Megalomaniac Declares Diktat To Serfs
30 December 2007
The Prime Minister has promised a year of “real and serious change” in his new year message.
For Britain, 2008 will be a year of real and serious changes.
With important legislation making long-term changes in energy, climate change, health, pensions, planning, housing, education and transport, 2008 will be a year of measurable changes in public services.
A year for stepping up major long-term reform to meet challenges ranging from globalisation and global warming to the great unfinished business of social reform in our country.
And we will continue to work with our international partners to counter the ongoing threat of global terrorism, most recently witnessed in the atrocities in Pakistan.
So we will not shirk but see through changes and reforms in the vital areas for our future - secure energy, pensions, transport, welfare, education, health and national security.
We will strengthen the democracy and unity of our country. Our priority at all times, our guiding purpose: One Britain of security and opportunity for all the British people.
And through the publication of our national security strategy we will set out the scale of both the challenges we face and our response at home and overseas to counter the terror threat.
Our strong economy is the foundation. And with unbending determination, in 2008, we will steer a course of stability through global financial turbulence.
The global credit problem that started in America is now the most immediate challenge for every economy and addressing it the most immediate priority.
But just as we withstood the Asia crisis, the American recession, the end of the IT bubble and the trebling of oil prices and continued to grow, Britain will meet and master this new challenge by our determination to maintain stability and low inflation.
We will make the right decisions, not only this year but for the years ahead, to safeguard and strengthen our economy - and by keeping inflation low keep interest rates for business and homeowners low.
I promise that we will take no risks with stability. Upon it all else depends: family prosperity and our capacity to build the good society - better educated, healthier, safer and fairer than we have known before.
Economic stability alone does not secure any of this, but makes all of it possible.
So we will not rest on our economic success, but build on it. And 2008 will be the decisive year of this decade to put in place the long-term changes that will prepare us for the decades ahead.
To lead in the skills of the future and create a full employment Britain, we will guarantee young people the right to school or college, an apprenticeship or training free of charge until the age of 18. This is the greatest change in education in our country in half a century.
Along with our welfare reforms and our Children’s Plan, it is part of a revolution in learning and life chances that can finally help unlock all the talents of all young people.
We are the first generation in which that ideal can become a reality. And this is not only morally right but economically essential because in this global age the prosperity of each of us now depends on developing the talents of all of us.
And by ensuring every child has a better start in life we will also address the continuing challenge of child poverty.
To lead not only in opportunity in work, but security in retirement, we will complete the pensions bill so that everyone is saving for a pension and every employer is contributing.
To lead in safeguarding the environment, the climate change bill will make Britain the first country to legislate legally binding cuts in carbon emissions. And because a good environment is good economics, we will take the difficult decisions on energy security - on nuclear power and renewables - so British invention and innovation can claim new markets for new technologies and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs.
To build for the future of our families and our economy, we are starting the biggest housing programme to boost owner occupation - and will provide historic levels of investment in transport and infrastructure through Crossrail, at Heathrow and across the country.
We will lead in the public services of the future - services not just universal but tailored to people’s needs with more voice, choice and accountability for the parent and the citizen.
2008 will be the year when the public sees services becoming more personal to their wishes and aspirations. And we will not be deflected from our commitment to cleaner hospitals and to change to increase the opening hours of GP surgeries. Illness is not a nine to five condition - and the NHS cannot be just a nine to five service.
We have other promises to keep, from neighbourhood policing in every community to the renewal of our democracy and the revival of confidence in our political process. We will define a new citizenship of rights and responsibilities - and establish a new points system as a condition of living and working in Britain.
And in 2008, with firm conviction and resolve, we will make the case for the United Kingdom - standing up for the cause of the Union and against secession, showing people in all parts of the country that for so many of the challenges our country faces - from climate change to terrorism - there are no Wales-only, Scotland-only or England-only solutions.
This season is above all a time to pay tribute to those who serve and sacrifice for our country, often in places far away. And we pledge that the men and women on the frontlines of our security, at home and overseas, will have all the resources they need for our defence and their own safety.
All these policies reflect our shared vision of a new Britain rooted in enduring traditions and values. A Britain, strong, prosperous and fair. A country proud of its progress toward equality and confident of its future. That is what I want to see when we look back on another New Years Day years from now.
