Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap, says the bible, in which case, the people of the UK may well be about to reap the whirlwind for having created a political, economic and social climate that now has all the ingredients for disaster on a biblical scale.
We have three ‘leaders’ and three political parties that have totally failed to either address or acknowledge the true and dire state of this countries finances or the fragile social environment against which our national debt has been borrowed and whose foundations it props up. Equally, we have a population that has become so inured by credit, cocooned by public services and enfeebled by political correctness and human rights legislation that in a ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’ kind of way they have become Generation Eloi. A placid and docile race content to shop, watch TV, and trade banalities on Twitter and Facebook while their comfort zone is fueled by ever rising property values, easy money and a sense that life just gets better and better. It doesn’t, sometimes it gets nasty.
This is one of those times and usually this country throws up a few strong leaders to rally the people, to speak the unspeakable and rouse us from our nice comfort zones. Instead we have thrown up a collection of political pigmies, men of such shallowness that their superficial values and trite displays of political ‘passion’ only highlight their complete lack of any beliefs worthy of the name. These worthless little men, the product, born not of deep political conviction and struggle, but of focus groups and public relation experts are our creations and our nemesis. They are what we deserve.
Clegg, Cameron and Brown and the political parties that they represent are finished. They are bereft of new ideas and incapable of leadership. Instead they, like smart and slick salesmen, smile and recite their latest formulated political ideas. Prepacked and preordained. Uniform, and for the most part interchangeable, this is one idea fits all politics. If it works for the Conservatives, then it’ll work for the Liberal Democrats and New Labour. They are like the Ford Ka, the only difference being the colour. Blue for the Conservatives, Red for Labour and Orange for the Lib Dems, with a big yellow streak down the middle. Perhaps, now that all the parties are up for a bit of Lib Dem action and are selling out any remaining credibility for the chance to bed Clegg, they should all have a yellow streak down their backs.
Our country is broke and teetering on the brink of a financial and social catastrophe yet during the three weeks of electioneering our would-be prime ministers barely mentioned it instead they fell over themselves to boast about what they would not cut. Brown, no doubt with a tear in his eye, announced that he was ‘shocked and angry’ that Cameron and Clegg were in a ‘coalition of cuts against children’ and that cuts in child tax credits were an anathema to him. As were cuts to the Health Service, Education, the Police, or it seems anything else that might hurt the vulnerable. In our new Eloi paradise it seems money is no object. If we’re short we can just borrow it from those nice people in the City or, better still, we can print it.
Watching and listening to these three wise men was like watching a troupe of fanatics that have been fired up by a preacher and told to spread the word. Suddenly Brown and Co. had seen the light, “No Cuts”, “Protect the Vulnerable” they cried. “What’s My Line?” had morphed into “What’s My Slogan?” and it was going to be cutback light, no pain, maybe an ache, no cuts now but a scratch or two next year or the year after that. Like the parent whose child had a nightmare, they were not only going to leave the hall light on but would sit next to the bed and watch over us. See, there’s nothing to worry about... The trouble is, there’s actually lots to worry about, not the least of which is the three buffoons that would lead us and the three parties they represent, for the longer they delay making cuts the sooner that their ability to act may be taken out of their hands. Very soon the financial markets and world events may, like in Greece, begin to exert pressure on our economy that will affect interest rates, the exchange rates and the Government's ability to borrow and maintain its current financial commitments.
Yet the mantra of ‘no cuts’ rules and the people like it. ‘Protect (the vulnerable) and Survive’ is the way to win this war. The only trouble is that you don’t win wars by being nice or by protecting the vulnerable, in fact, often the vulnerable are the first to go, after all they contribute nothing and often take more than their fair share. The Health Service is full of useless managers and inept staff that should be sacked to make way for people who can actually do the job. Unfortunately, politicians and sentimental journalists have so milked the whole ‘angels in uniform’ nonsense that the Health Service has become a sacred cow that consumes money faster that its asylum seeker, economic migrant patients can spend it. Likewise our bloated public sector is ludicrously over staffed with no-hoper under achievers who are being paid vast salaries for doing nothing more than being alive, while others are so obviously cranially challenged that the kindest thing to do would be to kill them.
The vulnerable, along with hundreds of thousands of individuals whose contribution to the UK is on a par with their IQ’s, is actually what a large percentage of our national debt is paying for and would be easy to cut if we had a government prepared to forgo the ‘nice’ in order to deal with the ‘nasty’ for once. However given that our three main political parties are now about to engage in some sort of ghastly love-in and the only political parties waiting in the wings are UKIP, whose leader flew his plane into a field on election day, the BNP, which collapsed into farcical disarray during the last few days of the campaign by getting sued by Unilever and having its website pulled and the Greens, who at least managed to get someone elected, it’s unlikely that anything will be done and that the vulnerable, the public sector and sacred cows are all safe for now.
