Vince Cable Spread Anti-Semitism Smears to Boost Support for Lib Dems

More lies and smears, though from the Lib Dems this time, rather than the Tories. Vince Cable has declared that anti-Semitism is exceptionally severe in the Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn. And so his party will definitely not go into coalition with a Labour government.

A Lib Dem leader saying that he won’t go into coalition with a Labour government! Well, colour me surprised! as the late, great Bill Hicks used to exclaim ironically. Like the last time the Lib Dems refused to go into coalition with the Labour party, and instead got into bed – metaphorically – with Dave Cameron and the Tories. Mike states that Cable knows that this is rubbish. In fact, under Corbyn, anti-Semitism has actually decreased in the Labour party, while outside Labour in Britain generally it has actually risen. But like the Tories, the Lib Dems are showing that they see no need to spoil a useful lie with an awkward truth.

And somehow, I really don’t think this is the real reason the Lib Dems don’t want to go into partnership with Labour. After all, they lied about their reason for going into coalition with the Tories. According to them, it was because they didn’t want Gordon Brown to be the head of the Labour party. In reality, they’d already told the Conservatives they were going to go into coalition with them long before they publicly turned Labour’s overtures down, citing Brown’s continued leadership as their excuse.

The Lib Dems have been trying to turn themselves into another far right, Thatcherite party. The Orange Book of the Lib Dem right, which supplants John Stuart Mill’s classic On Liberty, takes its name from the colours of the 19th century Manchester school. The same Manchester school of economics that Mussolini boasted of supporting when he first took power in Italy. In other words, it’s complete laissez faire, free trade liberalism with as little state intervention as possible. The Lib Dem MP for Taunton Dean in Somerset wrote a book just before the last election making pretty much the same arguments as the noxious authors of Britain Unchained. You know the sort of thing: Brits must tighten their belts and work harder, have fewer welfare benefits and lower wages in order to compete with working people in being similarly screwed by neoliberalism in the Developing World. This came from a public schoolboy, who no doubt would have screamed blue murder had someone made the point many economists are now making, that western managers are vastly overpaid.

The simple reason is that Cable is another wretched Thatcherite neoliberal, who doesn’t want to go into coalition with a Labour party under Corbyn, because Corbyn wants to undo the Thatcherite consensus and return Britain to the social democratic arrangement which gave Britain jobs, a welfare state and prosperity from the end of the War to Thatcher’s election.

I also wonder how this will affect some of the members of his own party. A little while ago I came across a book promoting the anti-Semitism smears against Labour by Dave Rich, and leading member of the Israel lobby. This claimed that the left’s anti-Semitism began in the late ’60s with criticism of Israel, including by the left-wing of the Liberals. Which begs the question: is Cable now going to lead a purge of Lib Dems, who criticise Israel and its murderous ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, just like the Blairites have done in Labour?

And if we’re talking about racist violence, Cable himself was an economist with Shell, I believe, when that western oil company was hiring mercenary squads to murder and beat tribespeople in the Niger delta in Nigeria, who were protesting about the company’s pollution of their water supplies. Cable wasn’t responsible for the policy, but he clearly didn’t let it get in the way of working for them.

And I also recall reading in a Fabian pamphlet in the 1980s how one of the brutal South American Fascist regimes was also apparently a member of the international Liberal group of parties. In Germany in the same decade there was a massive scandal when it came out that the German Liberal party, the Freie Demokraten, or Free Democrats, were absolutely nothing of the sort, and had been heavily infiltrated by neo-Nazis. Alongside Liberalism’s veneration of John Stuart Mill and democracy, there’s a side that is every bit as nasty as the Tories. And this side seems to be dominant under Cable.

The founders of the Labour party were convinced that both the Liberals and Conservatives should be treated equally as enemies of the working class. The Liberals stood for the middle classes and business, while the Tories originally stood for the Anglican Church and the aristocracy. Neither of them represented the 95 per cent of the population, who in the 19th century constituted the working class. And it was the Liberals, not the Tories, who set up the workhouses under the New Poor Law. Lloyd George and the Liberals laid the foundations of the welfare state, which the Tories have been trying since Thatcher to destroy. And under Vince Cable, it seems the Lib Dems are trying to join them.