We will only achieve this through hard, persistent effort and by continuing to reach out to all who want to see a better Britain - not the old politics, but new policies equal to the demands of a new time.
I wish all of my fellow citizens a Happy New Year. And I pledge my resolution to continue the work of change.
Old Etonian Attempts To Butter Up Britain
The hope of real change
David Cameron’s New Year’s message:
“I want 2008 to be the year in which we offer the people of this country the hope of real change, by setting out a clear and inspiring vision of what Britain will look like with a Conservative government.
So in place of Labour’s hopeless mismanagement of the NHS, we will offer the hope of a health service where we get rid of the top-down centralisation and bureaucracy and make sure that taxpayers’ money delivers the high quality service they’ve paid for and have a right to expect. In the year of the 60th anniversary of the NHS, we will be the party standing up for the NHS against yet more onslaughts from the Labour bureaucracy machine.
In place of Labour’s hopeless acceptance of mediocrity in education, which has seen Britain tumble down the world league tables just when we need our children to be doing better than those in other countries, we will offer the hope of a decent education for every child, with immediate action to raise standards and radical reform to end the state monopoly over new school places.
In place of Labour’s hopeless surrender to violence on our streets, with overcrowded prisons and police tied up in red tape, we will offer the hope of civilised communities which are safe for everyone, based on radical police reform and more prison places in prisons which actually reduce re-offending.
In place of Labour’s hopeless failure on social breakdown which has left Britain with more children growing up in broken homes, higher unemployment and a £100 billion a year bill for social failure, we will offer the hope of real change: to strengthen families, reform welfare, and make British poverty history.
On the economy, on the environment, on defence and fighting terrorism, there are tremendous challenges ahead. In the fight against terrorism, we were reminded last week how hard the road to democracy is. The death of Benazir Bhutto must strengthen, not weaken our resolve to defeat the enemies of freedom.
This will be the year in which we show that there is hope for the future: that there is a clear and credible alternative to this hopeless and incompetent Labour government.
And let us be clear about the reason why.
It is not just that we offer the hope of a strong team of competent ministers to replace these weak, exhausted and second-rate Labour politicians.
It is not just that we offer the hope of a fresh start on policy after so many years of Labour headline-chasing short-term tricks with no real substance behind them.
It is that we offer a clear vision of the Britain we want to see, and a clear idea of how we will govern differently.
My vision for Britain is clear: to give people more opportunity and power over their lives, to make families stronger and society more responsible, and to make Britain safer and greener.
And we will inaugurate a new era in government: government for the post-bureaucratic age, where we devolve power to people and communities because we understand that a government that tries to control everything ends up not being able to run anything
I sense that Britain feels it’s time for a change. There probably won’t be a General Election this year but we will behave and work as though there is. And in doing so prove that you can once again trust a Conservative government to take this country forward.
We must show from the very beginning of and throughout this year that we can set the agenda with our new thinking and clear understanding of what people want for themselves and their family.
We have made good progress in the last two years. But I know it’s not enough. Government is an immense responsibility and the public are right to look very closely at what we stand for and what we promise.
2007 was the year that Gordon Brown was finally found out. There has been no fresh start, no big vision, nothing but serial incompetence and a series of political calculations culminating in a cancelled general election.
When the election finally does come, I want people to know that the Conservative vision of opportunity, responsibility and security, delivered by a government for the post-bureaucratic age, will bring hope after the disappointment, failure and waste of this hopeless Labour government.”
Magi, Mentalists and Fools: The Decline of Political Delusion
Gordon Brown has recently been compared with the Wizard of Oz at the point where he is discovered to be a fraud. The curtain has been pulled and all the magic has leaked out of the illusion, leaving a clumsy operator impotently pulling at the levers of power, cynically observed by those who have lost their credulity.
This could be applied to any other leader, of course, like the snubbed pariah Robert Mugabe or the sidelined and discredited George Bush, each now viewed as paragons of corruption and ineptitude, rather than heroic wielders of power.