We have three ‘leaders’ and three political parties that have totally failed to either address or acknowledge the true and dire state of this countries finances or the fragile social environment against which our national debt has been borrowed and whose foundations it props up. Equally, we have a population that has become so inured by credit, cocooned by public services and enfeebled by political correctness and human rights legislation that in a ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’ kind of way they have become Generation Eloi. A placid and docile race content to shop, watch TV, and trade banalities on Twitter and Facebook while their comfort zone is fueled by ever rising property values, easy money and a sense that life just gets better and better. It doesn’t, sometimes it gets nasty.
This is one of those times and usually this country throws up a few strong leaders to rally the people, to speak the unspeakable and rouse us from our nice comfort zones. Instead we have thrown up a collection of political pigmies, men of such shallowness that their superficial values and trite displays of political ‘passion’ only highlight their complete lack of any beliefs worthy of the name. These worthless little men, the product, born not of deep political conviction and struggle, but of focus groups and public relation experts are our creations and our nemesis. They are what we deserve.
Clegg, Cameron and Brown and the political parties that they represent are finished. They are bereft of new ideas and incapable of leadership. Instead they, like smart and slick salesmen, smile and recite their latest formulated political ideas. Prepacked and preordained. Uniform, and for the most part interchangeable, this is one idea fits all politics. If it works for the Conservatives, then it’ll work for the Liberal Democrats and New Labour. They are like the Ford Ka, the only difference being the colour. Blue for the Conservatives, Red for Labour and Orange for the Lib Dems, with a big yellow streak down the middle. Perhaps, now that all the parties are up for a bit of Lib Dem action and are selling out any remaining credibility for the chance to bed Clegg, they should all have a yellow streak down their backs.
Our country is broke and teetering on the brink of a financial and social catastrophe yet during the three weeks of electioneering our would-be prime ministers barely mentioned it instead they fell over themselves to boast about what they would not cut. Brown, no doubt with a tear in his eye, announced that he was ‘shocked and angry’ that Cameron and Clegg were in a ‘coalition of cuts against children’ and that cuts in child tax credits were an anathema to him. As were cuts to the Health Service, Education, the Police, or it seems anything else that might hurt the vulnerable. In our new Eloi paradise it seems money is no object. If we’re short we can just borrow it from those nice people in the City or, better still, we can print it.
Watching and listening to these three wise men was like watching a troupe of fanatics that have been fired up by a preacher and told to spread the word. Suddenly Brown and Co. had seen the light, “No Cuts”, “Protect the Vulnerable” they cried. “What’s My Line?” had morphed into “What’s My Slogan?” and it was going to be cutback light, no pain, maybe an ache, no cuts now but a scratch or two next year or the year after that. Like the parent whose child had a nightmare, they were not only going to leave the hall light on but would sit next to the bed and watch over us. See, there’s nothing to worry about... The trouble is, there’s actually lots to worry about, not the least of which is the three buffoons that would lead us and the three parties they represent, for the longer they delay making cuts the sooner that their ability to act may be taken out of their hands. Very soon the financial markets and world events may, like in Greece, begin to exert pressure on our economy that will affect interest rates, the exchange rates and the Government's ability to borrow and maintain its current financial commitments.
Yet the mantra of ‘no cuts’ rules and the people like it. ‘Protect (the vulnerable) and Survive’ is the way to win this war. The only trouble is that you don’t win wars by being nice or by protecting the vulnerable, in fact, often the vulnerable are the first to go, after all they contribute nothing and often take more than their fair share. The Health Service is full of useless managers and inept staff that should be sacked to make way for people who can actually do the job. Unfortunately, politicians and sentimental journalists have so milked the whole ‘angels in uniform’ nonsense that the Health Service has become a sacred cow that consumes money faster that its asylum seeker, economic migrant patients can spend it. Likewise our bloated public sector is ludicrously over staffed with no-hoper under achievers who are being paid vast salaries for doing nothing more than being alive, while others are so obviously cranially challenged that the kindest thing to do would be to kill them.
The vulnerable, along with hundreds of thousands of individuals whose contribution to the UK is on a par with their IQ’s, is actually what a large percentage of our national debt is paying for and would be easy to cut if we had a government prepared to forgo the ‘nice’ in order to deal with the ‘nasty’ for once. However given that our three main political parties are now about to engage in some sort of ghastly love-in and the only political parties waiting in the wings are UKIP, whose leader flew his plane into a field on election day, the BNP, which collapsed into farcical disarray during the last few days of the campaign by getting sued by Unilever and having its website pulled and the Greens, who at least managed to get someone elected, it’s unlikely that anything will be done and that the vulnerable, the public sector and sacred cows are all safe for now.
The truth is that we are reaping what we have sown and that right now there is no alternative to the Clegg, Cameron and Brown Kabal in whatever form it finally takes and that is the truly scary aspect of this non-election. For, in order to protect the vulnerable and the public sector, these men will most likely damn us all. Amen.
