Monday 17 September 2012

Open Goal Missed

How anal does one have to be to look at the British Social Attitudes Survey (just published), having heard about it on the radio whilst shaving at dawn? Very, you might say. Well, Idle has done it so that you don't have to.

The good news, as long as you are not an illegal immigrant dishonestly claiming that your life is threatened by deportation, is that the country is good and fed up with the whole immigration racket - 75% say that it should be reduced (51% say by 'a lot'), though judging by the last couple of years there's a fat chance of that happening.

On the West Lothian question, 65% of people think that Scottish MPs should have no vote on matters affecting only England and Wales. This seems blindingly obvious, and the natural counterbalance to the establishment of the pretendy-wee-parliament in Edinburgh, with its devolved powers. So why hasn't this government dealt with it? It needn't be a complicated or contentious bill, and was not linked to Clegg's abortion of a Lords reform bill, thankfully now as dead a duck that ever quacked no more.

One thing really stands out, though, and reminds us of just how huge, how gaping, how bleeding unmissable the open goal of 2010 was for Cameron. Not only was he up against the most unattractive and disgusting of opponents in Brown, not only had Brown proved dishonest and useless as Prime Minister, not only was Brown ranting at his own natural supporters (Duffy the 'bigot'), but British attitudes to public spending were overwhelmingly in Cameron's favour:

Fig _Key Findings _0.1

For the first time since 1983, less than a third of the electorate supported increased spending year-on-year. Furthermore, this had been an established trend since before the last Labour Parliament of 2005-2010. So why on earth did Cameron and Osbourne cop out quite so spinelessly in 2006/7 with their decision to support Brown's 2008-2011 spending plans? Why the whole 'sharing the proceeds of growth' fiasco?

This seems to me to be the most important element of the charge sheet against Cameron and his lieutenant. Cameron lacked the instinct and courage to oppose as a Conservative, and Osbourne (so often referred to as a clever political strategist) produced a dripping-wet electoral campaign strategy.

Well, you useless cretins, the graph has turned; expect the next election to be a tougher environment, with less public goodwill towards the cause of a balanced budget and reduction in our massive debt.

You blew it, boys.

15 comments:

Elby the Beserk said...

By God, didn't they just? What a waste of space Cameron & Osborne are.

Nick Drew said...

steady on there, Osborne is a tactical and strategic genius

everyone says so

Thud said...

I think we just blew our last chance of pulling things back and we will pay for the wasted chance over and over.

Nick Drew said...

actually it's worse than this - they've screwed up the boundary-changes as well

i may post on this shortly

Sen. C.R.O'Blene said...

The biggest saviour for Camborne, will be Boris Island!

Which will eventually be run by Farage...

idle said...

I was going to mention the boundary changes, Nick, but didn't.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Cameron might put it into a Queen's Speech anyway, with a view to articulating why it is correcting an unfair and undemocratic current situation, and shame the Libs into honpouring the Coalition Agreement.

I'm not holding my breath, of course.....

Sebastian Weetabix said...

Idle: love your comment about the pretendy wee parliament. Every time I see that scrofulous Shrek lookalike preening himself like a cock on a midden I find myself becoming progressively more enraged. Perhaps I've been exiled in England too long but I find my countrymen have lost their collective marbles.

Osborne strangely seems, so far, to have been taken at his own estimation by the press, despite all evidence to the contrary. He strikes me as a vile scheming nasty little proto-Mandelson without the subtlety or skill. Either way he's a fucking useless chancellor.

Apropos Boris Island - this is a mad scheme. Problem 1: prevailing fogs and mists, not good in an aviation context. Problem 2: bird strikes - far too many feathered friends in the vicinity. Problem 3: Schipol is too close - there will be real problems of traffic control. Problem 4: prevailing winds - they will still have to fly over suburban London 4 days out of 5. I leave aside cost, civil engineering complexity and the SS Richard Montgomery which really could blow sky high if disturbed. If we really must have a super airport with 4 or 5 runways, and I think we do, then we should expand Stansted or take a look at the former RAe Bedford site. Not that it will ever happen.

idle said...

Hands off Bedford, Sebastian! It now houses the best corporate junket available to us poor hard pressed bankers, Palmersport, the best fast car entertainemnt possible. I have done it four or five times. Grand fun.

Elby the Beserk said...

Boundary changes. Hah. Lil wrote to Heath about this, and got a snotty letter back. Here's my take on this, and it is that the LibDems will hopefully disappear at the next election.

1. The House of Lords "reform". Why does it need reforming? It would seem to me, that even with it being stuffed with ex Labour MPs, who have always sworn they would never been enobled, it has in fact done a good job of holding back some of the worst excesses of the Executive - esp the former Labour shower.

So why turn it into another version of the totally non-functional Commons? What is democratic about that.

2. The current constituency set-up is non-democratic. It gives Labour an immediate advantage of 11 to 20 seats (various estimates). Add to that that at the moment, 41 MPs from a country with its own parliament may be returned, that means that Labour have an extra 60 MPs with which to totally screw England.

3. Conclusion. The LibDems don't give a flying uhhuhhuhhu about democracy. They are more concerned with having a hissy fit because they can, to screw over the Cons.

To precis. The LibDems are a bunch of bastards. The above, in edited form will be going to David Heath very soon.

Heath, incidentally, has been an excellent MP for the locality. Until the Coalition that it. Now it is Party before Country. Sod that

Elby the Beserk said...

Add to the above that the Coalition have STILL done nothing about the West Lothian question.

idle said...

Elby,

I heard Heath on Farming Today on R4 as I stumbled bleary-eyed through my dawn ablutions.

The bearded optician makes quite a lot of sense when talking about farming, specifically badgers.

Now I think of it, he is almost certainly one quarter badger.

Hospitable Scots Bachelor said...

"Pretendy wee parliament" is exactly right. Or as I prefer to call them the Mc Taliban!

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