A society which ringfences its defence budget while cutting its universities, is reducing the value of its stock of civilisation.
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What I feel annoyed about, is the feeling I have that we’ve, or rather, our rulers, decided to save the financial sector by sacrificing the rest of the country to pay for it. Surely this illustrates, far more than any “free and fair” election, where real power in society is to be found?
Over the last few decades interests of the financial sector have almost totally taken over the country, to the exclusion of nearly everyone else. This happened because the rate of return on investments in the financial sector far, far, exceeded what one could get out of the old manufacturing base, which was allowed to whither away.
Strangely, agriculture, though in trouble, was massively subsidised, and a culture, or way of life, maintained at collosal expense. Why were farmers so special and, in contrast; miners, steelworkers, shipyardworkers, so expendable? Who chose who was worth saving and who had to face naked, market forces without protection?
One cannot trust this new lot, not for a moment. They have only begun to whet the axe, and practice their swing. The real scale of the chopping to come is being hidden, for now. It’ll be on a Greek scale, probably, if they can get away with it, axing 25% of the welfare state over the next few years.
Axing, on this scale, will have a profound effect on the economy, living standards and not least unemployment. After all, remove that much state intervention and support and the economy will have to stand on its own feet, can it do it?
The system we now have, here and in the US, is really a form of state capitalism. With the state massively supporting the so-called “free market” to an enormous extent. Without these gigantic subsidies it’s arguable that modern capitialism can survive in its current form.
In the US, one can argue that the core of the US economy is based on military expenditure ammounting to somewhere between 1.5 to 2 trillion dollars a year. That level of public expenditure ammounts to a collosal subsidy, and without it would the private sector be mired in an eternal recession?
Are we finally burying capitalism and its excesses?
Cause we have the brains and abilities to do different, to live halfways sustainably and without fighting each other. Precious problem is that we are like a cancerous growth choking what little green shoots appear, with more population.
I agree with writermans description of the military industrial complex as being on the ‘dole’, just as our subsidised farmers are.
If I had to choose between the two, I’d choose the latter, a capacity for self sufficiency is important, farmers are the central part of it.
Wars, knocking down and building up killinbg many people, mostly civilians, in the process, is not very clever, far from it its primitive, inefficient, a waste of collossal energy and not an intelligent solution to a difference of opinion,imho.
The crystalisation of more and more barriers between Have’s and Have Not’s, more ghettorisation, online communicative, as much as in urban sprawl.
Lets save on planning departments, building green energy saving homes would be less ardeous and convaluted to get through.
Trident is a strategic, technological as well as a financial mistake and it should hjave been axed yesterday, al least that would get the MOD out of a debt hole.
Fighting in a situation were we are parcelled into another conflict would be tragic and undesirable.
We have set these parameters into motion, the next thing will be that they come back to bite us, we must wihtdraw from Afghanistan.
We need Trident as Excalibur’s sword:
1. To prove we are King
2. For magical powers to blind China and stop Britain from bleeding when we smash Iran.
There drew he forth the brand Excalibur,
And o’er him, drawing it, the winter moon,
Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth
And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt:
For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks,
Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work
Of subtlest jewellery.
I agree with writerman that there are going to be massive cuts. The cuts today have been carefully manipulated to get us on their side just as the election result was fixed. I believe these cuts and the next have been in preparation for months if not years in case of an economic crash.
Writerman: Brilliant stuff, you are on a roll, sir.
The trouble is that after both of our world wars, we had a manufacturing base from which to rebuild ourselves. A home market with a lot of demand, and an industry that struggled with other more protected industries to meet it.
Look at how Japan’s industry was built up with massive state support. The “Olive tree and the Lexus” by that damned fool Friedman – who is still peddling his fairy tales – is based upon ignorance and falsehoods. The author apparently is totally unaware that Toyota happened to be a power-loom company until massive state subsidy, and home market protection, built it up – as if the Free Market magically gave us a Lexus! “Oh why couldn’t the Arabs concentrate about building a Lexus instead of blowing themselves up”, he bemuses himself while marvelling at the genius of Milton Friedman (no relation).
Now, we have nothing. We have substituted our manufacturing, raw mineral, and heavy industry base for “financial service industry” and defence (weapons) export. The former is a busted flush.
Alfred noted earlier that most UK jobs these days appear to be connected to weapons manufacture. I’ve certainly noticed this, given my personal refusal to take any work along those lines, and the narrowing opportunities thus caused.
Is this what we have become, a country very keen to throw support behind a confused, dying military empire, because it turns up sales of weapons for us during its slow meltdown? Did Thatcher really turn our country to weapons production rather than conventional industry, because those filthy unions in traditional industry held too much sway in society?
Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, allegedly an ex-spy (SIS), is our new Minister of State for Security. Lovely touch. Welcome to the sunny uplands of freedom. Welcome to the Big Society.
Of course, even that stupid phrase is a rip-off from LBJ’s ‘Great Society’. Everything nowadays is an advertising jingle. Original thought is thought not to be cool.
