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Monday, April 18, 2011

The Year of Living Carelessly



As May approaches, we thought it would be fitting to look back at the first year of the Coalition government and calmly examine their achievements and popular sentiment towards these and discuss what, if anything, we intend to do to stop the country being blackmailed any further into bonded penury by an out of control financial sector and its placemen in Westminster. Today, our editor-in-chief offers his own personal analysis, verdict and none-too-subtle call for organised and widespread civil disobedience.


 
Like so very many people nowadays, I am feeling the pinch and sharing the pain in involuntary deference to a belief that this will help the nation's balance sheet. To demonstrate just how dedicated I am to my country and how keen I am to suffer for the nefarious pranks of the financial alchemists who somehow contrived to make half the wealth of the planet disappear overnight and then mysteriously reappear in their accounts, but only after we had made a similar deposit, as well as having to endure the squeeze on already limited household finances, I have a near belly-up small business that not that long ago was coming along quite nicely. Sadly, it depended on a healthy and confident economy for sustenance. 

Exactly how my livelihood evaporating overnight is helping the country's finances has not been explained to my satisfaction. I do hope that the Chancellor isn't making important calculations on the basis of any contribution I am likely to make to G.D.P. If my experiences in any way represent those of others in the private sector, any projections based on our ability to pay taxes and to fill the crater left by Coalition’s attack on the public realm will have to be fairly modest to be even remotely plausible.

Apparently my financial insecurity forms part of an engine of growth and my assets represent a liability. I have to change to accommodate their policies. Overnight, my life became superfluous. Not in the way the farrier’s did when the motor car finally replaced the horse, but because some gentlemen in the City decided that certain aspects of the state weren’t conducive to their own highly-refined interests and that perhaps a government whose cause the City alone supported with some £11m in donations, yea, over 50% of their election fund, might see their way to reciprocating this generosity by letting them snap up what remains of the public sector at a price of their choosing. Notice how neither the purpose nor, indeed, the need for public services has been challenged. What is being debated is who they are for and who should benefit from them. Somehow, adding a profit motive to an already financially stretched service is going to help matters all round. Many find this difficult to believe.  A few are finding it difficult to believe their luck.