In political circles, the
things for which the Lib Dems are most famous, and not necessarily in a good
way, are dodgy bar charts and an astounding ability to promote completely
contradictory policies in neighbouring areas – or even as they move from one
house to the next in a street. To give them their due, they’re also quite good
at mobilising large numbers of people to deliver a deluge of leaflets to flood
voters’ homes in target areas, particularly during by-elections. Long term plans
carefully and consistently executed have not, however, generally been seen as a
strong point.
Perhaps we’ve all misjudged
them. Liz Truss’s ability to pivot from one deeply-held policy position to deeply
holding the complete reverse view makes her a classic Lib Dem. No surprise that was her initial choice of party. Infiltrating such
an obvious Lib Dem into the Conservative Party with the sole aim of destroying
that party from within is something of a master stroke, which shows clear signs
of long term planning and organisation. After spending twelve years as a
minister supporting the policies of three successive Prime Ministers, it turns
out she never agreed with anything they (or she herself) did or said, another
giveaway about her true allegiance. From upholding the idea that there is no
magic money tree to claiming that she controls a complete enchanted forest,
without even pausing for breath, is a manoeuvre which must have taken the
breath away from even the most experienced Lib Dem candidate. A party which has
spent 40 years telling us that they believe that spending must always be
balanced by income suddenly decides to trash the very basis of its reputation
by arguing that the bigger the gap the better; that’s on a completely different
order of magnitude to merely overturning policy on student fees.
So, why only half a cheer for
such an astounding achievement? Whilst the success of the cunning plot has
almost certainly exceeded the wildest expectations of the plotters, they really
don’t seem to have anticipated quite how much collateral damage would be caused
for the rest of us when the bomb exploded. Perhaps they thought that she might
get to a senior position but assumed that the Tories would never be stupid
enough to make her leader. It’s an easy enough mistake to make (who wouldn’t
have made a similar assumption?) but catastrophic for many of the least
well-off in society. Next time, stick to dodgy bar charts. Please.
1 comment:
John, Broaden your range of vision on this latest tax scam. The party of the rich making the rich richer is in some ways to be expected. However it has seldom happened before on the scale that has been announced this week. This is another big step in the grand plan of concentrating wealth in the coffers of the few. Breathtakingly simple it uses public funds to finance the largesse as there is nowhere near enough alternative inflows to pay for it. Public borrowing gets inflated and in due course the cost of that borrowing will be charged to the tax payer, not the top rate payers who will no doubt revert to their famous mitigation plans but the poor old standard rate payers who will have nowhere to hide. The programme of theft continues as a key stage of turning us all into serfs.
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