioned 6 months and very recent announcement of these proposed cuts (remember they don’t come into effect for a few years) can hardly be said to be the case here. It would seem that despite Lauries claim that property damage is “the last resort of citizens” it’s the first resort of students who want a day off from lectures. Violence against persons it seems was avoided due to luck, as it doesn’t count if you miss, and not that many police got hurt. The property damage, against a third party, is ok as it’ll be covered by insurance, which the insurance companies will recover by upping the premiums, and yet again the wider populace will pay for it – unlike her much hated Bullingdons who when they caused damage paid for it from their own (or at least their families) pocket. Sadly it seems as many people have observed the left still don’t seem to be able to grasp the awkward fact that everything has to be paid for by someone – it’s all just from magical taxes/insurance and the evil rich.
Laurie reports that “Sources on the ground have suggested that the Millbank protests are just the beginning.” which I’m sure is true for as Albert Einstein observed only two things are infinite the universe and human stupidity and he wasn’t sure about the universe.
Having just recently plugged a rather nice afternoon stroll, today brings reminders as to why such strolling is still needed as a minimum. The new bosses really are the same as the old bosses (but then they probably always were going to be, especially if you subscribe to the view that they’re just following orders from Brussels/hidden powers). The pub element of the walk could certainly become trickier
Via Big Brother watch a review of how the coalition and civil liberties, which doesn’t make happy reading. Nor in some ways does the dropping of charges against the love police as, as they observe, it just shows how happy the state is to arrest you with no intent to actually prosecute once they’ve mucked your life up a bit. I’m fairly sure that we shouldn’t be being policed via a catch and release scheme against which we have no recourse or appeal – though even that is better than being fined purely on accusation
So until there’s a culture change from top to bottom of the apparatus of the state, so that it no longer feels the need to be able to arrest and control people at whim there’s still a need to suggest that things should be different even if it is just be going for a small walk in an odd outfit. If enough people protest in a fashion they’re happy with then things can change. After all there have been no huge demo’s to repeal the smoking ban but that’s start to look a little shaky.
As other people have already commented our new lords and master in the condem alliance don’t seem to be in a terrible hurry to remove all the bad legislation that our previous glorious leaders brought in to trample on our freedoms.
However over at The Register I learn that they are amending the utterly abysmal Digital economy act, there radical reform is that after you’ve failed to prove yourself innocent they won’t charge you to lodge an appeal. Oh unless of course too many people lodge “unnecessary appeals” in which case they will charge you.
Mind ISP’s are still being lumbered with 25% of the costs of the legal frame work so you’re unlikely to get to appeal as the ISP will just block your access before any legal costs mount up. If the rest of their reforms of legislation are of equally staggering scope they could probably save an awful lot of time and just not bother. They could still tell us they’d improved things as they obviously think we are that stupid.
They really can’t stop them selves it seems, proving that they can be just as keen on controlling every aspect of our lives as the last lot. To counter the cultural pressures of thin models our new equalities minister has it seems decreed that the new approved size and shape to aspire to is size 14 and buxom. She will apparently be holding a body confidence summit to try to persuade fashion editors to impose a new body fascism on the fairer sex in this country. No longer will they need to aspire to being thin, instead they’ll just have to worry if they’re buxom enough and are they more hourglass than egg timer.
The idea of not dictating role models presumably wasn’t an option. But as now thin is undesirable and obviously being over weight remains a horrendous crime it can’t be much longer before we have a single government approved body type. Obviously banning veils/niqabs and other facial covering will make it easier to identify people who fail to achieve the new government approved look.
I look forward to seeing if Laurie Penny will be complaining about this for dictating body shapes to women, or if it’ll be ok as it presumably isn’t the evil Bikini body
This topic has already been covered incredibly well by other people so I’m actually going to just link to them, adding my voice to the many disappointed but not at all surprised voices responding to Mr Cleggs “shock” revelation that having asked the public for comment on what laws to repeal/amend he’s as much intention of listening as the last lot did with the “petitions to number 10″. Which is of course to say none at all – it would seem that the consultation is once more just a way to have some useful “quotes from the public” to wave around when they impose what ever they’ve already decided to impose on us – though not of course themselves as the most popular law to amend is the smoking ban which doesn’t apply in the palace of Westminster.
Whilst I obviously welcome our new overlords, I can’t help but notice that they seem to have an odd idea of electoral reform, and as Tom Harris observes it doesn’t really fit well with either the Tories claim to want to return power to the people, and quite odd that the LibDems seem to be happy going along with it.
The particular bit of reform that Mr Harris is concerned about is to change the vote of no-confidence in a government from a simple majority to 55%. Such a change only makes sense in that it allows a minority government (like say the Tories without the LibDems) more immune to votes of no confidence and actual majority governments virtually bullet proof. At present a simple majority would require 325 MP’s to vote against the government which would be quite a challenge especially as Sinn Fein have 5 MPs that never take up their seats. So even to get out the Tories with their current majority would require all but 9 non-Tory MPs to vote against them. For a 55% vote not even would every non Tory MP have to vote against the Government but 19 Tory MPs would have to rebel as well. Which as the vote would be heavily whipped means that 19 Tory MPs would have to be prepared to sacrifice their political careers (and expense accounts) for a non-confidence vote to pass, evidence suggests that MPs are unlikely to do this. This is as Dizzy says “not just an affront to democracy, it holds the power of Parliament in even greater contempt than the last lot did.”
Of course it gets worse, the form of PR that the ConDems seem to have decided to offer us is AV (alternative vote), which isn’t actually a form of proportional representation at all. It merely changes how the MPs are elected so the proportional of the national vote is still not relevant to the number of MPs any party may have sitting.
Mind you the LibDems would prefer AV+ which combines the problems of the above with
“party list” MPs thus entrenching larger national parties advantages even further and helping to lock out small parties and independents.
Update: Dizzy has further analysis of the 55% vote issue, and observes that it could be used by minority parties in coalitions to force change of government (or at least threaten it) with out recourse to an election. Which quite frankly is possibly worse than my initial take on matters.
