We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
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Anything? In May 1979 I was walking over Hungerford Bridge a day or two after the election that brought Margaret Thatcher to power. I saw in the distance a small embarrassed-looking group gathering to take part in some sort of march or demonstration to protect union rights. I was not happy about Mrs Thatcher’s victory, earnest young leftie that I was, but I remember thinking, at least she’ll stomp on the unions.
I gather that there has been some sort of political development today.
Finish this sentence, if you can: At least he’ll….
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We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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…abandon ID cards?
stuff the electoral system without having any mandate to do so.
… keep continuity in government policy.
be slightly less embarrassing than Gordon
be English.
Seriously, I think the answer might be: ruin us a bit more slowly.
…yell “ULTIMATE POWER!” while throwing Gordon Brown through the window of his new office.
Spend more on his hair than the blessed Maggie ever did.
Not need to shred his expenses, like Blair…
… do better than most of the commenters on here seem to expect/predict ?
…not wear a denim shirt when he poses with the new baby.
bring a touch of class to the government.
… turn off his microphone.
… not make any jarring changes.
…. eliminate the deficit by cutting spending, roll back excessive regulations, eliminate the UK’s Carbon Footprint, wipe away all tears, and stop the rise of the oceans — and that is just in the first 100 days. Oops! Sorry, wrong country.
..wash his hands when he’s done in the washroom?
…stomp on the quangos?
Or, at least, set up a quango to initiate the process?
Use only one square of toilet paper?
Absolutely nothing to damage his chances of being re-elected.
… leave the Waddington amendment in place?
… take the national debt seriously?
My worry is that any government that contains an over-rated fool like Vincent Cable could do daft things like hike capital gains and continue this “bash the rich” nonsense that has worked so well in the past.
We might see the end of ID cards and possibly, possibly, get a big repeal of a lot of crappy home affairs legislation. That is one of the few good things about getting the LibDems on board.
I fear, though, that the statist direction of overall policy will not budge except at the margins. But then again, marginal improvements is possibly the best any sane person can hope for. It is all well and good folk arguing for a sort of “we have to destroy the village in order to save it”, but that is not a lot of comfort for the villagers.
…have forced Gordon to go.
…have cut taxes for the low paid.
Everything else is unknown with him. We still do not know if he will have Laws in to screw up one of the few half-good policies they had.
Still, I say October could well be the point when Cameron realises he has been tied to a couch and has no intention of being left there all winter (of discontent) while the LibDems strapped next to him mutate into alien shape-changing Socialists.
“Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out”
not bring Peter Mandelson back in to government,
nor have Ed Balls as his heir apparent,
nor rely on Alistair Campbell and Charlie Whelan.
“at least he will explode the lie that the Conservative party is anything to do with rolling back the social democratic state”
That would be the reply of many people (such as Peter Hitchens). For example the “budget cuts” will, I believe, turn out to be an INCREASE in government spending overall.
The Spanish government was declared (by the “mainstream” media) to have just announced massive budget cuts – however when I looked at the Socialist party Prime Minister’s plans all I could find were new ideas for spending MORE money.
No doubt it will be the same here – with such things as the “pupil premimum” (bringing up spending in state school to match some of the higher spending private schools – not the sort of private school where I used to work) already anounced.
I have been to many local government meetings over the last couple of years – and in each meeting I have tried to have a discussion about getting spending under control, only to be told that discussing specific budget cuts was “not on the agenda” – but there is never any problem with discussing ways to spend MORE money (that does not have to be “on the agenda”) , and I am sure it is much the same with national politics.
Some people compare the modern Welfare States (in the United States this is called the “entitlement state”) to the Roman Empire – and predict a long term decline and fall.
Such people are fundementally mistaken – as, even in the late Roman Empire, only a MINORITY of people (the military and the inhabitants of a few cities such as Rome itself) had their basic needs provided by the state. The vast majority of people (out in the villages and small towns) got no money from the state at all.
In the modern world, health, education, old age provision and income support FOR THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE are “public services” provided by government.
This is not the Roman Empire (not even the late Roman Empire) and in spite of modern technology (which has allowed a level of production that the Romans could only dream of) IT CAN NOT LAST.
