Ah, politics, eh? What a game. No rules, a variable
number of sides, no referee, no goalposts, no way of keeping an accurate score,
no real league table and the preferences of the fans ignored completely. In
fact, those on the sidelines rarely know which team any player bats for, who is
winning, or what their strategies are. It’s a win-win-lose-win-lose situation
with all to play for in the last half hour.
Statistics for previous matches reveal little of the
truth when both sides of the main political divide can claim success or victory
on the basis of the same events. Labour, for instance, closed more coal mines
and much earlier than did the Conservatives, yet it is Thatcher who always gets
the blame for dismantling the coal industry. Margaret Thatcher – and I was
there and remember this well – was genuinely determined that people should not
become helpless wards of the state but should have freedom and dignity and
aspiration, but to listen to some of the under-thirties you would think she
personally snatched food from their mouths.
People are laid off from work all the time, but when it’s
under a Tory government it is due to evil cuts, while Labour administrations
lose jobs due to unavoidable international pressures. The Conservatives, they
say, work for the bankers and business owners, while Labour work for the
people. This of course, ignores the inconvenient fact that bankers and business
owners bring in investment and create wealth, whereas ‘the people’ forever hold
out their hand. The truth in politics is immaterial when all that matters is
power – for many of the new breed power is all and policy is simply a matter of
popularity – and the outcomes can be spun anyway.
Perception, as Lord Ashcroft said last year, is all. So, instead
of reading up on economics, supporters of a left-wing agenda instead blame the
plight of the idle and uneducated not on the years of idleness and poor
education brought about by state interference in people’s lives but on the
industry and vigour of those who ignore the state’s moribund meddlings and go
out to create wealth for themselves. Themselves, they cry, how dare they? Then
set about drowning entrepreneurialism in a sea of red tape and tax.
Few people genuinely believe we can do without government
altogether, but almost everybody seems to disagree about how much government we
need and of what type. The cosy inclusion of the original welfare state was
based on a nation of hard grafting labour where nationalised industries could
employ every unit of muscle available and more besides. And as long as physical
labour was in demand and the steel mills rolled the burgeoning population could
be absorbed by the massive state machine which actually reinforced the class
system very effectively; while there was a genuine ‘working class’ you had
somewhere to belong.
State socialism, however, relies on a form of mass
hypnosis, the reassurance that the work will always be there, that the state is
great and that Big Brother’s only concern is your welfare. Don’t worry your
pretty little heads about silly things like paying for it all; we will tell you
what you want to hear and we will love you and keep you warm no matter what.
You don’t need to hear the truth – don’t listen to those nasty people calling
for restraint. We’ll borrow a bit more to get us over the slump.
Capitalism, on the other hand, makes no such cosy promise;
you’re on your own. Taken to extremes that spells the discarding of the
unprofitable with all the consequent misery it would entail, but of course it
won’t be the capitalists who deal the blow. They will be long gone and their
wealth gone with them. Because that’s how it works. Socialism refuses to own up
to the truth and keeps on trying to milk those who can to give to those who can’t
or won’t. It needs the capitalists to pay the taxes to keep the literally [in economic
terms] worthless in a state of indolence, rather than revolt. The capitalists
don’t rise up against the government; they simply get on with it and go where
the political weather suits their clothes.
My experience is that whenever you rely on the endeavours
and promises of others there is a chance they will let you down, with all the crap
that entails. Some people of course have no choice but to depend on outside
help – I’d rather that help not be diluted by the massive resources poured into
maintaining the fairy tale of universal welfare. Britain has been a socialist
country for many, many years now and the notion of entitlement is deeply entrenched
so it’s no longer a case of Labour or Conservative or [if you have no idea]
Liberal Democrat or Green, or even UKIP because none of them can materially
alter that unhappy state in less than generations.
Ed Marx - Still the easiest to parody
Nope. It’s not a choice of red or blue or mauve or yellow
scarves, so much as which party has to lie the least to maintain its illusion.
Right now, on welfare, immigration, the economy and climate change, that party would
appear to be UKIP and they are certainly the one to watch in 2014. I know they can’t gain power - they may not win a single seat - but boy have they got the
spin-bowlers in the red and blue camps working overtime.
