Thatcher's homophobia: the forgotten legacy

Caught between rising homophobic violence and tackling discrimination, Thatcher made it very clear where she stood.

In the wake of former PM Margaret Thatcher's death, a military-scale process of sanctification has been shoved down the British public's gullet.

Watch the way Newsnight covered her legacy on the day she popped her clogs, or how Ken Clarke and her biographer Charles Moore were slobbering all over her name for most of the last episode of BBC Question Time, and you'll start believing that figures such as Mother Teresa and Florence Nightingale were actually a pair of hoodlums compared to the Iron Lady.

And yet, in the flurry of hagiographies and tributes to this "extraordinary woman", her long list of heinous political acts seems to have been ENTIRELY forgotten. In particular, the way her rampant homophobia became integral to British law.

Which, you will understand, hardly sits at ease with the relentless campaign to portray her as Holy. The papers may tell you that she was stubborn or, at a push, that "some people saw her as fairly divisive", but that Thatcher was behind Britain’s first new anti-gay law since 1885 is so utterly embarrassing that they just won't mention it.

And before your average Tory pops up to tell you that no, she actually stood for LGBT rights, just like they're unashamedly passing as "fighting apartheid" the fact that she and her party dubbed Nelson Mandela a "terrorist" for the whole of her political career, here's a number of things that Maggie did to further institutionalise homophobia in Britain.

Like human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell writes, "At the Conservative party conference in 1987 Mrs Thatcher mocked people who defended the right to be gay, insinuating that there was no such right. During her rule, arrests and convictions for consenting same-sex behaviour rocketed, as did queer bashing violence and murders. This backlash coincided with her successive “family values” and “Victorian values” campaigns, which urged a return to traditional morality and family life".  

And, in fact, this is what she publicly said:

"Too often, our children don’t get the education they need—the education they deserve…
Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay…
All of those children are being cheated of a sound start in life—yes, cheated".

Which is how, aided by a hysterical tabloid campaign about "the loonie left" and "gay lobbies" along with talks of AIDS as "the gay plague" and the barefaced lie that "GAY PORN BOOKS [were being] READ IN SCHOOLS", in 1988 the Thatcher government steamrollered in the homophobic Section 28.

The Act, which remained part of the statute book until Labour scrapped it in 2003, was as controversial and ambiguous as it was soaked in hate and deep prejudice.

In one fell swoop, Section 28 crucially advocated censorship - preventing local authorities and schools from discussing ("promoting", the hideous wording was) homosexuality or engaging in anti-bullying activities, sneered at "pretended family relationships", and added insult to injury by linking homosexuality to "the spread of disease".

It is almost impossible to believe that such an ignorant piece of legislation was part of the British legislative framework and that half the Tory party was still defending it tooth and nail as recently as 2003.

Nevertheless, caught between rising homophobic violence and intolerance, and the calls in favour of tackling discrimination and promoting acceptance, Thatcher made it very clear where she stood.

No coincidence that, shortly after Section 28 became law, the offices of a gay newspaper, Capital Gay, were burnt down and lesbian and gay helplines reported a threefold increase in "queer bashing".

Which is why, when the current hysteria over Maggie's beatification subsides a little, hopefully the world will manage to remember how such a detestably homophobic piece of legislation was entirely in line with Thatcher and her character. Now hopefully buried forever.

Tory clowns, civil liberties...

...and u-turns so pathetic that you're left wondering if this government is for real.

Remember when Tories and LibDem alike were rinsing their gob with attacks on New Labour's "erosion of civil liberties", "Big Brother Britain", "ZaNuLabour" and the rest?

That was one of their key points as they were conning the whole population throughout the 2010 campaign and their first few weeks in power.

Well. Just like the joke-like bonanza of lies covering anything from NHS plans to VAT, tuition fees, tax, the minimum wage and the rest, the Conservatives have now come up with this gem: "The government will be able to monitor the calls, emails, texts and website visits of everyone in the UK under new legislation set to be announced soon", reports the BBC today.

And the justification? "Tackling crime and terrorism", says the Tory-led Home Office. Of course. What. A. Bunch. Of . Clowns.

Blame the weather

Why Osborne's excuse that snow is to blame for the collapse in economic growth is comedy material.

Britain's economy contracted 0.5% in the last quarter, the most in a year, according to the latest from the Office for National Statistics.

While everybody agrees the figures are evidence of a double-dip recession on its way and even the CBI boss accuses the government of "lacking vision" ("Measures that cut spending but killed demand would actually make matters worse", in the words of Sir Richard Lambert), Chancellor George "Trustfund" Osborne had the cheek to seriously blame last month's snowfall and cold temperatures.

No doubt because he had first-hand experience of both.

But let's just suppose Osborne was right. At the end of the day, it is true that last December was the coldest on record.

It still isn't enough to explain entirely such a massive slump to the point of also cancelling out completely October and November.

The truth is that no amount of comical excuses from Britain's Chancellor will cover up for the devastating decisions they've inflicted on the country.

And a simple comparison will be enough to expose his bullshit for what it is.

December 2009 was also an extremely cold month. Granted, not as extreme as December 2010, but still the Met Office described it as the coldest on record since 1995, with heavy snowfalls and widespread disruption to the economy.

