True blues red in tooth and claw

If you ever had any doubts – and readers of Tribune probably did not have many doubts – about exactly what kind of a government this Conservative-led coalition was going to be, then the events of this week should have meant the scales have fallen from your eyes. Because we have seen just how nasty these Tories are going to be – and just how clever they will be at dressing it up.

by Tribune Web Editor
Friday, August 13th, 2010

This Government’s proposals to slash the number of law firms able to provide legal aid will be devastating for the most vulnerable in our society.

That’s not just what we think. That’s what the Law Society thinks, too. It warned that plans by the Legal Services Commission to cut the number of firms offering legal aid from 2,400 to 1,300 – a cut of 45 per cent – will create “advice deserts where people simple can’t get access to a proper lawyer”. So there really will be one law for the rich and one law for the poor in this country. But while David Cameron’s Conservatives are red in tooth and claw, they are much better at covering their tracks than the likes of Margaret Thatcher and Michael Howard. Look at how they handled the outcry over their leaked plans to scrap free school milk for the under-fives.

It’s an old political gambit, of course. A policy is revealed – run it up the flagpole, see what people say – and if it then finds favour, stick with it but if it doesn’t, drop it like the proverbial hot potato.

Which is exactly what happened. Mr Cameron, a former public relations man (for Michael Green’s television company Carlton Communications) before becoming a politician, belatedly spotted the PR disaster, didn’t fancy being labelled, like Mrs Thatcher, a “milk snatcher” and promptly washed his hands of the policy quicker than you could say “Pontius Pilate”.

So quick, in fact, that David Willetts was left floundering on live television defending a policy from which the Prime Minister had already pulled the rug. This Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government is going to be nasty – very nasty – but it will also be very clever at spinning its way out of trouble. Public sector workers, and many in the private sector, too, will pay with their jobs and their pensions in the next few months but it won’t be the fault of the bankers, the brokers and the speculators and all those who play the game of casino capitalism.

As Marjorie Smith will argue this week, the “Big Society” is a big lie – a cover for diminished democratic government and the devastation of the public sector. The Tories, as Jill Palmer will explain, are determined to destroy the NHS once and for all. But there is, of course, another way. Tribune is about to take a summer break. But we will be back on September 3 when we hope you will join us for what promises to be an exciting – and vital – few months in British politics.

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  • Tim Middleton

    Today, Pickles the Dog announced the abolition of the Audit Commission. Yet another example of vindictive and idealogically-motivated spite from this shameless rabble.

  • Tim Middleton

    Today, Pickles the Dog announced the abolition of the Audit Commission. Yet another example of vindictive and idealogically-motivated spite from this shameless rabble.

  • terence patrick hewett

    They are not dressing their agenda up at all: they are quite clear in what they wish to achieve. They have learnt from Blair’s mistakes.

  • terence patrick hewett

    They are not dressing their agenda up at all: they are quite clear in what they wish to achieve. They have learnt from Blair’s mistakes.

  • Robert

    Rubbish I’m on benefits disabled, really honest i swear by Almighty god, OK I’m not yet dead.

    The fact is a few years ago i had to go to court to get our grand children through the family courts, I applied for legal air and won, they it was decided I could not have it because well they had run out of money and £2,000 could easily be repaid.

    No this is no joke, at the same time three ex employee’s of Enron were each given £35 million each, although all were worth millions it was not enough for the seriousness of the court case, due to this I was refused my legal aid, and was told by letter I could have ten years to repay it to help me through this difficult time.

    Was this Thatcher you may ask, nope Tony Bloody Blair.

  • Robert

    Rubbish I’m on benefits disabled, really honest i swear by Almighty god, OK I’m not yet dead.

    The fact is a few years ago i had to go to court to get our grand children through the family courts, I applied for legal air and won, they it was decided I could not have it because well they had run out of money and £2,000 could easily be repaid.

    No this is no joke, at the same time three ex employee’s of Enron were each given £35 million each, although all were worth millions it was not enough for the seriousness of the court case, due to this I was refused my legal aid, and was told by letter I could have ten years to repay it to help me through this difficult time.

    Was this Thatcher you may ask, nope Tony Bloody Blair.

  • Peter Horah

    The vandals are in power and our leaders are too concerned about their appearances whilst they shadow box for the Labour command.

    The 100 days has seen lights being extinguished in all that is good and fair: from the denial of student places, the closure of community projects and the threat to universal benefits. The young, the old, the sick, the vulnerable are all at risk from the bottom liners who don’t understand the consequences of what they are about to do – and they don’t give a damn.

    When Cameron and Clegg repeat their Darlek mantra “we are all in this together” they really display their class and political divide because their pain will be nothing to what the low paid, the future unemployed and the rest of us poor mortals will have to suffer thanks to their malthusian future.

    Our next Labour government must make sure that we continue with what was good from the past and bury the deamons that haunt us.

  • Peter Horah

    The vandals are in power and our leaders are too concerned about their appearances whilst they shadow box for the Labour command.

    The 100 days has seen lights being extinguished in all that is good and fair: from the denial of student places, the closure of community projects and the threat to universal benefits. The young, the old, the sick, the vulnerable are all at risk from the bottom liners who don’t understand the consequences of what they are about to do – and they don’t give a damn.

    When Cameron and Clegg repeat their Darlek mantra “we are all in this together” they really display their class and political divide because their pain will be nothing to what the low paid, the future unemployed and the rest of us poor mortals will have to suffer thanks to their malthusian future.

    Our next Labour government must make sure that we continue with what was good from the past and bury the deamons that haunt us.

  • Robert

    But it was our Labour government thats tarted all these cuts, we have Darling telling us I would have done that and that and that, so lets hope in a dozen or so years when a Labour government rebuilds it is Labour and not the new Labour brand.

  • Robert

    But it was our Labour government thats tarted all these cuts, we have Darling telling us I would have done that and that and that, so lets hope in a dozen or so years when a Labour government rebuilds it is Labour and not the new Labour brand.

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