Cable clearly is quite happy with the continuing privatisation of the NHS, and a privatised electricity grid and railways, which offer substandard service at inflated prices for the benefit of their mostly foreign company directors. At the same time, he also wants to cut wages and state benefits, to make Britain’s working people even poorer. And I’ve seen no evidence that he wants to do anything about the welfare to work tests, which have seen tens of thousands of disabled people starve to death after being wrongly judged ‘fit for work’. He hasn’t condemned benefit sanctions, which do the same to unemployed generally. And he certainly hasn’t made any noises at all at reducing the debt burden on students. Labour brought in tuition fees, but they were increased immensely by Nick Clegg. He then claimed it was Cameron’s idea, when it was the opposite. Cameron apparently was prepared to concede their removals to the Liberals. But they were advocated by Clegg.

In the 1920s and ’30s, the Liberal party began to position itself as the centre ground between the Tories and Labour, and could thus appeal to both depending on circumstances. During the Lib-Lab pact in the mid-70s, they helped shore up a minority Labour government.

But those days are long gone, it seems. Now they’re doing their best to be indestinguishable from the Tories, just like New Labour tried to continue Thatcher’s policies.

There’s no reason for any working person in Britain to vote for them.
A vote for the Lib Dems is a vote for the Tories.
Ignore the lies and smears, and vote for Corbyn instead.

‘Lib Dems Offer Strong Opposition to Tories’ – Who’s Farron Trying to Kid?

May’s just called a snap election for June, hoping that she’ll get a 2/3 majority in parliament. She claims it’s about Brexit, and that she needs to challenge the Scots Nationalists and the House of Lords, some of whom – naughty boys and girls – are undermining her, and she wants a united front in dealing with Europe. I’m sceptical about this claim. I think it’s also, as Ian Duncan Smith, the former minister for disabled death, has admitted, about beating the Labour party when they’re weak. The BBC pollsters have put Corbyn 20 to 21 points behind May.

There are good reasons for doubting these figures. Guy Debord’s Cat has written a long article, pointing out that polls are done by newspapers and Conservative interest groups, in order to manufacture public support for the Tories. They aren’t about presenting an objective gauge of how the public feels about politics, as a form of ‘manufacturing consent’, in Chomsky’s words. See https://buddyhell.wordpress.com/2017/01/16/how-polling-works/ Even so, I am terribly afraid that the British public will be taken in by the media and Tory spin, and vote for May.

And the lying has already started. Ignoring the lies coming from the Tories, every word of which is sheer is a carefully crafted falsehood, Tim Farron has started lying on behalf of the Lib Dems. He was in Cornwall campaigning. Speaking from Truro, he made the claim that, unlike Labour, the Lib Dems would offer ‘strong opposition’ to the Tories.

Eh? Who’s he trying to kid.

Remember the 2010 election? The first thing Nick Clegg, the leader of the Lib Dems at the time, did was arrange to go into a coalition with the Conservatives. He claimed that he had negotiated with Labour, but that they had refused to remove Gordon Brown as their leader. This was, apparently, one of his conditions to entering government with them. Not having got what he wanted, he then switched to the Tories.

Except it was lies. Clegg had already made his decision to go with them anyway.

Just like Clegg also lied about opposing tuition fees for students. Soon as he got into power with the Tories, he was in favour of raising them. Far more so than Cameron, who was prepared to compromise with him on this. But Clegg was determined to raise them, and so student debt was increased to an even more crippling amount.

The Lib Dems were also more than willing to continue the Tories’ and New Labour’s privatisation of the NHS.

They were also eager to join the Tories in getting rid of Habeas Corpus and setting up secret courts, so you can be tried in secret, using evidence withheld from your lawyer, for reasons of ‘national security’. Just like Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Russia.