Yet that didn't prevent the economy from growing last year for the first time in six quarters (see this).

More. Look at January, February and March 2010. The three combined were all much colder than usual (January in particular was "the coldest over the UK since 1987 and equal eighth-coldest in a series from 1910") and each of them was officially listed as "anomalies" in terms of mean temperatures.

Guess what? The economy grew over that quarter too. No mention of bad weather there, eh?

The truth is, Osborne is useless and this government is so inept that they would still deny a piece of evidence if it stared at them in the face with a sign that said "evidence".

About bleedin time

"Andy Coulson quits as David Cameron spin doctor".

The toxic effects of job insecurity

From lower productivity rates to family dysfunction and from poor customer service to depression and lack of motivation. What lies behind David Cameron's calls for "less red tape".

David Cameron's recent plans to make it easier to sack staff in the first two years of their employment have sparked an intense debate over the nature of Britain's labour market.

After the "fluffy years", it was only a matter of time before the crook-eyed default Tory approach to the world of paid employment would resurface.

The problem for Cameron and the bosses' organisations, however, is that - unlike the Thatcher years - there's very little left in terms of workers' protection for the government to wade in with the axe.

Extreme job insecurity in the UK is already a growing reality.

According to the OECD, Britain is in the top three along with the US and Canada (and well under the OECD average) in the strictness of employment protection index (1985-2008), which measures "the procedures and costs involved in dismissing individuals or groups of workers and the procedures involved in hiring workers on fixed-term or temporary work agency contracts".

Given the companies' free access to casual staff on "zero hours contract", or the free use of "temps" (which, by law, can be hired repeatedly on fixed-term contracts for up to four years before any tie comes into place), the lax regulation on probationary period for regular staff, as well as some of the lowest levels of statutory redundancy pay in the Western world, the notion that Britain's employment regulations may be at the core of the current dole rates is simply comedy material.

If we carry on this way, soon the only crusade left for the British Chamber of Commerce and the Tories to embark upon under the guise of "cutting red tape" will be against the right for workers to empty their bladder or take a crap at work.

However, what the last few days also highlighted is the almost total abdication on the part of the left and Labour in the fight against the galloping job insecurity and its noxious effects.

This line from the normally commendable Stumbling and Mumbling blog bothered me to the extreme. While sceptical of David Cameron's proposals, author Chris Dillow also wrote:

"There’s good evidence that [employment protection] reduces workers’ effort and increases absenteeism. This suggests that - at the margin - Cameron’s proposals might increase labour productivity".

Now, the reason why the above quote bothered me so much is that it shows how toxic and widespread certain myths are that even well-informed and well-read people can buy into them without questioning.

In brief, the Daily Mailesque-fable that a permanent job or certain guarantees at work will automatically turn you into a slacker. They ain't gonna sack me, so why bother, basically.

And how can you dispute that if even the usually meticulous and pro-left Chris Dillow can cite "good evidence" on the matter?

Except that said "good evidence" points to three pieces of research from Portugal and Italy which are solely and exclusively focused on specific (and already obsolete) legislation passed in those two countries in the 1980s and 1990s. Those laws were extremely protective - overly protective in fact - in a way not remotely comparable to anything Britain ever experienced, not even at its unionised peak.

It's like saying "there's good evidence that January is not a cold month and in fact look at this link to prove it". Except that it points to average January temperatures from the Canary Islands and Dubai.

The fact is, instead, that there's literally a mammoth body of research out there warning of the toxic long-term effects of job insecurity (click here for a summary).

Over the years detailed studies took place around the world, from the US and Canada to Australia, Sweden, Korea, Germany and more. The findings leave room to no doubt: there is a clear correlation between excessive levels of job insecurity and a variety of negative outcomes.

The initial advantages of "increased flexibility and lower costs" for the employers are undisputed. But little is ever said about the long-term effects that "casualisation may have on important aspects of national economic performance such as skill formation" and, most importantly, the ticking time-bomb that is widespread casualisation as weighed against "long-term financial planning".

But the strongest and most consistent evidence is the one seen across firms, industries, and countries linking job insecurity with "negative employee attitudes, behavio[u]rs, and health" and with the fact - as noted by several researchers - that "job insecurity is more stressful than job loss itself".

Amongst the negative effects, a "powerful negative influence on motivation", "reduced effort" and "poor safety compliance by employees". Low levels of job satisfaction are also associated with negative employee attitudes, lower customer performance and effectiveness with customers as well as with -in turn- a detrimental effect on group morale.

And that's without taking into account what "the longer term negative effects on workers' depression levels", or "the systemic [relation] between job insecurity and marital and family dysfunction" or, even, the proven effects that "parents' job insecurity has on children's school performance as measured by grades" .

The fact that "job insecurity reduces job satisfaction is attributable to the uncertainty of not knowing how to predict or control job threats".

And that's because, while insecurity in the short-term may spur a worker to perform better if the goal is a latter stage of more protection and various perks, an ongoing perception of "precariousness" will start having an adverse effect, as the worker will feel increasingly uncertain that their persistence can be sufficient enough for them to retain their job.

