The chasm between Coalition plans and what they disclose – kittysjones
Andrew Bridgen: Blatant threat.
The Tories are, and always have been, psychocrats, writes kittysjones.
They insidiously intrude into people’s everyday thoughts and try to micro-manage and police them. They use Orwellian-styled rhetoric crowded with words like “market forces”, “meritocracy” “autonomy”, “incentivisation”, “democracy”, “efficient, small state”, and even “freedom”, whilst all the time they are actually extending a brutal, bullying, extremely manipulative, all-pervasive authoritarianism.
The Conservative starting point is control of the media and information… any implied or frank criticism of Conservative policies or discussion of their very often terrible social consequences is stifled, amidst the ludicrous accusations of “politically bias.”
The Conservatives are attempting to intimidate the BBC (again) into silence regarding its candid commentary regarding the autumn statement made by Osborne, exposing the vast scale of cuts to come for the British public. I’m pleased to see the BBC hitting back, for once, with a robust defence, declaring that: “We’re satisfied our coverage has been fair and balanced and we’ll continue to ask ministers the questions our audience want answered.”
The BBC are absolutely right to point out to the public that there will be severe social repercussions as a consequence of the scale of cuts that Osborne is planning, especially given that sixty percent of the cuts are yet to come.
The judgements of the OBR, which Osborne set up, and IFS, were at least as damning as the BBC’s, but it’s worth noting that the Chancellor doesn’t publicly attack either report. Because he can’t.
Senior Tory MP Andrew Bridgen suggested there was a risk that unless the BBC was “scrupulously fair” in its reporting, it may “drive voters into the arms of Labour”, adding the threat “and may even find its future funding arrangements affected.”
A blatant threat.
Read the rest of the article on the kittysjones site.
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The Tories always have, and always will be, the party for the wealthy.
They do however use the divide and conquer technique to sell their nasty policies. In the 80’s Maggie divided the unions and thus defeated and dismantled them, this time around it is the poor, unemployed and disabled they intend to disenfranchise by setting those in work ( no matter how badly paid) against them.
In all the years of the British Empire not one penny of the massive wealth generated (Britain being one of the wealthiest nations on Earth at that time ) was spent to improve the lot of the poor, we still had slums, widespread sickness and disease, hunger and extreme poverty. The Tory answer to this, despite the massive wealth being generated, was to introduce workhouses and make begging illegal and punishable by imprisonment ( not that they would do that now, would they ???? )
It matters not how rich the rich become nor how poor the poor become Tory policy will always be to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
It is no coincidence that British history is not taught in schools, if it was people may wonder why one of the richest countries in the world still had such poverty and low living standards. Maybe then they would look long and hard at what parties were ruling at that time and see the conservatives for exactly what they have always been.
This afternoon I was engaged in conversation by a Cuban. He warmed to the theme that British History isn’t taught in school. He said every Cuban learns at school that socialism came from Britain, and was based on the work of Marx & Engels, & that this was NOT communism. (He was equally dismissive of the failure of multiculturalism and not to have school nativity plays anymore – WHO’S Offended? he demanded to know.)
I agree whole-heartedly with this view. Schools should teach real history, social history, taught vividly by good teachers, as I was, who read from contemporary documents regarding the Enclosure Act, the Corn Laws, the Chartist and Luddites, agent provocateurs, (dear Mr Lightbown, you were inspirational). The somewhat trite truism – that if you don’t learn from history the same mistakes will be made – is never truer than now, when we are facing the return of the 1930’s.
Interesting to hear others mentioning “Orwellian Double Talk”, I have been saying this for a while, but people reply that it’s not possible as 1984 was about a Socialist State. To me it’s is about any repressive totalitarian state, and Camoron’s cronies fit the bill perfectly. After all, he pretended to be “of the people” with his Podcasts and Orwellian Double Talk like “Big Society” and “We’re all in it together”. If Orwell were alive today and saw the government decisions made for the benefit of huge and mostly foreign corporations then he would most certainly write “1984 2, The Sequel. This time it’s serious.”
Or “This time it’s RIGHT-wing.”
Orwell was referring to the cruel state totalitarianism of Stalin, not socialism. That is an easy mistake to make, as it is constantly pedalled by those who are also keen to tell us that Labour wrecked the UK finances. Both are “good enough” lies to be able to become powerful propaganda.
Florence, I think I must have had a similar history education to you, where we did a social and economic history that included stuff like public health, education, poor laws, transport, industry and agriculture up to the turn of the 20th Century. I equate your Mr Lightbown to my Miss Hibberd!
The scary thing is that I can draw so many parallels to the ‘then’ ideology,and the ‘now’ ideology.
The new S.O.S. has to be ‘Save Our Socialism’.