What's Nick Clegg got up his sleeve?
It remains an urgent priority for the “Liberal” Democrats to discover what liberalism really is before they go throwing that term around, let alone using it on their letter headed paper.
Liberal does not mean cuddly, gushing, over the top insincerity and irresponsible ignorance culminating in an ultra-Nanny, interfering and wickedly authoritarian state. Honestly, it doesn’t. At least it didn’t used to.
The genuine liberal is the antithesis of what the “Liberal” Democrats stand for. The liberal is about personal responsibility, the diminished state, the rule of common law, the natural right to thrive by using the fundamentals of liberty to create prosperity.
It’s a shocking insult to any real liberal to witness trumped up bureaucrats with yellow ties telling us how they intend to run our lives.
Here’s a little gem from their bitter, class war focused manifesto:
We propose the most radical tax reform in a generation, cutting taxes for millions paid for by closing loopholes at the top and increasing taxes on polluting aviation. No tax system should try to create total equality of income – but it can and should help redistribute wealth and power, to alleviate the worst excesses of inequality.
Well excuse me but the last time I checked genuine liberals had no interest in allowing the state to steal the fruits of one man’s labour and hand it to another individual. I suppose it’s a relief the Nick Cleggs of this world don’t see the need to progress to full blown communism when they assure us they are not seeking “total equality.”
No, what the Lib Dems want is to get a little bit pregnant. To achieve their ultimate goal in this election, imposing themselves as a new variety of cancer in a hung parliament, they need to sell you on a few stereotypes and fanciful myths.
You see, anyone who works hard and benefits financially as a result is no friend of your average Lib Dem, Lib Dems themselves excluded of course because it’s only right that some of the animals live in the House.
Using public outrage at the incredible greed of an undoubtedly corrupt section of society, the major investment bankers, these yellow bureaucrats need you to assume that anyone you see behind the wheel of a Rolls Royce or anyone who has more than three bedrooms in their home is an exploiter and abuser of the common man.
In a “fair” world, they tell you, these abusers should have their property stolen so it can be handed to the deprived in society. On the surface and without much thought I can see why their plan is appealing to the majority. Basically what they are doing is shouting, “Free money!” and throwing stolen wallets at the crowd.
It’s cynical, deceitful, divisive and morally indefensible. The perfect ingredients for a populist policy come election time.
Under a Liberal Democrat sky (shudder) the first £10,000 of your earnings will be tax free! Whoopee! Imagine that, the government will allow you to keep more of what is rightfully yours anyway. How generous. But there’s a catch. In order to be “fair” this cashback scheme won’t apply to the “rich.” Not only that but “rich” people will actually lose their entire personal allowance.
Are you starting to get a gist for the type of “fair” we are talking about? It’s simple, you just take the original meaning of the word and reverse it. And when thinking about “equality” you just need to recall that everyone is equal, except some are less equal than others.
Let’s play a game using these modern rules. But before I start, don’t get the hump if you recognise yourself in this game. It’s not intentional and any similarity between my imaginary players and real individuals is depressingly coincidental.
Joe is a 16 year old student. He lives with his mother who has been on welfare all her life, his (alleged) father having left when he was a baby. He excels in disrupting his classroom but can’t be excluded from school because that wouldn’t be “fair” on him, even though it would be completely fair to the other kids in his class. Joe has no ambition other than to get a crappy job so he can earn enough to buy beer and fags, get a car with go faster stripes, and keep himself in decent threads so he gets a shag.
Jane is a 16 year old student who achieves top marks in her studies and would like to go on to further education. She lives with her mother and father who both work and have been married for 20 years. When she gets home at night she hits the books to supplement what she has picked up from an “education” system that has been dumbed down in the interests of “fairness”.
She usually works in the summer months and sets money aside because she knows she’ll need it at university, ever since the Labour government that believes in “Education, education, education”, killed off the grants system and started saddling students with huge debts. Jane has a keen interest in the law (unlike a few “honourable” names she could mention) and would eventually like to become a barrister, but she knows she’ll have to put some serious work in to gain a foothold in such a competitive niche.
Fast forward and lucky old Joe has achieved his wildest dreams. He has had a series of jobs all paying below the average wage and in line with the education he achieved and he’s managed to get himself a pad subsidised through the government tax credit scheme. He’s the proud owner of a customised hot hatch that he races around the streets at night for a hobby and he’s managed to stay single having knocked up his last “bitch” (his word, not mine) before doing a runner.
Joe is now a concerned citizen. He’s pissed (when he’s not pissed) that government keeps putting tax on fags, booze and petrol and won’t legalise the drugs he regularly enjoys. Joe’s no angel and has even had a few run-ins with the law for kicking-in “Pakis” who have the nerve to come over here and sponge off the state. They should all go home as far as he’s concerned, hell if immigration gets any worse there won’t be enough hand-outs to go around. The coppers can’t touch him though because he knows how the game works and he knows it always works in his favour.
Jane, on the other hand, has had a few setbacks. Despite her efforts she didn’t quite get the straight A’s required to beat out the equal opportunity E grade shoo-ins who took her place at university. Undeterred, she is working a job and studying at night so she can re-apply for college in the following year.
It’s hard going, she is still living with the family because she can’t realistically afford a place of her own. Life at home is getting tougher. Dad seems depressed all the time and keeps on complaining that no matter how hard he works he just can’t keep pace with taxation and inflation.
He’s hinting that the business could be in trouble and he might have to start laying off people that he’s known for years. He’s terrified at the thought of looking his friends in the eye as he shatters their lives. Jesus! They all have kids to feed!