But I think that no matter how much opium is poured down upon society, there will be riots when the cuts about which writerman writes so powerfully hit. And then there will be Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, guarding the keep as she and her like have done for a thousand years. It will not be the foxes who bleed in Tory Britain.
Balls, Milliband-Milliband and the other ex-ministers who NOW have discovered that Iraq was a costly mistake (if it had been cheap, a million-plus dead Iraqis would’ve been fine, then?). They see Arab people as animals. They are racists. They are killers.
No, we are not stupid, Mister Balls, Milliband-Milliband. Your echolalia will not fool us. We will remember your guilt, Mister Balls-Milliband-Milliband. You have blood on your hands. The stigmata will never vanish. You burned the Red Flag and replaced it with blood. Shame on you.
Defence sepending has only been ringfenced prior to a defence review taking place.
It is still possible defence will be cut. It should be cut of course. Ideally that would include a reduced commitment in Afghanstan and not replacing Trident. That is the ideal at least.
As a very young man (long ago) I worked for an earthmoving company. I had a vague remit to reduce costs and improve profits. I considered myself rather successful, and was so considered by others. I was very deflated to discover that although I had helped turn a major department into profit, our commercial manager had significantly exceeded that profit simply by buying and selling currency. A large team of people, working hard at real work, but our efforts eclipsed by one man equipped with a pocket calculator and a run of luck. It looks now like an allegory.
Sometimes (in my low moods) I wish that I’d studied economics. Capitalism looks like a ridiculous perpetual motion machine which continues to run so long as someone believes it will, and grinds to a halt when the faith falters. Its equations have solutions selected by a priesthood, and like all priesthoods they choose their solutions as they please.
Public service cuts are not dictated by any sort of logic – they are arbitrarily selected solutions. As other posters have noted, even if one accepts the need for cuts there are more attractive and less harmful choices that could be made. Troops out of everywhere (how many are still in Northern Ireland?) and ban the bloody bombs.
See this Craig?
Parliament Square anti-war protester Brian Haw arrested
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8702526.stm
yes I heard that he had been harrassed. They decided to search the camp with sniffer dogs and he objected.
Put into a restraining position, cuffed, with much weight applied to his athritic joints, he was left without his crutches.
This is obviously a new agenda at play, harrass and arrest for minor reasons, make their lives hell, as much as possible, no differences in approach from these supporters of the war in Iraq then.
I spoke to Brian Haw after attending the Fair Votes protest in Smith Square on Saturday 8th May. There were a few tents there then. Brian Haw was scathing of these new arrivals. He said they were alcoholics and drug users, and that they had been encouraged to camp there to provide an excuse to remove him.
I visited the new camp looking for the ‘Election Meltdown’ people, but was told that they were campaigning elsewhere that day.
Writerman is clear about the 25% cut in the welfare state. Nothing has been announced yet by Cameron because time is needed to mould a plan that attempts to address inevitable protest and moves towards anarchy. Hence the timely aggressive arrest of my good friend Brian Haw.
Remember the money folks that was used to bail out the banks? – the people’s money? – talk is, Cameron and Osborne want an early sale of the governments stake! retrieving the £15bn profit – Why?
Because it leverages people power and beckons calls for the profit to be ‘swallowed up’ by Cameron’s ‘Big Society Bank’ – perhaps Vince can ask some pertinent questions on this rumour – eh – before the whole thing explodes?
Release Brian Haw NOW! – OR EXPECT A MARCH ON PARLIAMENT SQUARE by thousands of good British people who are burdened with the memory of slaughter, lies and obfustication by the ‘military machine wizards’ hell bent, as Glenn perceives, on preventing the ‘military empire’ from dying!
Well I wonder if Dame Pauline Neville-Jones was asked if she’d be prepared to fire on citizens as apparently members of the army have been.
Ruth!
Where did you hear this please?
THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
Gordon Brown was tasked with setting up a US styled Council in 2007 with a public facing statement that the council would give the British public a clear understanding of the “truly frightening” extent of radical Muslim activity in Britain. The Council would also reverse the ‘ad hoc’ security ‘get-togethers’ of the previous Blair led government and NOW prepare FORMAL notes of the meetings and subsequent decisions.
Brown however had little enthusiasm for the agenda forced on him by Bush/Obama/NSA criticism of Britain’s depressingly low key security agenda having lost the humiliating ‘war’ in Southern Iraq and losing another in Afghanistan. More importantly(in the ears of the elite), was Israel’s bellowing voice that Britain had become an “incubator of extremism and an exporter of terrorism.”
The Council under Brown met just three times, while William Hague stood fuming on the side-lines at Britain’s military and world status decline.
In May this year, 2010 Cameron regenerated the ‘broken’ NSC under the ‘advice’ (or direction) of former JIC chairman Sir Peter Ricketts KCMG.
First thing on the agenda was a plan to restore public confidence in the intelligence agencies eroded by Mr Blair’s case for war in Iraq. Ha!
TO APPEASE THE BRITISH PUBLIC the publication of a new security strategy will follow essentially based on the work of Lord West, a former admiral now serving as security minister, who has been carrying out a wide-ranging review of Britain’s ability to withstand a major terrorist attack. (watch out!!)