And there was a whole branch of Farron’s party – the ‘Orange Book’ Liberals, all slavering enthusiasts for massive privatisation, the destruction of the welfare state and workers’ rights. One of the noxious pratts promoting this bilge was the Lib Dem MP for Taunton Dean, who came from a very privileged background, having grown up in Kenya and other exotic locales.

It might be that Farron has been a new broom, sweeping all this away. But I doubt it. The Lib-Dems claimed to have opposed the Tories before. They also claimed to be a moderating force against Tory excesses when they were in power with them. That was not true. And I doubt it is now.

Vote Clegg for More Tory Government

I heard this week that Nick Clegg has said that if there is another hung parliament, he’ll talk to the Tories first about forming a coalition. If this is true, then it tells you everything you need to know about why you should not vote Lib Dem in this election.

Much of Clegg’s election campaign has been based around his statement that the Lib Dems are centrist party, and that whichever party is in power, they will restrain them from going too far.

Frankly, this is a lie. I’ve seen absolutely no evidence for this, and a lot against it. It seems the Lib Dems have enthusiastically supported all of the wicked, illiberal, punitive and destructive legislation introduced by Cameron, from the continuing piecemeal privatisation of the health service, to the establishment of secret courts, the vicious cuts to the welfare budget that are leaving people literally starving to death. Along with restrictions on the use of legal aid and the massive rise in university tuition fees.

Clegg is an ‘Orange Book’ Lib Dem. As several of the commenters have pointed out, this takes its name from the extreme laissez faire section of the 19th century Liberal Party, who rejected any kind of state intervention. The Orange Book has a chapter which recommends the privatisation of the NHS. Clegg has much in common with the Tories. So much so that they’re basically indistinguishable.

A vote for the Lib Dems under Clegg means a vote for the return of the Coalition. And that just means ‘More of the same’, in the words of the great Max Headroom. And that’s enough to give anyone a stammer, not just the computer generated.

38 Degrees Video against the Privatisation of the NHS

The political petitioning group, 38 Degrees, are running a campaign to prioritise the NHS as one of the very most important issues in the coming election. They posted this video to their members about the NHS and the magnificent work it does, asking them to watch and then share on the social media.

I’m not on Facebook, Twitter or any of the others. I only have this blog, and so I’m posting it here. The video’s extremely brief – just under two minutes. It does, however, contain snippets of interview from people, who have been treated by the Health Service for cancer, liver failure and infertility.

It states that these are all threatened by privatisation, and asks people to use their vote to defend the Health Service. Here it is:

https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/page/content/nhs-video

The message doesn’t name or mention specific parties, but it’s clear enough.
The biggest threat to the NHS comes from the Tories and their Lib Dem enablers.

As this, and so many other left-wing blogs, like Johnny Void, Vox Political, Pride’s Purge, and Another Angry Void have pointed out, over and over again, the Tories are privatising the health service piecemeal. There are 92 Tory and Lib Dem MPs who either own, or have senior management positions with private healthcare firms seeking to profit from the NHS’ privatisation. The Tories’ Health Secretaries, Jeremy Hunt and Andrew Lansley, have stated that they want the NHS privatised. One of the two even spoke about it at an event sponsored by one of the private healthcare firms at a Tory party conference.

As for the Lib Dems, it is not remotely surprising that they also want to privatise the NHS. It’s in the Orange Book, the Lib Dem ideological guide advocating neo-Liberalism now guiding their policies under Nick Clegg.

Ed Miliband, by contrast, has said that he will protect the NHS from privatisation, and will undo the Tories’ disastrous legislation privatising the NHS.

If you genuinely don’t want to see the NHS privatised, and the sick and disabled suffer and die as they do in America, when they can’t afford medical insurance, then don’t vote Tory or Lib Dem.

Fuhrage Speaks with Forked Tongue on the NHS. Again.

Farage was talking about the NHS and UKIP’s plans for it again in the Torygraph yesterday. He claimed that medical incompetence by NHS doctors nearly killed him. He was saved, again by the NHS, but left with the body of a 70 year old. He then outlined his plans to reform it. Mike has posted this article about it, NHS: has UKIP U-turned yet again? It begins

“UKIP believes in our NHS. That is why we have a credible plan to help it back on its feet.”