For a worker with little to lose, the lack of ties will offer no incentives to stop them from slacking off or "looking elsewhere" altogether.

Tory proposals on sacking people are both useless and criminal

Mass sackings: welcome to The Great Conservative Economic Strategy.

Another fine display of 21st century British politics took place yesterday when David Cameron dropped the bombshell on the millions of unwitting voters that it should be made much easier to sack workers in this country ("Firms get power to sack the slackers", Telegraph).

Now, of course, the Tories don't have a mandate for that. They never mentioned any of their "employment reforms" at any stage of the election campaign. They didn't because they knew that voters would punish them for that. And in fact, at this point, if you're an ordinary worker and you still think voting Tories will do you or the country any good, then you may as well chop your own bollocks off. The outcome will not be dissimilar.

It's astonishing that, in the face of the biggest crisis in sixty years, The Great Conservative Economic Strategy amounts to the sacking of half a million public workers, even easier sacking procedures for everybody else and -of course- higher costs of living.

The Tories' proposal is based on the contempt they have for ordinary workers. If you are an employee, you are - by default - a burden, an irritant, a disposable pain in the arse. Whatever the issue, financial or otherwise, you're the first one who should bear the brunt. No matter how much this may undermine morale or loyalty to the company. No matter how insecure it makes you feel. You're not a person. You're just a cheap pawn.

David Cameron's proposed new "Employment Charter" starts from a fallacy the size of the Millennium Dome: the ridiculously simplistic illusion that if you decrease protection at work, employment levels will rise automatically.

This is so all over the place that it's difficult to know where to start. But let's just say that the post-1997 implementation of the minimum wage and new maternity rules in Britain were followed by the lowest dole rates in thirty years. Look, instead, at the swirl of anti-Union laws and other measures brought in by Thatcher. It did nothing to even slow down the sustained high unemployment rates that kept looming large over the 1980s and 1990s.

Or consider Italy and Spain, where the last ten years saw most extreme forms of casualisation and disposable employment steamrolled in. Their unemployment levels are still looking extremely sorry, in fact worse even than before.

The second fallacy is that the Conservatives are making it sound as if the current British labour market was stifling and inflexible, while it is already one of the most boss-friendly in the EU as it's cheaper and easier to get rid of staff in Britain than it is in most of its counterparts.

Currently, bosses already enjoy the possibility of hiring as many agency or casual workers as they please. These come with no tie whatsoever. They are literally disposable.

If, however, the same boss saw fit to recruit "properly", there is a probationary period of up to 6 months in which he/she can sack said employee on a whim - literally - no notice, no motive, no compensation. Nowt.

After that, the boss will still have up to 12 months in which he/she can still fire him without any possible fear of being done for unfair dismissal or forking out a penny in statutory redundancy pay.

At this point, you will already concede that if a manager hasn't clocked who the slacker is without successfully rectifying the situation, it is he or she who should be sacked and not the worker.

And it's not over yet. While unfair dismissal claims can be brought after a year, you have to work a total of 24 months in order to be entitled to the lowest possible allowance of statutory redundancy, which - please note - is by far the cheapest in Western Europe.

However, egged on by the British Chamber of Commerce, David Cameron thinks that all of the above amounts to "too much red tape" and that the period that allows staff to submit unfair dismissal claims should be increased from one to two years.

But the icing on the cake is the Coalition's proposal to levy a charge on workers who decide to still fight their corner. This may be vintage Tory philosophy, but in this case it just borders on the criminal - as it crucially links access to justice not to whether you're in the right or not, but to whether you can afford it.

And, needless to say, it also ignores the fee that plaintiffs already pay their lawyer, or their union in the form of fees, if it is they who provide legal counsel.

Incidentally, unions rarely decide to pursue claims that they themselves think will lack weight. The amount of pre-screening that is done prior to deciding whether to gamble on a worker's claim is immense. And that's without even including the conciliation and arbitration stage.

And even so, official figures say that, in the first quarter of last year, just 11% of cases taken to an industrial tribunal were successful - and a puny 5% for constructive dismissal. Amazingly, this is the system that bosses complain is "weighed against them" and is "affecting employment levels".

The Conservatives are mistaking increased turnovers with higher employment rates. Their new proposals will do absolutely nothing to get people back to work.

All they will achieve is a system where it's easier to sack unfairly and without scrutiny and a workplace where it will be even more difficult, often impossible, for an honest worker to fight bullying and victimisation or to seek protection against unscrupulous employers.

Top Tories and LibDems against VAT rise

Leading figures from within the government explain why increasing VAT is wrong.

