With the budget set for tomorrow, I just wanted to take a couple of minutes to get my twopenneth in.
George Osborne will deliver his budget tomorrow, and the analysts, journalists and pub pundits will be looking to see if he’s been a success or failure. Before you all fall in line and look at the detailed figures, who wins who loses, let me make one thing absolutely clear.
George Osborne cares about George Osborne, and his friends. Everything about his tenancy at the heart of govt policy and No 11 tells us that he doesn’t give a damn about the impact on the average folk in the UK.
His objectives are to rip up the post-war agreement, privatise as much as possible on favourable deals for his cronies, and keep the banks happy. His objectives do not include growth, happiness, and making Marjorie in Margate happy. His only constraint is that he must be seen to be not doing those things, and give the perception that he’s not done a terrible job.
He’s a politician of the most ruthless and unpleasant kind, driven by the approval of his peers, and the prospects of his own success. And based on the goals outlined above, he is indeed a success. He will be able to leave the coalface of politics at the next election and mop up the directorships and goodwill from his favoured corporations. Job done. Without a mandate and against the will of the switched on members of the public he will have completed the project set in motion in 1979. Civilisation, equality, fairness and opportunity for all have all been eroded, and it will be a long ugly road to get them back, as we will have to fight not one government, but many governments, many plutocrats, many legal systems, trade agreements amid media indifference.
So when you’re looking at the details of tax breaks here, and tweaks there, take a step back, look at what has been done, not what has been spun, and resolve to start putting it right in whatever way you can.
Folk Sermons 