Don’t laugh – that is what UKIP’s website actually says about that party’s plans for the National Health Service. Current UKIP policy is that it supports the NHS, even though Nigel Farage has said it’s “a debate we’re going to have to return to”.

Previously he had admitted – on camera – that he would replace the NHS with a US-style health system.

Mike points out that he seems to be telling people that he will preserve the NHS while recommending that everyone who can should get private health insurance, despite the fact that very many people can’t afford it.

Mike’s article can be read at http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2015/03/14/nhs-has-ukip-u-turned-yet-again/

This was essentially the Tories stance under Maggie Thatcher. She claimed repeatedly that she did not want to privatise it, all the while encouraging everyone to take out private health insurance. She also wanted to enable people to opt out of it. Those who did, would see their tax bill cut as they would become exempt from NHS contributions. She also set up a study, partly authored by Wassermann, now an advisor to David Cameron, about privatising the NHS. This was suppressed, but as recent Tory policy shows, it is still at the heart of Tory policy.

The NHS is being privatised piecemeal. There are 92 Tory and Lib Dem MPs, who support its privatisation and stand to gain commercially from it as directors and senior employees in private healthcare companies. These include Iain Duncan Smith. Nick Clegg is no better. The Lib Dem Orange Book, the key ideological text for the Neo-Liberal wing of the Lib Dems, has a chapter advocating the privatisation of the NHS.

And the Kippers have also repeatedly demanded and advocated the privatisation of the NHS. The Fuhrage has said he wants it replaced by a US-style insurance system, as Mike has pointed out. His deputy, Paul Nuttall, has said that the NHS ought to be privatised. So have many others.

But the Fuhrage also has enough political nous to realise that saying this outright will cost him the support of the ordinary, working and lower-middle class voters his party needs to win any kind of major electoral support. So fudges the issue by appearing to say two different things. Yes, he’s in favour of it. He wants to cut the bureaucracy introduced by Thatcher and the Tories as part of their plan to create an internal market.

But he also wants to replace it with an insurance system, and advises people to get private health insurance.

This policy, of apparently advocating retaining the NHS while planning for its abolition, has been stated most blatantly by the Traditional Britain Group. This is an extreme Right-wing think tank, which a few years ago attended fringe meetings at the Kipper party conference. They are venomously anti-working class, racist and Islamophobic. They openly demand the complete abolition of the welfare state. They also want to privatise the NHS, but have also said that this is impossible in the short-term because it is so massively popular. Thus they intend to retain it, but only for as long as it is political expedient.

And Nigel seems to have learned his lesson from them. He and his party have absolutely no plans or desire to retain the NHS. But they want you to think so for as long as they can get you to vote for them.

As for medical negligence and the comparative merits of private healthcare, the amount of iatrogenic disease (iatrogenic-caused by doctors) in America is horrendous. Part of the problem is that doctors are paid more if they operate. And so there are many cases of people undergoing unnecessary operations, simply because the surgeons get more cash.

And this is the system Nigel wants to introduce to the UK, and is trying to deceive you into believing is more reliable than the NHS and its medical staff.

Don’t be taken in.

Jeremy Browne and the Neo-Liberal Lib Dems

Jeremy Browne: The ‘Orange Book’ Liberal who wishes to privatise the Health Service and give even more tax breaks to the rich.

Jeremy Browne, the Lib Dem MP for the Somerset constituency of Taunton Dean, was interviewed briefly by David Garmston on the local news programme, Points West. Browne was in the papers earlier this week because of the policies he outlined in his book Race Plan: An Authentic Liberal Plan to Get Britain Fit for the Global Race. Amongst the policies he advocates are cutting the top rate of tax from 45 per cent down to 40 per cent, privatising the Health Service and replacing it with private medical insurance, and the introduction of education vouchers. Browne stated that these policies were necessary in order to make Britain competitive with the new emerging economies in the Developing World, countries which were pushing Britain further down the hierarchy of rich nations. Garmston asked him about what this would do for the working class, as there was nothing in the book for them. Not so, declared Browne – they would have greater opportunities. Garmston observed that this broke with the Lib Dems. They were a centre-left party, but these policies were well to the right of the Tory party. No, answered Browne, they were real, liberal policies.