David Cameron:
"You could try, as you say, to put it on VAT, sales tax, but again if you look at the effect of sales tax, it’s very regressive, it hits the poorest the hardest. It does, I absolutely promise you." (April 2010)

Conservative Home:
"Higher VAT is an unacceptable tax on the poor. [It] costs the poorest twice as much" (December 2009)

Nick Clegg:
"Liberal Democrats have costed, in full, our proposals for tax cuts. We can tell you, penny for penny, pound for pound, who pays for them. We will not have to raise VAT to deliver our promises. The Conservatives will. Let me repeat that: Our plans do not require a rise in VAT. The Tory plans do. Their tax promises on marriage and jobs may sound appealing. But they come with a secret VAT bombshell close behind." (April 2010)

Vince Cable:
"A big, sudden jump in VAT would stall any early recovery and hit shops hard. Also, some companies have learnt how to dodge VAT". (September 2009)

The Coalition Isn't Working

Remember the famous Saatchi & Saatchi poster campaign from 1979? Growing dole queues, strikes, riots, more riots and uncollected rubbish. If it was re-written today, it would look exactly like this:

Happy nation

Warning: look away if you can't take any doom'n'gloom

Here's the list of Christmas gift delivered to your doorstep by Santa Cameron. Figures released by the Office for National Statistics yesterday:

- official unemployment up to 2.5 million people (first rise since the spring);

- the number of people who have to switch to part-time work because they could not find a full-time job keeps going up, now standing at 1.16 million, "the highest figure since comparable records began in 1992";

- there were 158,000 redundancies in the three months to October 2010, up 15,000 on the quarter. The figures are set to soar, as around 100,000 redundancy letters are expected to be sent to local authority staff within the next month.

- inflation is up to 3.3% (or 4.7% RPI), particularly due to a record hike on food and non-alcoholic drinks. And with the VAT to rise in January (more about its impact here), that's bound to get worse, especially when coupled with the news that earnings have gone up by 2.2 per cent (though if you personally know anyone who can say they've had a pay rise in the last 12 months, do drop us a line).

PS: On a positive note, this blog salutes one good thing the LibDems have achieved while in power: the end of detention of children in immigration centres - one of the most appalling policies that Labour implemented while in power. Credit when due.

Research says tuition fees scheme unfeasible

If the Coalition were so convinced their new tuition fees package was so fair, why are they rushing to introduce last minute sweeteners?

In an interview published yesterday by the Independent on Sunday, Deputy PM Nick Clegg reiterated the fable that the government's plan to hike tuition fees up to £9000 are "brave and bold and [a] socially progressive thing to do".

But if it was so socially progressive - which the LibDems claimed from the off - why is the Coalition feeling the urge to announce a last minute £150m scholarship fund to cover first year's tuition fees for less well-off students?

Either way Clegg didn't explain how poorer students will manage to make it to their A-levels, let alone university, given that the Coalition is proudly scrapping the EMA (Education Maintenace Allowance) for all students aged 16 to 19.

It's also interesting how the Tories' latest recruit keeps drawing specific examples of how much better off certain students will be with the new higher education scheme, while also steering well clear of explaining that in 60-65% of the cases students will be worse off - as recently highlighted by a number of studies.

The strongest indictment of the Coalition's ineptitude, however, comes from the fiscal side of things.

After both the Higher Education Policy Institute and the Institute for Fiscal Studies raised objections to the feasibility of the Coalition's proposals, a new study by consultancy firm London Economics adds that on top of impacting "adversely on social mobility and participation", the government's plans "will have to be covered by huge increases in borrowing to fund much larger student loans".

The report reiterates the point we made last Saturday: the Coalition's plans will not save the taxpayer a single penny. Quite the opposite. The Government will have "to borrow £10.7 billion to fund student loans in 2015/16 compared to the £4.1 billion it borrowed in 2010/11. If the Government’s plans are voted through, they will add a whopping £13 billion to public sector net debt by 2015/16".

"The plans are really a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul", was the comment of Pam Tatlow, Chief Executive of university think tank Million+.

The risks of a system replicating a miniature-style financial crash within a few years' time are obvious. Researchers explain how huge chunks of future graduates will never repay the full whack, many entering the 30-year write-off period with tens of thousands of pounds still outstanding.

In the summer of 2009, it had already been noted that "out of 1.4million graduates who started university in 1998 or later, 49 per cent were earning too little to pay back their student loans".

As regards tuition fees, 43 per cent of the most recent crop of graduates had not reached the current repayment threshold of £15,000, leading to the "doubling in five years" of outstanding student debt.

With the Coalition's new regime of trebled tuition fees and a higher threshold, the implosion of the whole further education system doesn't look unlikely.

Why party politics is a pathetic joke

The three main parties have switched policy on tuition fees more often than tennis players swapping ends at the end of every game.

Wherever you stand on tuition fees, the recent debate said an awful lot about the world of party politics. And if you think this sounds like a bit of a swiping statement, just take a look at a few simple facts.

No matter which major party you look at, what you have staring at you in the face is politicking and opportunism of the worst kind.

It's a joy to behold when LibDem MPs and activists alike turn overnight into staunch defenders of the brand new Super-Expensive Higher Education system. The very same people who for years (and until the other day) were ranting against fee-paying universities as if it would mean the Apocalypse.

Read this BBC report from 2003. Look at the bit where the LibDems education spokesman slams the Labour government for the "nonsensical notion that all graduates suddenly become high earners". And then this: "Saddling students with a mortgage-style 20-year debt creates a huge disincentive for higher education". It's going to be "mortgage-style debts", is what the Lib-Dems shouted til the other day.

Not only that. The LibDems were also warning of the dangers of "[the] market [being] introduced into higher education". "Top-ups wil deter students", they protested.

