The new targets
The prospect of a Conservative Government could be something that fills our kneejerking friends in the tabloids with equal amounts of delight and revulsion. Sure, these are the people they've been telling us to vote for, for the past few years, who will cut through the red tape, demolish the PC Brigade, end yuman rites, get rid of elfnsafety, and generally make Britain into a much more marvellous place.
Except. What then? No-one's going to go for a ride on the ghost train if there's nothing to be scared about. Well fear not - or rather, keep on fearing as much as possible. Because there's already a new target in the crosshairs for when New Labour get kicked out of office - the bloated and evil public sector, draining our money while we hardworking Brits are struggling along.
As with MPs' expenses, it is of course a bit rich for journalists of all people to be bleating about a venal expenses culture, but that's beside the point. What's important is where this is going: the same old demonising is going on - not just with the immigrant single mother tribunal winner who won Daily Mail Outrage Bingo on yesterday's front page, but with the civil servants who are going to be labelled as bloated, outrageous, expensive and worth getting rid of.
Don't fret. It's not as if our papers are going to run out of things to be worried about, or to try and make us worried about, even if their chosen candidate Samantha Cameron does become Prime Minister. The public sector is going to take a hell of a pasting, with many more tales like this stoking up the anger in order to make a cull of jobs seem all the more palatable, whether or not the eventual victims are the 'fat cats' at the top or not.
The diversity Nazis, health and safety Gestapo, political correctness Stasi and human rights KGB will still be around too, as well as the disgusting pinko BBC. When Labour have been in power, it's been assumed that it's all been a big plot led from the top; when (and if) SamCam takes charge, it will be portrayed as an unlanceable boil constantly frustrating Honest Cameron's attempts to put loads of people on the dole get rid of red tape, put loads of people on the dole streamline public services and put loads of people on the dole make Government smaller.
If Cameron does win - and it looks like he will, despite the fact he's doing his best to scuttle the ship - and doesn't do exactly what the tabloids want in terms of turning back the clock to the 1950s, he'll be cut some slack at first. New Labour's legacy will be blamed. These things take time. It's those pesky liberals who are infecting the bloated state who are at fault. There are other bogeymen to be shone a torch on and made to look scary first. Eventually, of course, Cameron may be turned upon by his cheerleaders, but that's a long time away. Don't think for a moment that a Conservative Government will stop the fearmongering - in a lot of ways, it's just beginning.
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Hello. I'm a Bristol-based writer and soon-to-be-redundant journalist. You can read more about me and the Enemies site here, or follow me on Twitter. Email me if you like - antonvowl at live dot co dot uk
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April 14th, 2010 - 12:15
Well said Anton. Well said! *clap clap*
I agree with you. I have this strange feeling that things are going to get a whole load worse and soon after the general election and you took the thought right out of my head when you said that Labour’s Legacy will be blamed.
Amazing how we have a public that laps it all up.
April 14th, 2010 - 12:31
1950′s? Surely the Mail and co want to go back to the 1850′s. The whole welfare state was born in the 1950′s and we didn’t have the current neo-liberal economic policies then. No, we had Keynesian economic policies, which the tabloids will hate.
April 14th, 2010 - 12:32
A friend of mine pointed out that the Conservative Manifesto smacks very much of Homer Simpsons campaign in an old episode, ‘Trash can of the Titans,’ in it he runs for office under the slogan ‘Can’t somebody else do it.’
A bitter sweet moment, does it mean that in the Cameron household they enjoy the Simpsons?
April 14th, 2010 - 17:25
Oh I am soooo happy someone else noticed this. I was thinking that it was just me being a total Simpsons nerd. I look forward to the moving of Britain 10 miles down the road.
April 14th, 2010 - 13:25
“If Cameron does win – and it looks like he will” – hmm, with 6-9 point lead while a third of voters yet to make up their minds, I think it’s too close to call yet. Or am i just taking my wishful thinking where I can get it?
April 14th, 2010 - 17:04
Indeed. The Right thrives – or thinks it does – in a culture of fear.
Think GW Bush. That was 8 years of unremitting fear-led administration.
The forewarning on the barrage of fearmongering then is prescient.
Like Merrick though, I don’t think all is lost as far as this election is concerned.
April 14th, 2010 - 17:39
The thing that annoys me is that the media whips up hysteria over some issue and then demands answers and action. The government then responds by employing people to find answers (usually involving collecting data by making front line staff fill out paper work) and even more to actually “do” something about said issue – then the same media complains that the public sector is too big and that they have too much paperwork! It’s a vicious cycle.
But we need them kick up a fuss every so often. They (the media) need to learn to use this power more responsibly*, but (depressingly) we have no mechanism for making this happen
* (I have tried to avoid the obviously apt superhero catch phase here).
April 14th, 2010 - 22:00
Unfortunately there’s a bitter truth behind this – the fact that with the government’s massive debts from saving the banks, something has to be done to either (a) reduce the tax burden (i.e. the government spends less), (b) increase taxes or (c) preferably both, to prevent us defaulting on the debt, having our credit rating smashed, our currency devalued even further and plunging into an even greater recession than the one we’re already in (and don’t beleieve that we’re out of it yet).
So yes, unfortunately public sector services will have to be cut. And taxes increased.
Interestingly, this is a practically unelectable stance for a party to take, and yet it is exactly what is needed.
If you had a choice, cut jobs from the public services or plunge the country further into recession thereby preventing new jobs being created / reducing UK’s competitiveness and generally making things worse off for the many rather than the few, what would you do? What would be in the best interests of the country as a whole?
April 15th, 2010 - 10:55
But the tories won’t cut all the bureacracy taht people view and they label as waste (as they claim they will do for the NHS) since most of those positions are taken up by tory voters and pals of the tories. It will be more cuts to frontline services such as the already beleaguered DWP – especially as, apparently (salt ready to pinch), Dave plans to privatise the jobcentre (Unemployment, bought to you by Diet Cola).
April 15th, 2010 - 16:23
Being a civil servant I have had the pleasure of travelling on “expenses”. Have to go somewhere at off peak times of year and what you get on the spending limits isn’t bad, not exactly the Ritz but it does the job. Have the joy of staying over in London in school summer holidays and you end up with some flea infested cess pit (literally, one friend of mine got eaten alive by bed bugs in one of these places).
So forgive me when I point and laugh at any suggestion that Civil Servants live the high life.
Grrrrr…..