Effect of Education Vouchers in Chile

This last statement shows the true origin of Browne’s view: Neoliberalism. Von Hayek and Mises, its founders, claimed that it represents genuine, 19th century liberalism against the progressive liberalism of the 20th century. Milton Friedman, the economic guru of Monetarism, also recommended education vouchers. Guy Debord’s Cat has posted on the way this system has wrecked Chile’s education system. See The Chilean Equality Protests at http://buddyhell.wordpress.com/2012/08/09/the-chilean-equality-protests/. And this is only one of the spectacular failure of Neoliberal economics.

Neoliberalism Producing Global Poverty

As for the effects of global competition, Greg Palast in Armed Madhouse shows how increasing hours and poor pay amongst Western workers has had the effect of driving up working hours and lowering pay in the rest of the world, as the other countries also struggle to compete. The workers in these nations don’t win, as conditions become ever more harsh and poverty, even for those in work, increases. The only people to gain from this are the international, wealthy elite.

Browne’s Privileged Background, like Tory and Tory Democrat Cabinet

This is on a par with Browne’s own background. According to Wikipedia, Browne was a son of the diplomat Sir Nicholas Browne, and grew up in a variety of different countries, including Iran, Belgium and Zimbabwe. It also states that he was educated at Bedales, one of the most expensive public schools in the UK with fees of £10,300 per term. He studied politics at Nottingham University. He also worked for the financial consultancy Drew Rogerson, and the PR firms Edelman and Reputationinc. This is pretty much the background of David Cameron and the Tory and Tory Democrat cabinet – extremely rich middle class with careers in banking and the financial sector, and PR. He thus shares the same views regarding destroying state intervention and the welfare state. Just to show how extremely Right-wing he is, he was in the Telegraph yesterday declaring that there was no point to his party, as there was too much conservatism in it supporting the state and the status quo. The book sounds extremely similar to Britannia Unchained, written by a trio of Tory MPs, who declared that British workers must work harder for less in order for Britain to compete globally.

Break with Tradition of Liberal Founders Welfare State

A hundred years ago the Liberals laid the foundations of the modern welfare state with sickness and unemployment insurance based very much on Bismarck’s reforms in Germany. In 1909 Lloyd George gave a speech at Limehouse appealing to the working class and violently denouncing the aristocracy, corrupt landlords and financial magnates. This was all too much for Winston Churchill, who declared it was ‘Socialism by the backdoor’ and stormed off to join the Tories. Now it seems the Orange Book Liberals, one of whom is Browne, have also rejected Lloyd George’s legacy and gone off to join the Neoliberal extreme Right. When asked by Garmston whether he had an eye on the Lib Dem leadership, Browne denied it, saying that the Lib Dems already had a leader. Considering his latest attack on the Lib Dem party, this denial rings very hollow.

Support for Privatisation and Destruction Welfare State in Lib Dems

Unfortunately, it’s not just Browne, who hold these views. Anne Soper, a Social Democrat MP back in the 1980s declared her support for education vouchers. In the 1987 election Davids Steel and Owen declared that it didn’t matter if the Health Service was privatised, so long as it remained free. Well, Browne wants to privatise it, and certainly doesn’t want it to be free. And all in the name of choice, which was used by Thatcher to justify her disastrous campaign of privatisation and the destruction of the welfare state. The entry for Browne in Wikipedia states that he is a member of the Orange Book section of the Lib Dems. This is the section that fully endorses and supports Neoliberalism and the campaigns of privatisation and cuts to welfare services.

Browne is thus a personal demonstration that if you are working or lower middle class, there is absolutely no point in voting Lib Dem. And especially not in Taunton Deane.

