A vacuous bunch of liars, ne’er-do-wells and silly little boys

So, Parliament has risen for the first time since the election this week. Labour MP’s go home as the opposition and Tory and Lib Dems return to their constituencies for the summer, leaving the Government side of the house empty. However this does not mean, thankfully, an end to politics for the summer. The Labour Leadership contest is still going on, and more political chatter has been ignited by Cameron’s India trip, where he demonstrated his new “frank” foreign policy, and the BBC documentary ‘Five days that changed Britain’.

Many welcomed Cameron and Hague’s plan, revealed this week, to establish a new special relationship with India. He was to take a huge delegation of Cabinet Ministers and business leaders to India in order to impress, but also to flatter the Indians into thinking Britain cared immensely about our country’s historic, cultural, and of course economic ties, which of course we should do. Many, including Labour supporters, decry the fact that the Labour Government did not show more effort in engaging with India. Once the Jewel in the Crown of the British Empire, India is now a crown all on its own. Its rising global prominence is not to be ignored. Rapidly developing global powerhouses like India, or in fact Brazil, should no longer be considered as the second rung of the global political economic strata, or pretenders to the throne, but rather countries whose international importance cannot be questioned.

It is not this tactic of engagement that I deplore, but the “frank” approach which Cameron now seems, in a moment of panic and cover-up, to have labelled his foreign policy strategy. First visiting Turkey, Cameron made the first of his mistakes in sucking up to his host and insult their enemies with snooty nosed dismissal. It is as yet unknown whether Cameron intended to go to Turkey and employ the ‘cushion method’ of international relations, or if it just happened. No one, and certainly not I, would disagree with the sentiment of Gaza being a prison camp, and Israel’s lack of scruples when it comes to the blockade. However there are ways of saying things, and standing in Turkey and insulting Israel is never one of the best.

On to India, and Cameron goes on to accuse Pakistan of “looking both ways” in relation to the prevention of terrorism and relations with India, and accusation quickly rebuked in a rare move for Pakistan. All this came after claiming in the US that the UK was very much the junior partner in the much cherished “special relationship”. (Much as it had been in 1940. And there was me thinking Eton was regarded as a high class institution...who teaches History?)

While our beloved leader was on his tour of the world, we were treated here to the leader of the Liberal Democrats (yes, remember them) Nick Clegg, making the king of gaffes in Parliament. Firstly he contradicted the Foreign Secretary William Hague about the pull out date from Afghanistan and was quickly corrected. Then after Jack Straw re-stated that he would answer for his damaging decisions in this coalition at the ballot box, Clegg, clearly lacking a response, came back with the assertion that Jack Straw would have to answer for his involvement in the “illegal Iraq war”.

Oh the box of worms that has now been opened. It was soon affirmed by the speaker that contrary to the Government’s statement that Clegg’s comments were his own, in fact comments made at the dispatch box were and would be taken to be, that of the government. Oops Clegg.

The series of mistakes made by one Mr Gove is well publicised. Now I am informed that he is seeking a new departmental assistant...another one might be able to get it right. I can’t see a rush for that job though, can you? Across the Cabinet table sits Vince Cable, until now he has largely escaped public criticism. Until now. His new proposal of a graduate tax was a surprise. Not only does it go back on Lib Dem (yes that bunch again) proposals on student finance before the election; it wasn’t even Conservative policy, but completely new. It doesn’t matter though; already it looks as abandoned as the principles the Liberals left behind when they chose coalition with Cameron.

Furthermore, yes there’s more, Dr Fox the Secretary of State for Defence has been put on the naughty step and today publicly rebuked by Chancellor Osborne over his pleadings for Trident not be included in the defence budget, but paid for separately. “No”, came the response.

And then there’s the rest. Andrew Lansley is proposing to restructure the NHS at a cost of up to £5-6 Billion, for no apparent reason. Theresa May following in the same vein, proposes a restructure of the police force and the creation of elected Commissioners, again a plan which will take money away from the front line to pay for pointless changes with no proof of rising standards. Jeremy Hunt at the Department for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport is under pressure for making heavy hints at reduction of the BBC licence fee, and taking away the Olympic contingency fund. Eric Pickles, Communities and Local Government Minister helped Cameron launch the ‘Big Society’ campaign, or as I like to call it ‘Cover for Cuts’ campaign. And Ken Clarke has lost the key to his red box at the cricket.