It’s having a strain on Mum too but she’s keeping a brave face up, a tough old bird who muddled through the early days of living hand to mouth as her husband built a business from scratch. These were meant to be the good times but the pension is spiralling into the bin, the investments have taken a bath and those plans for early retirement are rapidly becoming a pipe dream. Gordon Brown’s “prudence” has knocked their genuine prudence for six (billion).
Jane’s a smart girl but she’s down in the dumps because she knows how the game works and she knows it never seems to work for her.
Enter the “Liberal” Democrats, astride a white horse, cleaner than clean as the memory of their MPs sitting right there in the House as illegal war was declared and the banksters ran away with the loot is scrubbed from the public memory by the mainstream media. “Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Change at last, Change at last, O Lord God Almighty, Change at Last!”
Joe is pissing it up in the boozer celebrating election night. He’s just been handed a fat wad of cash and he’s laughing his arse off at the fact he didn’t lift a finger to “earn” it. Shit, this “fair” stuff certainly works for him! What a country. Joe is proud to be British.
Jane is having a quiet drink with friends. All of them are worried at the state of the economy and wondering how the new and “fair” tax regime is going to affect them and their parents. None of them are looking forward to the huge debts they will have to accumulate in gaining the education they need to become productive members of society.
It’ll be a good few years before they see any of the benefits of the new government’s tax give away and even then, when you offset it against the penalties imposed on their parents (who can no longer help them quite as much with college fees) it represents a net loss.
They can’t help feeling they have been made the scapegoat for the excesses of a few, plainly corrupt, individuals in the city. I mean those banker types hoovered up all that money during the good times so what do they care if a tax has been imposed on even more mega bonuses? Jane and her friends don’t believe the bankers will have much trouble evading these new taxes anyway and are convinced it will only be hard working, law abiding citizens (suckers) that will end up footing the bill.
It all seems so unfair and yet the media is running headlines about a “fairer” Britain! Even though the headlines don’t makes sense Jane is still proud of her country, she just wishes it could go back to how it used to be when hard work was rewarded rather than penalised. She yearns for change.
In the real world so alien to Liberal Democrats Jane and her family have been keeping Joe and his family fed, clothed and entertained. Jane’s family has always been a net contributor to society. The family’s income has been taxed and taxed and taxed again, to keep Britain afloat in the good times and through the downturn.
The family is straining under the financial and social burden and is getting a little angry at listening to shiny, happy people in staged television debates warning them their profligacy needs to be reined back. Their belts are already tight, there aren’t any more inches to pull in without the family regressing back to a lifestyle they worked endless hours to improve upon. They followed the rules, now they are paying the price.
Their reward for their effort has been a slap in the face. Unwashed yobs scratched their BMW last night just because it was there to be scratched. They read in the papers the “average” Briton is fed up with “bloody Tories” not paying their “fair” share.
What on earth is going on here? It’s an upside-down mad house and nobody in any political party is speaking for them. They are the productive outcasts, the spurned yet still eagerly milked cash cow, the silent citizens to be taken for granted.
Joe is happy enough with his lot but still reads those stories about bankers creaming it. He thought the government was going to do something about that “yuppie” scum so how come the banks are still declaring massive bonuses? He’s outraged, in accordance with instructions from the press. He can’t believe it – these politicians are all the same. More change will be required because his entitled lifestyle isn’t improving at the pace he expected. Look at those swine in suits, raking it in!
On the way home from the pub last night he saw one of those banker bastard’s BMWs. LOL, he sure scratched the shit out of that baby. That’s a two grand paint job right there. Serves them right.
You see, Mr “Liberal” Democrat. Anyone can play the politically motivated stereotype game. It’s easy. Anyone can reduce everything to a simple exercise in black and white. Anyone can throw bread to the crowd.
But understanding liberty and the true meaning of the word “liberal”, well that’s a tougher proposal. A challenge you have decided to ignore in your two dimensional, cartoon manifesto.
A real liberal looks at Joe and remembers Joe has the right to exercise his liberty as he sees fit provided he doesn’t interfere in allowing others to do the same. A real liberal looks at Jane and reaches the same conclusion. And a real liberal wonders what this “redistribution of wealth” bullshit is really all about. Certainly not fairness. It looks a lot like envy and spite though. And I can smell a cheap political stunt a mile off.
Yes, I think we all agree we need some sort of a state to marshal services that are best administered at the national level, defence being a classic example. We know that implies some form of taxation. But don’t go telling me it’s “fair” when I make my contribution to the state and then more is demanded of me because Joe doesn’t have enough ambition or character to take advantage of everything this country has to offer and put his back into making life better for himself by the sweat of his own brow.
Why is it fair for Joe to put his feet up and enjoy his tax break whilst Jane picks up the extra load and gets berated for being “privileged” in the process? Like I said before, in the parallel universe that spawned our Liberal Democrat pop heroes “fair” means foul and “equal” means class war and “liberal” means huge government and the perpetual welfare state. Sorry, but I challenge you to provide something more than a flashy TV appearance stuffed with sound bites as proof that I’m wrong.
Dear Mr Liberal Democrat, take your populist class war and shove it up your arse and count yourself lucky I continue to support your arse at all. The occasional thank you would be nice but if you can’t even manage that then silence will do.
Shhhhh!
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For most families, daycare expenses form a huge chunk of their monthly budget, and it has become extremely difficult for them to see a way through it.
Great posts! I really like it.
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