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Richmond upon Thames Liberal Democrats:Covering the constituencies of Twickenham and Richmond Park |
Andrew George writes… A veil of initiatives
January 20, 2012 6:04 PM
Last week, of course, her major Hollywood biopic was released. Fearing unfavourable comparisons, the PM appears to have gone into manic overdrive; launching an overlapping series of popular-sounding and eye-catching initiatives.
. . But, you know, it's occurred to me that perhaps all these initiatives are not produced to drown out the media's temptation to reflect on and big-up the reign of Margaret Thatcher to Mr Cameron's detriment, but really to divert attention away from the core of Government policy.
Those who, in their DNA, oppose the welfare state will never waste a good economic crisis. But, you know, I think they'd prefer to divert attention elsewhere as they go about their deed. That's why I believe we need to take care that we don't appear to be colluding with the worst excesses of this socially divisive agenda.
We were the architects of the NHS. We now look like going down in history as colluding with the architects of its demise. And this week it's taken Crossbench Peers to wake up the Westminster village tribes to policies which were never spelt out in the Coalition Agreement, by successfully amending the Welfare Reform Bill.
The Dinner Party tendency in our own ranks, who tend to obsess about (however laudable) rarefied and conceptual constitutional matters which our mass of supports couldn't give two hoots for, seem prepared to see the weak and disabled bed down at night under railway bridges just so that we can claim credit for some reforms (of doubtful wisdom) to the Second Chamber of Parliament.
Mmm…a moment of reflection and rethink before we lose our way methinks…
* MP for St Ives
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