printHe has “unveiled 23 bills (and one draft bill) detailing ambitious plans for major reform of schools, welfare, the police and the political system. Every week brings another policy, proposal or white paper,” and all aim at “dismantling the British welfare system and rolling back the state; to make changes which … ‘will affect [that country’s] economy, [its] society – indeed, [its] whole way of life.'” He is David Cameron, Britain’s Prime Minister. And he is making the Fabian socialists at the New Statesman furious for not being more like FDR.
The Keynesians at TNS consider Tony Blair and Gordon Brown proponents of the free market. In this essay, the argument for the continuation of deficit spending, state-sector growth and endless stims and bailouts—until the English economic Eden is restored (not)—takes the form of The Complaint. Mehdi Hasan believes that he need not argue his case for the merit of FDR-like government growth, massive public works, regulation of banking and Wall Street, and subsidies for agriculture and labor. These “proven” state initiatives are good on their face.
On the other hand, doesn’t everyone know that living within your means is a dangerous gamble, the province of reckless high rollers?
In his zeal to cut an already falling deficit and “balance the books”, for example, Cameron and his Chancellor, George Osborne, have delivered £40bn of tax rises and public spending cuts on top of the £73bn target they inherited from Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling. In the US, cutting the deficit may be a medium-term challenge, but here in the UK, for the Cameron-led coalition, it has become an obsession – “the most urgent issue facing Britain”, according to a letter sent by Cameron and Clegg to their cabinet colleagues on 2 August.
Inside the space of 50 days, and behind the cover of an “emergency” and “unavoidable” Budget, Cameron and Osborne have taken one of the biggest macroeconomic gambles of any prime minister and chancellor to have entered Downing Street.
Hasan takes credit for having warned his homies of the impending austerity.
We cannot say we were not warned. In his speech to the Conservative party conference, in October 2009, Cameron declared that his mission as prime minister would be to tear down so-called big government. The phrase “big government” appeared 14 times in that one speech, in which, studiously ignoring the role played by bankers in causing the worst financial crisis in living memory, he claimed: “It is more government that got us into this mess.”
AND:
“Despite appearances to the contrary, Cameron is less a Whiggish pragmatist than a radical, in the Margaret Thatcher mould. His combination of market-oriented reforms to the public sector and savage cuts to public spending – hailed by the investment bank Seymour Pierce as heralding a ‘golden age of outsourcing’ – suggests that he is intent on completing the neoliberal, state-shrinking revolution that Thatcher began and which Tony Blair and Gordon Brown did little to reverse.”
“Cameron’s right-wing instincts on the economy, however, have never been properly acknowledged by a press pack beguiled by his ‘rebranding’ of the Conservative Party and distracted by his ‘progressive’ stance on gender, sexuality and race issues, [classical-liberal like] as well as his self-professed passion for civil liberties and the environment. …
Disregard the rhetoric and image, and consider instead the record: in his first 100 days, Cameron has gone further than Thatcher – and much faster, too. His ‘modernising’ ally and minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, has said that the Tories always planned to outstrip the Iron Lady.”
[SNIP]
The nation of shopkeepers may soon leave the US in the dust.
While Cameron isn’t a pure “classical liberal,” he is clearly moving the country back in the right direction — in contrast to our President Obama.
Good for that “nation of shopkeepers!” I hope Cameron, et. al., keep up the momentum.
They are now at the point at which we will be sometime in the not-so-distant future. Remember that as an EU state, they have a bankrupt Greece waiting for their handouts (and nearly bankrupt other countries including Spain and Portugal waiting for their pounds, as well.) The Brits and others (Germans) will continue to provide the “benefits” for those already-failed, or nearly-failed states, unless radical measures are taken. In addition to cutting “big government,” the Brits need to get out of the EU, with all haste–to remain only means that they will continue to support the failures of nations over which they have no control. Best wishes from this side of the Atlantic.
Wendy McElroy on her blog has an addition article that discusses the things the new British government is doing. Titled “the Great Repeal Bill” “http://www.wendymcelroy.com/news.php” Wendy doesn’t like the immigration common-sense bill, where most of us do; but, she does like the move to repeal unpopular laws in the UK. England has a novel way for citizen input, they have a web site set up by David Cameron’s office, called “Your freedom” where you can type in what law you find offensive and why. Some abuse happens but most of the posters state good reasons why they think certain laws should be repealed, so who knows, freedom may still have a chance.
David Cameron is in a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. I have a feeling that TNS is simply overreacting. Mind you, statist media often tried to portray Bush as some champion of the free-market, which as you know, nothing could have been further from the truth.
Cameron said he would reduce immigration to 36 thousand a year but that is nonsense. He will not curtail family expansion immigration, or even stop the hundreds of thousands of ‘students’ who come to Britain each year.
London is becoming an alien’s city.
As for reforming the Welfare state, I wish him well. We need a bit of brutality.
BTW:For anyone who wants a laugh, use Google maps to find, Globe road, London E1. Use the pointer to zoom in on the factory just past Stepney Green Underground station. This a a college.
So they’ve taken to varnishing the rotted oak – cue the ship’s band for There’ll Always Be an England.
America is plunging rapidly towards Third World status while some of the former Third World is adopting market reforms and the sanctity of economic private property (even if not “democratic” like Singapore, China,…) There are some voices in Europe to at least limit the welfare state to some level of budgetary “affordability” (Germany, France, U.K.) – but not necessarily to eliminate it. There seems little hope for America other than some Social-Religious “Compassionate” Conservatives to replace Obama with a big spending Republikeynsian.
I have contempt for the 99% of Republicans whose answer to out-of-control deficits are more TAX CUTS on ADM executives and Goldman Sachs bankers to pass on hyperinflationary slavery to future generations. SPENDING CUTS are essential – not tax cuts (no dessert until you eat your veggies, America!)
Meanwhile, there is an interesting thought-provoking essay on America’s Politically Dysfunctional Elitist Managerial Imperial State by Professor Angelo Codevilla [I agree with much but not all]:
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-class-and-the
Codevilla points out the POISONOUS doctrine that Professor Woodrow Know-It-All Wilson dumped on this nation and his neocon & leftist followers who dominate both parties. However, if Sarah Palin is our “salvation”, we are probably doomed!
That article made my heart squeal with delight. But, on second thoughts like some previous commentators said, these people declare Bush to be a laissez-faire, deregulating fundamentalist. Let us not take their word on Cameron, though we wish the words were true.