Today Clegg & co would tell you it's not ideal, but it's ok. "You don't have to pay up front" must be one of their most quoted statements in defense of the new system.

Except that's exactly how the Labour government sold a very similar policy to parliament a few years back.

"[The students] will make a fair contribution to the cost but only after graduation, through the tax system, on the basis of ability to pay", said Tony Blair in a speech in January 2004, adding that "[tuition fees] do not penalise the ordinary taxpayer".

Now you hear Harriet Harman attacking Coalition plans to "dump the cost on to students". Which is amazing, because while she was in government and Labour was doing exactly the same, her colleague and then-Higher Education Minister Alan Johnson defended trebling tuition fees. "I just reject the notion that working-class kids are more debt averse than youngsters from other backgrounds", he told the Independent.

And when you read what Charles Clarke mumbled about "growing pressure on public budgets", you could be excused for thinking it was one of the current ConDem ministers talking. "There is no alternative", sentenced Charles Clarke. Just like what David Cameron said the other day.

Which leads us to the Tories. Back when Labour trebled tuition fees, they were frothing at the mouth. "Have the Tories become Old Labour?" wondered a BBC report in 2004, with reference to the Conservatives' proposal "to abolish tuition fees"!

Back in 2003, then-Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith pledged that all university tuition fees would be abolished under a future Conservative government, condemning them as "a tax on learning". Seriously.

A year later, then-Shadow Education Secretary Damian Green called for tuition fees to be scrapped altogether. "This would help students avoid the burden of long-term debt which deters increasing numbers of poorer students from applying to university", he said.

In opposition, current Coalition Minister Kenneth Clarke said "It is the ordinary student from the ordinary family [...]who will carry the burden of tens of thousands of pounds-worth of debt [...] Does [the Labour government] seriously expect that that will have no effect at all on the willingness of such people to go in for the more expensive courses in higher education?".

Well, apparently not. According to his current government colleague and fellow Tory Michael Gove, "[higher fees] won't put off students". Fancy that.

It really must take some stomach to still put up with it. How do you do tribalism? How can anyone keep up with all the somersaulting without getting a headache or feeling at least an inkling of nausea?

How can anyone still happily believe and justify either of the three parties while they engage in their pathetic exercise of swapping ends in the style of tennis players at the end of every game?

Because the truth is theirs is a world were both principles and respect for voters mean absolutely nothing. And tuition fees are just an example. The hopes of ordinary people can be trampled over and their good faith abused whenever and wherever convenient.

Which is why the non-voting contingent has just recruited a new follower.

Cliches of 2010 #1

"Iain Duncan Smith is a kind and honourable man"

Our new weekly feature on cliches starts with the phrase most associated with the Coalition's Grand Welfare Shake-Up.

Not just from Tory and Libservative opinionators (see Matthew D'Ancona's "Iain Duncan Smith is the man to give the poor back their work ethic"); a large swathe of centre-left commentators too decided that whenever they mention IDS, the person in charge of kicking the unemployed while they're down, they will describe him as "the man who seeks to liberate the poor and the needy" (Mary Riddell, the Telegraph) and "a fundamentally kind man who has spent years thinking about reform" (Jackie Ashley, the Guardian).

Yet how this man can suddenly be portrayed as Florence Nightingale reincarnate is one of the mysteries of the year.

Not long ago, this "kind and honourable man" dubbed homosexuality a "malign influence" and voted with the homophobes on any gay-bashing issue debated in Westminster.

Last month, the kind man callously invited the unemployed in Merthyr Tydfil to "take a one-hour bus journey" and look for work in Cardiff. Of course no-one had told the Coalition's Mother Teresa that 15,000 people in Cardiff are currently chasing just 1,700 jobs, while in Merthyr the situation is 1,670 unemployed against 39 job vacancies (all temporary and part-time, see here). But, hey, IDS means well, so that's alright.

Oh...and since we're at it. IDS says that his planned sanctions to force people who haven't found work for 12 months (even through no fault of their own) to sweep streets for £1-30 an hour 30 hours a week (or else hang'em and flog'em) is "making work pay". Can someone explain?

Student protests: are you surprised?

The history of Tory governments is packed with social unrest. They just can't help it: antagonising entire categories of people is part of their philosophy.

Fifty thousand people took to the streets yesterday to protest against the Coalition's plans to treble university tuition fees to £9,000, by far the most expensive Higher Education system in Europe.

The rally was the biggest student demo in over a decade, double the size of even the most optimistic predictions, no wonder the police was caught unprepared.

Now, a lot can be said about how a violent minority stole the limelight as some demonstrators stormed into the Conservative Party's HQs. But that would be a convenient distraction, a textbook case of political red herrings conveniently thrown in. We'd be wasting time handing centre stage to a bunch of impulsive ejits with anger management issues (a tiny fraction of the protesters) while dodging a discussion over what really is at stake here.

Because the facts are clear. In line with history, whenever you get a government whose favourite pastime is to constantly antagonise entire categories of people (public sector workers, benefit recipients, the unemployed, students...and that's just the first five months of the ConDems in power), tension is bound to skyrocket.