Critically the Council must win “hearts and minds” of the British public while in the dark corners of GCHQ and SIS the plan to attack Iran moves forward with Mr Hague plunged immediately into the process of trying to get the UN Security Council to agree new sanctions.
This British government is tasked with building British society to forget Iraq and prepare for the US and/or Israel attack on Iran’s nuclear plants.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
Western civilization was built on militarism.
Let it be said I have great respect for Alan West who formally commanded HMS Ardent, a Type 21 frigate lost in the acclaimed Falklands war. I also take this opportunity to remember Lt. Brian Murphy, an artificer apprentice who served at HMS Fisgard near Plymouth.
He was killed, alongside his Flight Commander, Lt Cdr John Sephton DSC, as the gallant ship’s company fought off multiple Argentine air attacks attempting to dislodge the British landing forces on D-Day. His body was not recovered, and he lies buried at sea, in Falkland Sound, close to the island shores where he felt so much at home.
“They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them”
The US State Department Spokesman said Monday that the White House has received a copy of Iran’s official letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for nuclear fuel swap brought up in Tehran, Turkey and Brazil joint statement.
US State Department Spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters, “The IAEA has provided the United States with a copy of Iran’s letter and has requested our views.”
He added, “We are consulting with our partners and expect to respond to the IAEA very soon.”
MOSCOW – Iran’s Moscow ambassador is warning that new U.N. sanctions could force his country to reconsider a recent uranium-swap proposal that supporters see as a way around the impasse over Iran’s nuclear program.
Iran, Brazil and Turkey signed an agreement in Tehran this month under which Iran would ship out low-enriched uranium and receive nuclear fuel rods in exchange. The plan could reduce Iran’s capacity to enrich uranium to weapons grade.
But some countries, including the U.S., say the plan is inadequate and new sanctions are needed.
Interfax news agency on Tuesday quotes Iranian Ambassador Seyed Mahmoud-Reza Sajjadi as saying the new sanctions would show that international negotiators are “nursing evil plans” and would “compel us to review the Tehran agreements.”
Courtesy – INA
The Chairman of the Scottish Conservative Party is Andrew Fulton, reportedly also an ex-SIS officer. He’s also a director of SIS arms dealers, Hakluyt. He’s also a senior figure in the British American Business Council.
He was ‘outed’ at the Lockerbie trial when he’d gone there as part of an ‘independent’ academic monitoring legal team. He was a Professor of Law at Glasgow Uni for a little while – though quite what his credentials for such a job was never made clear.
He, Meta Ramsey (allegedly an ex-SIS officer) who is now a Labour peer, Donald Dewar, George Foulkes (the Labour precursor equivalent of Liam Fox; if you look carefully, you will see nukes in their eyes) and John Smith all went to Glasgow Uni in the 1960s -good pals and definitely not Yippies.
John Smith’s widow, reportedly, is also a director of Haklyut.
Writerman is spot-on.
David Laws: Former investment banker. He was vice president of JP Morgan from 1987 to 1992, and then managing director and head of US Dollar and Sterling Treasuries at Barclays de Zoete Wedd. He retired from the City of London at the age of 28 with a personal fortune.
Putting the cat in charge of mouse welfare.
Spot-on also Suhayl – good vision!
Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6460FC20100507
German subs
http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2010/01/18/Israel-seeks-to-buy-6th-German-sub/UPI-24941263836811/
I take your point anon. on David Laws who said these words:
We won’t deliver Liberal Democrat policies by accepting a few minor posts, or even a politically neutered senior post, in someone else’s government.
The Liberal Democrats will only deliver a more liberal Britain through winning votes in the country and influence in parliament – not through accepting empty offers and poison pills masquerading as ripe fruit.
Be very careful in this cost-cutting race Mr Laws, the man behind you is IDS and he will refuse to accept the baton claiming your the one who dropped it; supported of course by the choral voice of fellow blue badged runners united when the chips go down!
Thanks George – I hope it was George for the important link to German built Israeli owned submarines.
I am dismayed at the messages coming from Cairo that Egypt would allow passage thru the Suez Canal for nuclear armed Israeli subs. Yes! *nuclear armed* because already Israel have a nuclear fit for cruise missiles.
I have already advised Iran on this capability – designed to circumvent an S-300 anti-missile system.
Day 1. Toryld Government, BBC Today Programme.
Headline. New Financial Crash in Eurozone.
Headline. Open Schools to Private Control.
Headline. Islam Must Be Modified in Western Societies.
Wanna fight?
Craig’s argunment depends on there being no barbarians at the gates to defend us from & there being no barbarians within the gates running university courses that rather than educate exist to impose politically correct lies & fund government parasites. I agree with him that there is no credible conventional military threat that the armed forces have any role in preventing (there is a very limited military threat from barbarians we have invited to live here but that is a police matter).
“I have already advised Iran on this capability – designed to circumvent an S-300 anti-missile system.”
Oh my Gawwwd!