It is the same for any leader, as the glamour fades to revulsion and the willing suspension of disbelief gives way to the hardened and jaded analysis of failure. The wishful, almost childish willingness to trust in Tony Blair naturally turned to embittered hatred when he put his faith in himself and his own beliefs at odds with the palpable wishes of his country. He simply broke the spell.
It is this willingness to be enchanted, to be enraptured and seduced which the mass of people bring to the political contract between government and governed. In turn, those who occupy positions of power need to charm and entice their audience and maintain the illusion that the entertainment provided is worth the price.
This is where the process of government is failing, perhaps because the illusionists are simply not up to the tricks needed or perhaps because they are aware that they are becoming ever more superfluous ciphers and one day soon their own game will be up. When the real magicians in the form of business and interest groups are manipulating the politicians like marionettes, how can the politicians be expected to put on a convincing show? When the real seat of power is in Brussels and not Westminster, is not the portrayed exercising of power merely a tacky sham?
People in power are forever pretending to know the wishes of the people. They need to perpetuate this charade to legitimise their actions. The problem is that most politicians have only operated in the bizarre and unreal sphere of politics and have never occupied the place which everyone else would recognise as the real world, so some kind of illusion is needed. They therefore rely on things like focus groups, which they think will allow them to pry into the minds of average or ordinary people. It may be apocryphal, but one such focus group was said to be pulled from a seemingly random selection of people in a shopping centre. Apart from the fact that the circus was in town that day, so policy was possibly made by jugglers, fire-eaters and acrobats. Politicians do not know what anyone thinks, but they will try to sell you ideas like a fairground hawker if there is money to be made or an election to be won.
When the conjurors become clumsy butterfingers and end up actually sawing the lady in half, it is time for the fools to step in. The fool was traditionally allowed to tell the king home truths about his royal inadequacies which were denied to other commoners or courtiers. He may have teetered on a tightrope of opposing truthfulness or sycophancy, but at least he had the expectation of being heard. It is this facility of being heard which now needs to be signalled to the politicians who seem to be engaged in an act of their own trickery and delusion, where they seem to be floating away from the constraints of reality and responsibilities of office. The voice of everyone can now be listened to as a muffled uproar, hissing and fizzing in every media, but forever inarticulate, fading and forgotten. Huckster politicians still make declamations which resonate from the centre of the stage. The rest of us are like children at a pantomime, shouting “It’s behind you!” to the pretended befuddlement of the star turn and with us much chance of changing the predetermined outcome of the show.
If politicians want to remain believable, they have to be more adroit at pulling the wool over our eyes. They have to stop pretending to be truthful because their lies will keep finding them out. They have to reinstate the contract between the trickster and the fooled in such a way that the duped viscerally feel they are getting a good deal, even when they intellectually know they are not. People do not really believe in magic: they just want to be allowed to pretend. In order to facilitate this, the political classes need to become more aloof and stop pretending to be everyone’s best mate, everybody’s new pal acquired last night at some drunken bout at the pub.
It is said that politics is showbusiness for unattractive people and the business of government has now become part of the global media onslaught on people’s minds everywhere. Politicians are people in a play, characters from a soap opera, actors in a film or models in an advert. Their soundbites are nothing more than the catchphrase of a comedian, a company slogan or a garbled axiom.
If we want to be left alone in peace, we have to pretend to believe in illusions once again. We have to clap and cheer the political classes and tell them their tricks are wonderful. Say we did not see the clumsy sleight of hand, the obviously palmed card, the plant in the audience. It is only when we voice our suspicions that the act is fixed that they will keep insisting otherwise and legislate to enforce our belief, probably under pain of torture and death.
Let’s just go back willingly to the good old days of mutual unconditional assent and separation from known reality. Just close your eyes, click your heels and believe.
Just before Dorothy leaves the Emerald City, she speaks to the great, the grand Wizard of Oz and asks whether he will leave with her.
“Yes, of course,” replied Oz. “I am tired of being such a humbug. If I should go out of this Palace my people would soon discover I am not a Wizard, and then they would be vexed with me for having deceived them. So I have to stay shut up in these rooms all day, and it gets tiresome. I’d much rather go back to Kansas with you and be in a circus again.”
[I wrote this originally for BlogCritics]
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