Shut up shop, get on the street
Sep. 7th, 2010 09:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
millionreasonsGood article in the Graun about the BBC colluding with the government over the presentation of the incipient cuts in order to (in my opinion) curry favour with Dave, Gideon & chums and avoid any cuts themselves, or a clamp down on the licence fee or BBC3 being handed over to the Murdoch Cosa Nostra. I wasn't aware of the Thompson/Hilton meeting, but I've certainly noticed that when the Beeb have been doing vox pops (usually with regionally-accented members of the public), they've managed to find people who believe the cuts are inevitable, and they're scared for their job, but they know we have to clear the deficit. This sounds like a pre-1980s schoolboy being punished for something a prefect did and saying that he knows he has to be caned, he's aware that it's going to hurt but he knows it's necessary. Strangely, no-one seems to be saying: Instead of cuts to spending on the public, who haven't done anything wrong, how about, say, a Tobin tax on financial transactions? Or a 75% tax rate on earnings over £500K? Or withdrawing the civil list (or indeed, taxing the Royal Family at the same rate as other people rather than 2%) or lowering capital gains tax or cancelling Trident or taxing the aviation industry to the hilt?
All of these things seem to be unthinkable in this increasingly masochistic and right wing country and the regionally-accented people with their average wages of £25,000 and their Sure Start centre shut down and their library hours cut and their housing benefit reduced and their elderly care cut and their kids in classes of 40 are like lambs to their own culling. The Tory coalition government must be the first elected not on promises of free milk and honey but on the commitment to cutting the state back to its bare bones.
We're all in this together, but some are (dropped) in it more than others. I understand why the Tories don't want to tax their pals in the city who caused the recession in the first place but I don't understand why le peuple don't think the government should do so - unless the BBC cut those interviews. The bankers get their tax-funded bonuses and we don't get street-lights? How on earth does that work??
All of these things seem to be unthinkable in this increasingly masochistic and right wing country and the regionally-accented people with their average wages of £25,000 and their Sure Start centre shut down and their library hours cut and their housing benefit reduced and their elderly care cut and their kids in classes of 40 are like lambs to their own culling. The Tory coalition government must be the first elected not on promises of free milk and honey but on the commitment to cutting the state back to its bare bones.
We're all in this together, but some are (dropped) in it more than others. I understand why the Tories don't want to tax their pals in the city who caused the recession in the first place but I don't understand why le peuple don't think the government should do so - unless the BBC cut those interviews. The bankers get their tax-funded bonuses and we don't get street-lights? How on earth does that work??
