Yes these are hard times! The austerity programme is really biting but does it really have to be this hard? I get the feeling that the budget deficit is being used by the Tories to achieve what they never ever thought was possible: the end to public spending. This is something that Margaret Thatcher only dreamed about. The deficit has allowed the Tories to do, carte blanche, what they only ever dreamed of doing in the past. They now need no excuse to mask their twisted ambition and they can now claim to be doing their very dirty business under the guise that they are only doing it only for the public good.
Truth is that the deficit has proved them with an excuse to make their policies harder and more stringent than ever before seen by a Tory Administration. They can savage public spending like never before and make us believe that cuts in essential services are in our interests. they are targeting elderly, vulnerable, disabled and all our essential services like police and refuse collection. Whilst they are doing this they are coming out of it seemingly blameless in the eyes of the general public as the blame comes to rest at the doorstep of the respective councils being forced to make these savage cuts. Council budgets are being hit at government level and councils simply have to respond to the demands of central government when they say jump the councils ask ‘how high?’. The Tories have never enjoyed so much power to interfere with council budgets and services and boy are they milking it. They have gone power crazy with it.
In Whose Interest is this Austerity Programme?
The Tories are now able to fracture the very fabric of our society, fracturing more than ever the council’s abilities to meet and provide services which are useful to the community and which develop a sense of community. The same old Tory strategies of divide and conquer all over again. We must fight back otherwise our communities will be forever damaged under the guise of this Austerity Programme. There has to be a fairer way. I get the feeling that most of the things we are losing will never be replaced when times might eventually improve. Cuts to services, job losses, unemployment, higher crime levels, poorly lit roads and streets are no way to get money circulating in the economy. You cannot fight a recession with cuts you need to invest and develop to increase consumer confidence and increase the spending power of individuals to drive an economic upturn not impoverish them. Cuts and job losses only deepens a recession. So you need to ask yourself in whose interests are all these cuts. I hear laughter and the clicking glasses resounding in the corridors at Westminster as the Tories contemplate delivering the Coup de Grâce to public services all done under the deceitful guise of the common good of the Austerity Programme that they are delivering.