Philip Hammond Defender of his compatriots or class warrior?
(Image by (From Wikimedia) Harland Quarrington, Author: Harland Quarrington) Details Source DMCA
Philip Hammond Defender of his compatriots or class warrior? by Wikipedia
Yet, it seems UK Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond's "first priority" is "defending the country and maintaining law and order." In his view, any further cuts to defence will make it impossible for him to meet security objectives.
by Foreign and Commonwealth Office
"There is a body of opinion within Cabinet that we have to look at the welfare budget again. The welfare budget is the bit of public spending that has risen the furthest and the fastest and if we are going to get control of public spending on a sustainable basis, we are going to have to do more to tackle the growth in the welfare budget."
I bet there's a body of that sort of opinion in a cabinet of millionaires, Phil. But if you're right to say that increasing numbers of people have come to rely on welfare, what else would you expect when you sell off "the means of production' and squirrel away the proceeds off into the usual tax havens?
It might be a good idea for the British public to consider the true allegiance of our political class, which, after all, consists largely of career politicians. And is it the country and its dispossessed inhabitants that concerns him, or is he more concerned with the "maintaining law and order" part of the equation to protect his elite globe-trotting chums against civil unrest?
It would seem a vicious circle though: The more you fleece the hoi polloi to defend yourself against the hoi polloi, the angrier the hoi polloi gets. Then the more you need to fleece the hoi polloi to pay for the maintenance of law and order, whilst all the time maintaining the charade that you're doing it for the benefit of an increasingly skeptical and fleeced hoi polloi.
Sometimes the long way is the shortest way, (as an old Irish friend of mine would say). It's a bit like papering over the cracks of a house with a subsidence problem. It's often quicker and cheaper to knock the place down and start from scratch, remembering, in future, not to build on rocks or sand.
To continue with the dilapidated building analogy--it seems the strategy for a long time has been to bail out, leaving your unsuspecting co-occupants without a pot-to-p*ss in and make off with the loot; with the intention of repeating the process elsewhere--until soon, there is nowhere else. It's a kind of Romney-style bust-out of entire nation states.
Would it not be better for our illustrious leaders to spend their time and our erstwhile resources reforming the banking sector instead of using a sticking plaster on such an enormous festering sore on the face of humanity?
They could clear out the fractional reserve system and introduce a system of exchange backed by tangible assets, and they could encourage locally grown produce. Ah, but there are those who say that's not possible in this age. Well, that's maybe so (until there's no other option).
They could rebuild the manufacturing base with the proviso that they don't re-privatize it every time it starts to thrive, so to outsource it as quickly as working people can rebuild it. (If they say "promise', I'll believe them.) Otherwise, they can forget it. What's the point of building sandcastles for others to destroy?
Or, they could prise all of those Ponzi-billions back out of the vice-like fists of the oligarchs, which they stole from the UK working people by means of privatization, so to outsource the means of production and make further killings, as if there is no tomorrow, as well there mightn't be because of their shenanigans.
They might confiscate all real assets acquired fraudulently. (But let them keep their funny money). They might even do all of these things, forthwith. And yet they most certainly won't, if we, the people leave them to their own devices.
Apparently, some Tory MPs are getting suspicious of their coalition partners now. "There's a real concern that the Lib Dems want to protect the benefits culture at the expense of our troops." (Notice the use of the word "culture' instead of words like "entitlement" and "necessity.")
One's heart might warm to such an altruistic concern for our economic conscripts. I often protest that I wasn't born a cynic (to which my long-suffering wife looks askance). But, I wonder if that's the view a traumatized or severely wounded soldier would take after an encounter with an IED and facing a life of stigmatized poverty on ever-decreasing welfare payments.