We feared this was going to happen. The history of Conservative governments is packed with social unrest. From race riots to lenghty and bitter strikes, from the poll tax through sexual discrimination and prison protests: if a government is driven by rampant ideology and a sense of self-righteousness no matter the consequences, some people will inevitably lose their patience.

Which is why, like Sunny Hundal wrote on Liberal Conspiracy, many suspect yesterday's "student protests were only the beginning of a tidal wave". There's only as far as the Tories and their Libservative lapdogs can stretch it before tempers begin to flare.

In the case of the tuition fees protest, frustration is going through the roof as one of the Coalition partners actively campaigned to abolish tuition fees. Not to keep them the same. Not to raise them as little as possible. Certainly not to treble them and certainly not within a few months from the election. This is the crux of the matter.

The Tories may be to blame but at least they never promised to do otherwise. Unless you're a total wally, you should know where the Tories stand on social ruthlessness.

What grates the most is how Nick Clegg and what remains of his party managed to mangle every single bit of trust the electorate had placed upon them. The LibDems had signed public pledges. Their MPs were happily being photographed holding idiotic smiles and a scrap-tuition-fees placard while standing side by side with ordinary voters.

Already betrayed by Blair's New Labour, the LibDems were the only hope students had left. Yet they discarded their pledge quicker than a tissue at the height of hayfever season.

You could have asked anybody throughtout the last decade "Can you name at least two things the LibDems stand for?" and 99% would have pointed to scrapping tuition fees as one of their flagship policies.

You can only take people for a ride to a certain extent without triggering a pissed off response.

When people like Vince Cable go on TV mouthing off that "[with the new fees] 30 per cent of graduates would pay less from their lifetime earnings than they do now", how thick does he think people are? Surely he can do the basic maths and work out that -even if he was telling the truth- if 30 per cent pay less, 70 per cent would pay more, right?

When Ministers say that a new repayment threshold set at £21,000 is more progressive than the current one at £15,000, can they not see that that is scant consolation? The chunk that people will have to pay off now will be three times as much and millions of people will have their income automatically reduced for 30 years. And that's on top of paying tax. For the next generation, in many cases university will be more expensive than their parents' mortgages.

How's that for "capping aspiration", one of the right-wingers favourite set phrases?

Related posts: The cost of university: a comparative look.

Hague and this world of geezers

What does the storm over William Hague's own private life say about society and the media?

Surely the news should be packed with reactions to important things i.e. a certain company deciding to make another 3,500 staff redundant from across the UK in spite of their recent £1.1 billion half year profit.

Well no. Wrong. What the press and assorted politicians are currently going hysterical over is the fact that two blokes, one being the Foreign Secretary, shared a twin hotel room together. Surely, the bigoted buffoons conclude, this chap having no kids and a twin room shared with another bloke makes him "one of them", right?

But instead of telling the creeps, the gossips and the homophobes to get stuffed or preferably set themselves alight, instead of retorting that there's something deeply wrong with society if two blokes are supposed to hang their heads in shame for the mortal sin of sharing a twin room, the Foreign Secretary comes up with the brilliant idea of issuing a statement that basically says:

"Look, but I am a geezer. I am one as much as you are! It ain't my fault I don't have kids! I have been sleeping with my wife but she had a series of miscarriages".

Now, Hague, fair enough you must've been well pissed off. And, sure, as far as Tories go you actually seem fairly alright and you defintely get all our support against the various Tebbits and Redwoods. But, really, was there any need to drag and your wife's and your own private life and fertility issues into the media pits?

Or is this perhaps just a case of karma striking back (see here and here)?

Two months after the vote: the pro-Coalition view

The coalition should be celebrated and not criticised. If anything, it's the best government this country has had for a long time, Jackart explains.

[This is a guest post].

Has my outlook changed since the Election? In a word, No. I’ve always described myself as a Libertarian Conservative. I happen to be a member of the Conservative party, but am two policies away from being a Liberal Democrat*.

I am impressed at the attitude of the Government, who have been cutting wasteful programmes, lancing fake charities, abolishing quangos and repealing law with some gusto. Even the response to the Cumbrian shootings was statesmanlike without the rush to DO something to appease a baying media. Government ministers do not pop up on the Today program announcing a new policy every single day. As far as I am aware, the rate at which things are being banned has dropped from one a day for the last 13 years, to …um… none since the election. Indeed we may yet get back the rights to tell a policeman to say “Cheese” or chase wildlife on horseback.

Then, of course there’s last week's budget. The plan, and this is considered ambitious, is to end the deficit within the parliament. That means, for the benefit of economically illiterates, that in 5 years, the British Government will no longer be adding to the national debt every day. Labourites who speak of “Paying down the deficit” are deliberately lying about the real effect of Labour’s profligacy. We will only start “paying down” anything when the deficit is cut to zero and beyond. Only a surplus will ‘pay down’ the debt, but we will not be “paying down” anything at all until 2016 even with the “Tory Cuts”.

Whilst I am not happy with everything; I think AV is a stupid idea and prefer an appointed House of Lords, for example, at least Labour are not in power, and that is almost priceless.

