LET US ASSUME that it is the Friday after polling
day next May, and Ed Milliband is walking into Number 10 with his arm round his
wife squeezing her to him; after giving the traditional photo opportunity before
the media; and as the door of Number 10 closes behind them; what can we expect
from his administration? How different will it be from the previous Labour
governments that sent the country into economic turmoil?
Well,
both the new prime minister and his chancellor were, as we know, part of that government.
Indeed Ed Balls was Gordon Brown's number two and stood by in the treasury as
his master set about ruining the country's finances – while Ed Miliband, on the
other hand, owed his preferment to office to Gordon Brown after Brown became
prime minister in June 2007.
Brown
(like Ed), was an instinctive spend, tax and borrow Old Labour, and Old Testament
kind of socialist apostle[1];
who could see a fellow believer in the son of a Marxist intellectual whom, he
no doubt felt, he could sharpen those socialist dull edges in him which his
father died too soon to accomplish.
So
Ed Miliband's rise began. Under Gordon Brown's preferment , Ed rose swiftly in
the government firmament. The very day after Brown became prime minister, Ed
was sworn to the Privy Council, appointed to the Cabinet Office and became
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, thus being promoted to the Cabinet.
In
2008, Ed Milliband was promoted to Secretary of State for the Department of
Energy and Climate Change, after a Cabinet reshuffle. His rise now resembled
that of his brother David's under Tony Blair; which leaves one to speculate on
the possibility that Ed's advancement was not only ideologically driven. For Gordon
Brown loathed Blair and the loathing spread virally to those he perceived as
Blairites after he rose to the ultimate office of state. I can imagine a
personality such as Gordon Brown's enjoying Ed's advance as much as Ed himself
did - but for different reasons.
NOW, BACK TO A MILIBAND government; and the question
of its nature which is meant to be the main purpose of this piece. There have
been attempts by Miliband to apologise for the last Labour government's
policies on such issues as immigration: "Labour got it wrong on
immigration", he once opportuned. It was an important issue among many
traditional Labour voters…yet no kind of apology has been forthcoming for the economic
insanities that have led to this nation's financial deficit. After all, Labour
were in power between 1997-2010; and as much as they would have liked to do,
Labour cannot blame the Tories for their own reckless oversight of the economy.
But,
if we are to believe the newly focused Ed Miliband; the past has now adequately
been apologised for[2]
and that is that; the party has changed. It is now, as far as the Labour Party
is concerned, represents a return to what the Cambodian dictator Pol-Pot
described as Year Zero, when he seized control of his country with such a
monstrous outcome. If Labour wins next May, it will become Labour's year zero,
where its own disastrous philosophy will emulate its party's past .
We
are supposed to forget the mess the last Labour government left us in; and give
them another chance, by eviscerating our collective memory of their inanities
regarding immigration, and the national debt. Sorry is supposed to be enough,
and we are supposed to be seduced by Labour's year zero appeal.
The
next Labour government, if it comes about, has given the British people no cast
iron case that they have changed their ways. Indeed, a survey by ComRes for the BBC's Sunday Politics, and conducted among Labour
candidates for the next general election, has uncovered the following
percentages. Just 4% of the candidates thought the last Labour government spent
too much money while 85% thought Gordon Brown's spending was just about right;
and only one in twenty-five felt he had spent too much; while 85% thought
unrestricted immigration was a good thing.
These
people, representing as they do the next compliment of Labour backbenchers if
elected; should surely act as a warning to what can be expected from the next
Labour government if they are elected once more to government. I would sooner
see traditional Labour working class voters, vote for a chimpanzee with a red
rosette than what the party has chosen as their candidates for the forthcoming
general election.
IT IS TRULY incredible that, of the selected Labour
candidates, only 4% thought the last Labour government spent extravagantly. What
the result of this poll tells us is that the next Labour government will
continue bankrupting this nation in the same old way, through finding creative
ways of class-based taxation: e.g. mansion and wealth taxes.
What
the stats tell us is that this intellectual; whose scholarly capacity should be
allowed sole jurisdiction over and beyond the shallow Mr Bean image; that his
physical presence typifies among the press and much of the voting public; should
be ignored.
But
why should this be the case? Being any kind of brilliant academic, does not
mean any inbuilt stupidity has been erased as a consequence of intellectual
prominence. And in Ed's case it seems to have been significant. In his case it
is not the bacon sandwich incident; but his readiness to further the cause of
socialism – that demonic perversion of a civilised society – that has acted as
a toxin to further progress.
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