Originally published @ 5:14 am, Tue 13th Jul 2010
Local Lib Dems and Conservatives have had to start defending their Government's actions and very confused about it they are too.
The Lib Dems, seemingly thinking they'd been more progressive than Labour all along, are very upset.
It seems now 'they had lots of complaints about Building Schools for the Future' and 'yes it's wasteful to commission new schools the way BSF did'. So despite cancellations of school projects in wards they represent, they are prepared to stand by government decision announced in a mishandled way.
Never mind that the cuts in schools programme might be generating capacity to spend money on free schools that can be started out of old office blocks. Never mind that the free schools scheme may well be use to allow failing private schools to be re-launched.
None of this fits with a party that before the election was bewailing their perceptions of a growing divide between the wealthiest and the poorest.
'If only Gordon Brown had been more Keynesian and saved more during the good years.' OR, if only the Lib Dems recognised that our total debt was much lower than most countries as we went into the latest markets bubble and that what Keynes could be most remembered for is finding more loans to help British people at a time when after fighting the wecond world war, the country was alreday in huge debt.
Putting people first, ahead of what the interest of the rich and wealthy is what was and is needed. And for those to care to look, the work Gordon Brown was putting in to get the countries across the world to do that is being lost.
Local Conservatives too were backing the chaos invoked by Gove's statement on cancelling new schools. But in a debate on helping criminals to avoid offending gain, they were full of exhortations to see if we couldn't do more to help. Surreal given the cuts in budgets that are due for Police, prisons, probabtion services and councils.
And completely out of step with the exhortation from David Cameron before the election that we should care for the good, silent majority.
Both Con/Dem parties at a local level are seeking to hang on to the notion that they care about people as much or more than Labour.
This can't last. The strain is showing. They'll hurt themselves.
But as time goes on, what is becoming clearer is that the national mentality is not so much a repeat of the eighties and Thatcherism, but rather a repeat of the 30s and Neville Chamberlain's focus on the state of public finances to the exclusion of the welfare of the public.
Fingers crossed that we can avoid falling into recession again.
But with projections of the loss of 7,000 job losses in public sector jobs in cities like Nottingham, and the collapse of construction businesses like Jarvis over the weekend (now that the investment in schools) is being cut, you've got to wonder. ,
Comments