Would I vote the same way was the election to be repeated now? Yes. I would. I am persuaded that the actual outcome is better even than the Conservative Landslide I desired at the time as Liberal Democrat participation provides some protection from the left. It provides credibility, which may one day see Labour supplanted by the Liberals as the main party of the left. The Euro & Grammar school obsessed Tory right are sidelined. The death of the Labour movement is my most profound political wish, and the election result may see this come true.

What pissed me off the most about the outcome of May 6? The low turnout was the most disappointing feature (along with Ed Balls keeping his seat) of the election result. It flattered Labour, and showed the British people, 40% of them anyway, to be uninterested in how their country is governed. It is the Labour party’s skill at Get-Out-The-Vote and political trench warfare which kept them alive in this election. Their entire manifesto was based on a transparent economic lie (that cutting spending is “taking money out of the economy”) and they were led by the worst PM in history. Yet they did better than they deserved because of residual loyalty, a low turnout, an ineffective Tory campaign, and above all savage fear-mongering amongst Labour’s pets in the Public sector. Fear worked, and that too is disappointing.

As for the future, if there is any justice, Labour will be out of power for a Generation and probably for ever. The Labour leadership election is a matter of the profoundest indifference. None of the runners will ever be prime minister. The next non-Tory to be PM will be a liberal, the next Labour PM if there is to be one, isn’t even in parliament.

The most positive thing to come from the election is the Coalition, which is now even taking in grown-up Labour figures to help sort out the most severe financial crisis since the second world war which has once again been bequeathed to us by a despicable and incompetent Labour government. Good of the country is prevailing over good of the Party in power for the first time in 13 years. That is why the Coalition’s approval ratings are sky-high.

Long may it continue….

*PR and Europe, if you’re wondering.

Jackart is a libertarian blogger and a Conservative Party member. He blogs at A Very British Dude.

Would we have 'cuts' had it not been for the bank bailout?

Read the papers and it's as if the real reason behind the "drastic" cuts in public spending, the big bank bailout, never happened.

Just a passing thought.

In the past few days, Prime Minister David Cameron and his coalition chums have been warning of "drastic" measures and "decades of pain" as the £6bn cuts get underway in an attempt to rein in the country's £156bn annual deficit .

Cameron admits that the decisions "will affect every single person" (though I'm sure he's hardly going to trade that radiator for an extra jumper himself). However, he's also very clear in laying the blame on the previous Labour government and their "reckless" spending.

But here's the thing.

Less than two years ago, at the height of the financial crisis, the Labour government pumped £37bn directly into the banks. Earlier on, an estimated £50bn had already been spent to rescue Northern Rock (fine purveyors of high-risk 110-per-cent mortgages) from disaster.

That alone would cancel out the forthcoming "drastic" cuts by a mile. Do you hear anyone talking about it?

Not to mention the gigantic £850bn announced at the end of 2009, the official cost to the British taxpayer that included - amongst other things - buying duff shares off banks, indemnifying against losses, providing guarantees and insurance cover for assets.

Yet - in a textbook case of collective goldfish memory - this now seems to have slipped away from public consciousness. It's been literally sanitised from the dominant discourse. It's as if it never happened. The only thing that happened, apparently, was a "reckless" Labour government living beyond its means and wasting homongous amounts of money.

That they did that to rescue "reckless" banks is not something David Cameron will remind you of.

Welcome back, good old Tories

From "cuddly" government to Iain Duncan Smith: here's the Coalition in all its glory.

After the election binge and the disappointments that came with it, this blog had made a vow to stay away from politics for as long as possible.

We learnt that objecting to proposals and bills is the wrong thing to do. Apparently you have to keep quiet and wait until they've been tried and tested. Even if it's tens of millions of pounds axed from children services and transport. Even if that may cause mayhem - it's in the national interest, so that's alright.

We learnt that fighting for a manifesto on May 5 and then doing the exact opposite on May 7, a-la Nick Clegg and Vince Cable, is perfectly fine. It's your problem if it doesn't add up. It's in the national interest, so we should get on with it.

We learnt that, no matter what, Britain will enjoy fixed parliaments and that, in three years' time or maybe longer, we'll have a referendum on AV which the Tories will campaign against, so everything else is alright.

And in any case, with a coalition government so fluffy and cuddly that 90% of the media are currently offering their love, what could possibly be said against them. They're working in the "national interest", after all, so we decided to stop whining for a while.

Two weeks on and after the declarations of love and national interest, however, this caring government needs to be pulled up over something.

Today the limelight is on über Tory Iain Duncan Smith and his plans over at Work and Pensions, which come straight from the darkest days of Thatcherism.

In a speech that sounds like the a tabloid's wet dream, IDS laid out his no-bullshit action plan consisting, amongst other things, of: the unemployed being forced to do community work in exchange for benefits; immediate requirement to sign up for training schemes; benefits suspended to those who refuse job offers; a "significant number" of those on incapacity benefits moved into work asap.

Let's ignore the fact that -especially post recession- millions are on the dole through no fault of their own. Let's turn a blind eye on the fact that when you can't find a job it's absolutely disheartening and the last thing you need is national campaigns that make you feel even more worthless and in need of self-flagellation. Let's ignore all that.

The thing is, IDS forgets three enormous things.