This will not be a long decline – the failure of this system will come quite soon, within a few years.
Certainly “reform is possible” – but there is no sign of reform (in Britain or in most nations). The trends are not in the direction of reform – they are in the direction of collapse.
And “at least he will….” David Cameron is not going to change that.
Ian B was close.
My sentence would be “at least he will now have to find a new reason not to abolish ID cards”.
My money’s on it being an EU regulation.
He may abolish ID cards, but will he do anything about the ID database that is the real threat?
At least we can hope the coalition will fall apart and he’ll be gone soon (not that there is much chance of getting anything better in his place).
….continue to trash the conservative party???
I don’t really understand the fixed-term parliament thing.
Does that mean that if the coalition fails after 1 year, there’s no choice other than to continually re-shuffle coalitions for another 4 years? So the acting government can’t call an election?
Why is that a good thing?
You have to laugh or you’ll cry, eh Paul? And like you I think the crying is going to start very soon.
Our new wonder coalition of Batman and Robin, have pledged to cut 8 billion in the first year. Wow! big deal! In case nobody noticed, Darling was forced to hand over exactly that sum to the EU to bail out Greece because we no longer have a veto in that dept last week. Oh miracle of miracles, he said we wouldn’t join in the emergency fund to bail out the next of the PIGS to go teats up.
And our everloving partners in the EU have sniffily replied,with the resounding solidarity they are famous for, well dont to come us for money when your country goes tits up too. I have news for them, it has already!
It is Alice in Wonderland with our political classes, where the fuck do they think the money is going to come from?
Meanwhile , with every country instructed to tighten its belt and cut its budgets, what is the EU (that paragon of fiscal probity, whos finances havent been audited for 14 years!) planning to do? Increase its budget by 8%!!
Batman and Boy wonder are heavily europhile. They will do nothing to prevent the EU smashing the City of London, the only bit of our economy that has a cats chance in hell of generating some wealth and getting us out of the hole.
This Euro crisis is a godsend for the EU, one more ratchet up towards Europe wide universal taxation and central regulation.
Bye bye Great Britain, hello the Province of Albion.
We are well and truly fucked folks, the Coalition will merely rearrange the deckchairs.
At least he’ll… “agree to implement a full programme of measures to reverse the substantial erosion of civil liberties under the Labour Government and roll back state intrusion.
This will include:
* A Freedom or Great Repeal Bill.
* The scrapping of ID card scheme, the National Identity register, the next generation of biometric passports and the Contact Point Database.
* Outlawing the finger-printing of children at school without parental permission.
* The extension of the scope of the Freedom of Information Act to provide greater transparency.
* Adopting the protections of the Scottish model for the DNA database.
* The protection of historic freedoms through the defence of trial by jury.
* The restoration of rights to non-violent protest.
* The review of libel laws to protect freedom of speech.
* Safeguards against the misuse of anti-terrorism legislation.
* Further regulation of CCTV.
* Ending of storage of internet and email records without good reason.
* A new mechanism to prevent the proliferation of unnecessary new criminal offences.”
?
Source.
….revert to form.
what d’you fellows make of this?…..
http://www.talkcarswell.com/show.aspx?id=1414
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Great_Repeal_Bill
That’s a worry, certainly. A bigger worry is that he won’t mind.
For what it’s worth, I think IanB nailed the answer first time. Whetever else happens, we should be shot of the ID scheme.
listen to the Obama speeches on the iPod he’ll recieve on his first visit to DC
“Whetever else happens, we should be shot of the ID scheme.”
That’s what we thought in 1997.
.. be gone within twelve months.
look good on the TV. Half of politics is looking good, so that is a plus.
J.P. is correct about “Vince” Cable – he is a waste of space.
However, it is not just a matter of Cameron/Clegg (who seem to be the same person – a bit like the Milipede things in the Labout party) rating this nonenity – he is also pushed as a writer.
In the business section of the bookshop at the airport (which shall remain nameless – both shop and airport) the works of Mr Cable were presented front and centre – but then there appeared to be non statist books in the business section or anywhere else in the pathetic bookshop.