John Stuart Mill on the Right to Free Speech, vs. IDS and the Coalition

John Stuart Mill is one of the great founders of the modern concepts of political liberty, democracy and equality for women. His book, On Liberty, became the classic statement of Liberal ideology to the point where it was given to the leader of the Liberal party on his accession. He saw parliament as supremely important as the organ of government in which every opinion present in the country should be expressed and debated, so that politicians should form and adjust their policies accordingly. He wrote

‘In addition to this [i.e., the function of control], the Parliament has an office, no inferior … in importance; to be at once the nation’s Committee of Grievances, and its Congress of Opinions; an arena in which not only the general opinion of the nation, but that of every section of it, and as far as possible of every eminent individual whom it contains, can produce itself in full light and challenge discussion; where every person in the country may count upon finding somebody who speaks him mind well or better than he could speak it himself – not to friends and partisans exclusively, but in the face of opponents, to be tested by adverse controversy; where those whose opinion is overruled, feel satisfied that it is heard, and set aside not by a mere act of will, but for what are thought superior reasons, and commend themselves as much to the representatives of the majority of the nation; wh4ere every party or opinion in the country can muster in strength, and be cured of any illusion concerning the number or power of its adherents; where the opinion which prevails in the nation makes itself manifest as prevailing, and marshals its hosts in the presence of the government, which is thus enabled and compelled to give way to it on the mere manifestation, without the actual employment, of its strength; where statesmen can assure themselves far more certainly than by any signs, what elements of opinion and power are growing, and what declining, and are enabled to shape their measures with some regard not solely to present exigencies, but to tendencies in progress. Representative assemblies are often taunted by their enemies with being places of mere talk and bavardage. There has seldom been more misplaced derision. I know not how a representative assembly can more usefully employ itself than in talk, when the subject of talk is the great public interests of the country, and every sentence of it represents the opinion either of some important body of persons in the nation, or of an individual in whom some such body have reposed their confidence. A place where every interest and shade of opinion in the country can have its cause even passionately pleaded in the face of government and of all other interests and opinions, can compel them to listen, and either comply, or state clearly why they do not, is in itself, if it answered no other purpose, one of the most important political institutions that can exist anywhere, and one of the foremost benefits of free government. Such “talking” would never be looked upon with disparagement if it were not allowed to “doing”; which it never would, if assemblies knew and acknowledged that talking and discussion are their proper business, while doing, as the result of discussion, is the task not of a miscellaneous body, but of individuals specially trained to it; that the fit office of an assembly is to see that those individuals are honestly and intelligently chosen, and to interfere no further with them, except by unlimited latitude of suggestion and criticism, and by applying or withholding the final seal of national assent … Nothing but the restriction of the function of representative bodies within these rational limits will enable the benefits of popular control to be enjoyed in conjunction with the no less important requisites (growing ever more important as human affairs increase in scale and complexity) of skilled legislation and administration.’

He also made it very clear that he had some sympathy with Socialist aspirations for the improvement of humanity and the destruction of the class system. He stated

‘In short, I was a democrat, but not the least of a Socialist. We [i.e., he and his wife] were now [i.e., in the early 1850’s] much less democrats than I had been, because as long as education continues to be so wretchedly imperfect, we dreaded the ignorance and especially the selfishness and brutality of the mass; but our ideal of ultimate improvement went far beyond Democracy, and would class us decidedly under the general designation of Socialists. While we repudiated with the greatest energy that tyranny of society over the individual which most Socialistic systems are supposed to involve, we yet looked forward to a time when society will no longer be divided into the idle and the industrious; when the rule that they who do not work shall not eat, will be applied not to paupers only, but impartially to all; when the division of the produce of labour, instead of depending, as in so great a degree it now does, on the accident of birth, will be made by concert on an acknowledged principle of justice; and when it will no longer either be, or be thought to be, impossible for human beings to exert themselves strenuously in procuring benefits which are not to be exclusively their own, but to be shared with the society they belong to. The social problem of the future we considered to be, how to untie the greatest individual liberty of action with a common ownership in the raw material of the globe, and an equal participation of all in the benefits of combined labour …

… and we welcomed with the greatest pleasure and interest all socialistic experiments by select individuals (such as the Cooperative Societies) which, whether they succeeded or not, could not but operate as a most useful education of those who took part in them, by cultivating their capacity of acting upon motives pointing directly to the general good, or making them aware of the defects which render them and others incapable of doing so’.