1) There's a massive recession out there. Unemployment is at its highest in twenty years. There are less jobs available around. The "aggressive cuts" (to quote David Laws) will mean even less jobs available in the very near future. So, very simply, how are millions of alleged lazy layabouts going to find a job?

2) IDS repeated that at present the rewards for choosing to work were "very minimal" or even "none at all". His party however, have consistently ferociously campaigned against the minimum wage.

I will swallow humble pie if I'm proven wrong, but they're extremely unlikely to rise the minimum wage in the foreseeable future. So how's that going to be rewarding?

3) Also, the famous "tax incentives" outlined in the Queen's Speech fall well short of the original promise to raise the tax threshold to £10,000. So how are dead-end McJobs that will still be paid a pittance supposed to suddenly turn from demoralising to "rewarding"?

Welcome back, good old Tories.

The LibDems as the 'Tory Dream'?

Are Nick Clegg and his party jumping on the "Big Society" band wagon? Contribution by Jane Watkinson.

Melanie Phillips usually writes utter rubbish, but her article yesterday is one of her worst. Apparently, the Tories have made more concessions than the LibDems. Hmm. I don’t think so.

Apparent ‘gains’ for the LibDems include the AV referendum, fixed term parliaments, and their ‘progressive’ income tax cuts!

When you consider that AV is arguably less proportional than FPTP, there is an undemocratic 55% proposal attached to the fixed term parliaments (fixed term parliaments themselves are a good idea, but only if perused in the right manner), and that their income tax cut is now described as a 'Tory dream', then one can hardly see them as gains.

I find the ‘Tory dream’ analysis particularly interesting. This LibDem tax policy had been attractive before the election, however, it was far from redistributive in the true sense of the word, with those on higher incomes benefiting more. However, it will now be funded primarily through public spending cuts as the policies LibDems intended to fund it with(e.g mansion tax) have been dropped.

I think Melanie will have more to smile about then the LibDems given a few months in power. She should remember that a Tory minority government would have found it harder to of got unpopular policies through, and the LibDems could have voted against, not merely abstained, when it came to policies such as the marriage tax.

With the news that the LibDems and Clegg are jumping on the ‘Big Society’ band wagon, it really reinforces how much the Tories have gained from this partnership. It is rather suprising given the attitudes of some LibDems to the idea before the election:

“The ‘Big Society Day’ is just patronising nonsense, particularly for the thousands of dedicated people who are working to make their communities better every day. David Cameron will say anything to get a headline. Instead of gimmicks, the Liberal Democrats will give people real power over things that matter like their local police and health services.” – Julia Goldsworthy

Like I have said countless times before, the ‘Big Society’ sounds great. It really does. Will it work? I doubt it. Well it depends what you mean by work (tax cuts, yes). But, to me – it looks as though the LibDems are trying to change their spots too quickly. Or were they ever that against the ‘Big Society’ in the first place? We have to remember that at the heart of the Tories’ ‘Big Society’ is cuts and a promotion of unreliable charity and voluntary organisations. I have written quite a lot about the ‘Big Society’ in the past, so I wont go into too much detail here (see here for example, a much better analysis can be found at Left Foot Forward – where I got that picture from).

It seems that Cameron has got Clegg wrapped around his little finger – treating him to a shared 115 room estate with William Hauge at Chevening for example, so much for new politics hey? I am all for more local power, but I am very doubtful the ‘Big Society’ will provide real power to the local community. They could have of least changed the name so that it looked more like a compromise instead of another central Tory policy getting the nod.

Honestly, is it fair to say that any of the LibDem’s four central policy commitments have really entered into this coalition deal unscathed?

Tax reform has been watered down to the point of being regressive, there is an AV – not PR – referendum, the other political reforms that were set out to be achieved are largely sidelined to nothing more than committees or aspirations, the pupil premium was already in the Tory manifesto, they will have to abstain if there is a proposal for tuition fees to be uncapped (even though some LibDem MPs are confused and think they can go against this – that will be interesting) and they are not helping the enviroment – they have just welcomed the creation of even more nuclear power. Happy days.

Jane Watkinson blogs at My Political Ramblings.

If the Tories win, these people will be smiling...

Fox hunters.

Rupert Murdoch, multi-millionaire media monopolist.

Simon Cowell, multi-millionaire Emperor of Trash.

Richard Littlejohn, most spiteful tabloid columnist in history.

Lord "Keep-gays-out-of-government" Tebbit, nasty piece of work.

Jeremy "Big-Cars-Make-Me-A-Man" Clarkson.

Lord Ashcroft, multi-millionaire tax avoider.

Jan Moir, homophobic columnist.

[...and this is just a quick selection...]

May 6, 2010: don't forget it.

A New Britain under the Tories?

The Lessons of History vs the Sun, Simon Cowell & Richard Littlejohn...

St Pauls, Bristol, 1980

Brixton, 1981

Toxteth, Liverpool, 1981

The Miners' strike, 1984

Handsworth, Birmingham, 1985

Brixton, 1985

Printers strike, Wapping, 1986-87

Strangeways Prison, Manchester, 1990

Poll Tax riots, London, 1990

May 6, 2010: Are you sure this is what you want?