Having just listened to Cameron's Leader's speech to Tory conference all I can say is what a load of utter claptrap, bollocks and tripe!
Surely people are not fooled by his empty rhetoric? The Tories, the party that under Thatcher and her successors did not believe in society, laying claim to be the party able to repair our "broken society" is nauseating.
To hear him claim that the Tories are the party with true green credentials stretches credulity to the limit. This from the man who cycles to work and has his paperwork follow in a chauffeur driven limousine.
He said that: "We will need to difficult and unpopular things for the good of the country." Ah well, that'll be Thatcherite spending cuts to our local services then.
As the BBC's Nick Robinson succinctly puts it: "It's back to the Future. David Cameron uses the memory of Margaret Thatcher to make the case for change and against experience."
My memories of Thatcherism are of millions of unemployed, searing cuts in public spending, a deterioration in the NHS, a greed is good "loadsamoney" culture, wholesale destruction of most of industry, and Britain as a nasty Xenophobic country which wasn't a nice place to live. If that's the memories you want to invike in people, be my guest, and it'll be the end of Tory credibility!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Society does not exist - at least in the way statists tend to speak of it.
Society is an abstraction. There is no homogeneous entity which can act, there is no way to say what is good or bad for an abstract entity like society.
What there is are many individuals who cooperate with each other in communities. As a shorthand we call the result of all these interactions society.
Society cannot be broken or fixed. There is no good or bad for society. There's only good or bad for individuals and their ability to form communities.
There are bad things which occur, there are good things too. None of them happen to society.
That is closer to what Thatcher meant (although like a true Tory she was a bit hung up on family - seemingly placing families at the top of social analysis and the male of the household at the top of that).
As liberals we should recognise this. We should seek to change the terms of political discourse.
As for your question - people do believe it unfortunately. At least there are areas to attack him on it though - it sounds like he's left himself fairly open to response.
Post a Comment