So how does the Coalition measure up to these ideals? Not very well at all. Indeed, there is more than a little of a ‘democratic deficit’ at the heart of their conception of the value of parliament. The Coalition has just passed the gagging law, which means that unless you are an approved corporate lobbyist, you may not approach parliament to voice your opinions and concerns. Unless you’re a prospective Corporate sponsor, and there’s money and directorships in it, Cameron and Clegg really don’t want to hear what you think or have to say. They also don’t want to see you, either. Legitimate, democratic displays of protest can now be banned as a nuisance to the people down whose road you are marching. It’s particularly dangerous in London, as BoJo has decided that, while he can’t find the money to pay the firemen to stop your house or business burning down, he can afford to buy watercannon to train on protesters. It’s a German watercannon, so perhaps its a bit too repressive for them. Back in the 1960s and 1970s their use in the Bundesrepublik was extremely controversial, after a protester was killed by one during demonstrations by the ‘extraparliamentary opposition’. I’ve got a feeling that incident fuelled the conviction that all too many Nazis had escaped justice at Nuremberg, and were still holding lucrative posts in the police, armed forces and civil service. BoJo likes to present himself as man of the people against Cameron, but his instincts are definitely with their oppressors and the watercannons are just two more weapons in his armoury.

Not only does the Coalition not want to have to discuss any nasty, disturbing and possibly liberal ideas in parliament, or see them on the streets, they also don’t want to have to answer to parliament or keep the people informed of the consequences of their policies either. IDS dragged his feet until the very last minute before attending the Work and Pensions Committee. When he did, ‘RTU’ appeared surrounded by bodyguards and armed police officers, just in case the members of the public in attendance said something unpleasant about him. Or cause a serious, life-changing injury to his dignity by throwing a custard pie at him, like someone did to Murdoch. As for non-interference by parliament in the way the officials charged with executing their public policies perform their duty, well, once again IDS fails to make the grade. He tried to get one of his subordinates to take the blame for his own mistakes.

It’s not just RTU that hasn’t read his Mill. The Information Commissioner hasn’t either. FOI requests for information on the number of people, who’ve died after being judged fit for work by ATOS have been repeatedly turned down. Why? They’re vexatious. IDS’ DWP has also refused to release information about this and similar issues on the grounds that it would cause opposition to their policies, and prevent those policies from being implemented. So much for believing that political ideas need to be discussed in parliament, and held up for criticism. Or as someone once said, ‘Arguments are upsetting and sometimes cause you to change your mind’. Or words to that effect.

As for Socialism, the Tories have been an enemy of this ever since Maggie Thatcher declared it was a nasty, foreign import that she was going to destroy. At first Cameron’s localism agenda looks like it might be approved by Mill, for the way he wanted public institutions like libraries and so on to be staffed by volunteers. Mill also lamented the way modern society left increasingly few posts without pay, where they individual would have the honour for working for the public good without material reward. However, under the Coalition, as under Blair, politicians have been all too keen to enjoy material benefits – increased pay, and lucrative posts with industry. It’s only those, who can’t afford to that are expected to work for nothing, like the increasing ranks of the unemployed on workfare. As for the destruction of the class system, and the division of the world into the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’, that had already increased under Labour and the gap is even wider under the Coalition.

So, despite their talk about democracy and accountability, the Coalition has consistently acted against some of the most fundamental principles of democracy articulated by Mill, perhaps its greatest British exponent. In some ways this isn’t surprising coming from the Conservatives, who traditionally stood for the privileges of the ruling classes. Clegg, however, must take his credit for the way he and the others supporters of the free-market ‘Orange Book’ have done so much to destroy Mill’s political legacy and the enduring Liberal traditions in which they were raised, and which they have betrayed.