It seems to me that the way forward for Labour is clear. Attacking the Lib Dems should no longer be a priority. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun, but after watching the BBC’s ‘Five days that changed Britain’ documentary I was struck by two things. One, is this the fastest an event has been made into history by being made into a documentary, and two, why didn’t I see it before! The truth is this coalition is so natural for Clegg that I don’t understand what took me so long to realise. I’ve never like Nick Clegg, from when he became on MP, then became leader of the Liberal Democrats. You see, have a guilty secret. In my days as a young, carefree teenager, I regarded myself as a Liberal Democrat. I know. The shock, the horror, the shaaaame! Don’t get me wrong, my ideology was the same, I believed then what I believe now. But then, you see, had this misguided belief that the Liberal Democrats were a centre left party. My mistake I know, it has now come to my attention that they are nothing more than rag-tag bunch of assorted discontents that never had the courage to admit they were either a conservative, or a socialist. In Nick Clegg’s case he has proven himself to be a liar, a cheat, and a conservative.

‘The Big Society’, another name for ‘the great abandonment’

David Cameron launched, or re-launched, his Big Society policy today. It pledges, as the name suggests, a new involvement of communities, culture of volunteerism, an age of utopian living, in which we all help, support and care for each other instead of relying on the state. A wonderful thought, but at its base, a lie. The Big Society is little more than a nice name for the impending great abandonment.

Conservative ideology about the size of the state is well known. Thatcher rolled back the state in the 80’s in an attempt to reduce the responsibility government had towards its citizens. Now, under the auspices of deficit reduction, Cameron is aiming to go even further. In just a couple of months a new education policy of ‘free schools’ has taken the place of Labour’s policy to rebuild and renew secondary education. The Building Schools for the Future programme aimed to do what it said on the tin, rebuild shattered, derelict schools which were falling down around pupils struggling to learn. This scheme was halted with the onset of the coalition government. The new Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, announced that the scheme would be scrapped. Let’s be clear, the scheme was the biggest ever school buildings investment programme announced by a government, and promised to make every one of the 3500 secondary schools in the country fit for teachers to teach in, and pupils to learn in. It aimed to rid England of the crumbling schools which were the signature of the last Conservative government. That is what the Secretary of State was stopping (once he could get the list right). Instead, he would spend that money, as well as money from the free school meals budget, on the introduction of the new free schools and academies policy. At best, it is a shameless introduction of the private sector into the state education system, and at worst, the dismantling of state education as we know it.

Next for the shopping block, the NHS. Andrew Lansley has announced “The biggest shakeup of the NHS since its inception”. I don’t know if it was just me, but this statement filled me with terror, maybe the same terror the Prime Minister feels at the prospect of sending his children into the state schooling system, poor kiddie Cameroons, having to learn like normal people. I have posted an earlier blog (below) on the NHS white paper introduced by the new Secretary of State for Health. In the same short evaluation has above about schools, I can sum up the changes in a sentence. At best, shocking introductions of the private sector into the public health sector, at worst, the break up and privatisation of the NHS.

In Liverpool Cameron has announced how he sees the future of the public sector. The Big Society, as I have long warned friends, should not be batted away or ignored as a gimmick. This is serious. As a Labour member and supporter, I am all for the idea of greater community action, more involvement of local people in local services. Much as state retrenchment is the ideology of those on the right, so greater social cohesion and sense of community is of my own social democratic views. But beware, this is not BSF, and it is not what it says on the tin.

The Big Society is little more than a relabeling of Thatcher’s “Rolling back the frontiers of the state”. It is, at its core, and abandonment of local services, people, charities. A friend of mine, also a Labour supporter, has worked tirelessly as a volunteer for years in her local community. She welcomes any attempt by government for more funding and responsibility locally. But she laments this new policy. It is, unfortunately, asking local services to fill the hole left by conservative retrenchment with less funding. All under the guise of furthering the brilliant volunteers, dedicated local service providers and sense of community already alive around us, this government is hiding its true ambition, small state, reduced responsibility, centralised government.

As per, we have seen uncomfortable Liberal Democrat faces, yet they remain next to gleeful conservatives grins. It, once again, falls to the Labour party in opposition, to defend the most vulnerable, protect the poor, and guard the defenceless. Clegg has proved himself to be the wolf in sheep’s clothing any suspected him to be, the Conservative’s take the role of the woodcutter wielding the axe, while the vulnerable Little Red Riding hood, the public, remains blissfully unaware if just how damaging this new alliance will prove to be.