Crash Bang Wallace
Libertarian political blog from Mark Wallace; political opinion, breaking news and exclusivesSpending cuts hit the elderly hard
Posted on August 26, 2010Anyone who’s watched the Ten O’Clock News or Newsnight in the last few weeks will be familiar with the story: impoverished, elderly pensioners are being hit hard by frontline spending cuts that reduce their income and strike at the few luxuries they have left. Worse, this is from a Government that claims to be “progressive” and acting in the interests of the poorest in society!
Of course the Left around the world are up in arms at such injustice….except they’re not, because these cuts aren’t being carried out in Britain by the Coalition, they’re being carried out in Cuba by a Communist called Castro.
Raoul Castro’s motivation is obvious, of course, to anyone with an ounce of common sense – the big state, anti-freedom, subsidy-junkie policies of Cuban communism have beggared that nation and left it a rotting, 1950s theme park. He hasn’t decided to reverse that foolish, oppressive policy wholesale, but even a Castro can’t ignore the bank balance forever.
But what about those who don’t have that common sense? What about those whose innate habit of screaming “Tory cuts” in Britain is normally just as automatic as their praise and affection for Cuban dictators? Will they be condemning this as a “regressive” measure and slating Castro as a Reaganite stooge who is going to devastate pensioners’ lives? Let me know when they make their minds up.
Greenies: They can dish it out, but they can’t take it
Posted on August 19, 2010Isn’t it strange how so many on the Left love to dish out the most outrageous verbal abuse but can’t take it in return?
George Osborne’s use of the term “deficit deniers” to describe those who pretend that radical public spending cuts aren’t necessary has produced a case in point.
Across the blogosphere and the commentariat, deficit deniers have got the heeby-jeebies about being called out for what they are. What makes it all so delicious is that, almost to a man, they are the same people who have merrily flung about the term “global warming deniers” or “climate change deniers” for anyone who has dared to disagree with their manifesto of massive tax hikes and restrictions on individual liberty in the name of environmentalism.
Indeed, it was they who took the controversial step of removing the word from its normal association with Holocaust denial and decided to use it as a political plaything. But they seem less keen on it now that the tables have been turned.
No-one better typifies this hilarious double standard than Tamsin Omond – the young woman, blue in blood, green in heart and deepest red in politics, who came to fame for a series of protests aimed at increasing the cost of household energy and restricting holidays for ordinary people.
Over at Liberal Conspiracy she has taken deep offence at the idea of being called a “denier” for her opposition to spending cuts. But where was the burning light of her moral outrage at such an unjust term when her colleagues and fellow protesters in the green movement were using it to deride their enemies?
For a political movement who never seem to shut up about “fairness”, it is a value which has been notably lacking among the Left of late.
Camping isn’t communist
markwallace | 6 Comments » Posted on July 15, 2010As anyone who has spent time on a campsite will tell you, it is not a socialist utopia. Who could possibly think that it is?
Well, someone does: the Guardian’s Aditya Chakrabortty. Drawing on the philosophies of G.A.Cohen he has laid out why he feels a weekend in a damp tent is the best way of living out Marx’s dream.
As someone who once spent two and a half months living in a tent (for good, professional reasons, I promise), I can confirm he is wrong – read my Comment is Free response here to find out why.