Two months before the general election, Nick Clegg -- the leader of the Liberal Democrat party -- warned there would be "riots" on the streets if the Conservatives won the election and introduced extreme cuts. Now the riots have begun -- and Clegg himself is the chief cutter, installed as Deputy Prime Minister of a slash-and-burn Conservative government.
There was a whiplash moment this Wednesday. Inside the House of Commons, a pale-faced and barely coherent Clegg was championing the trebling of fees for university students at Prime Minister's Question Time, despite the fact that he promised before the election to "implacably oppose" this move because it would be "a disaster." Then, in a low rumble, the chants of the 50,000 betrayed and protesting students massed outside began to echo into the chamber. He began to stumble: "We have stuck to our ambition... our wider ambition... " (Laughter, jeers). "Our policy is more progressive... " (Hoots from all sides, including his own.) "The truth is before the election we didn't know... " The chants got louder, and the excuses got more contorted.
Clegg is one of the great mysteries of British politics. Before the election, he told us "there isn't a serious economist in the world who agrees with the Conservatives... [that] we should pull the rug out from under the economy with immediate spending cuts." Now he is one of the leading champions of doing exactly that. In just a few days after the election, he cleared a space in his swanky new ministerial offices and staged a bonfire of his principles.
Whatever you think of these policies, how can anybody defend Clegg gathering the votes of millions of people on a clear mandate of opposing these Conservative proposals, and then -- as soon as the door of his ministerial limo swings open -- championing each one of them? Remember: David Cameron got 36 percent of the vote in Britain, and even that was on a promise that "we're not talking about swingeing cuts." Some 60 percent of us voted for parties to his left. We could see the Britain he wanted to build -- just this week, our leading center for sick children, Great Ormond Street Hospital, discovered it is facing a 20 percent cut in its budget -- and we rejected it decisively. You can agree or disagree with the swinging of this scythe, but nobody can claim it is democratic.
Clegg may well be committing political suicide. He represents Sheffield Hallam, the only parliamentary seat in South Yorkshire not held by Labour. It has a huge population of students and workers at Sheffield Forgemasters -- which his government has effectively bankrupted. It is now probable he will lose his seat. Nationally, more than half of his party's supporters say he has "sold out." They are skidding down the slaughterhouse tube of the Australian Democrats, a long-standing center-left party who installed a right-wing government in power and were promptly euthanized by the electorate.
Clegg 2.0 promised he would "prioritize the interests of the poor." Clegg 3.0 is throwing the poor out of their homes and making it harder for them to go to university. I was the first person in my family to stay on in education beyond the age of 16. Would I have had the confidence to go to Cambridge if I had known I'd be racking up more than £36,000 in fees and loans? Would I have felt internally pressured to choose a much cheaper university, and lesser chances in life?
It was predictable that the British people would be furious at this betrayal and fight back. A tiny number fought back this week in a despicable way: throwing fire extinguishers off a tall building could kill somebody, and whatever thug did it should go to prison. But most acted eloquently and passionately and peacefully. "Don't ruin my dreams," one student's banner said, summarizing the mood of the crowd.
There was a string of ironies in the reactions of senior Conservatives to the protest. Cameron complained that there were not enough police at the protest -- but he is in the process of dramatically cutting police numbers, so soon there won't be enough police for any of us. Boris Johnson, the Conservative mayor, angrily condemned student violence -- hoping we have forgotten that when he was a student, he and the Prime Minister were part of a violent gang of aristocrats called the Bullingdon Club who charged around Oxford smashing windows and intimidating people in a remarkably similar way to the anarchists at Milbank Tower.
But here's the biggest irony. When they wanted to sell these extreme cuts, the Conservative and Liberal Democrats would turn moist-eyed and say it was "immoral" to "burden the next generation with higher debts." So as a solution they have introduced a program that will... burden the next generation with much higher debts.
When all this is spelled out and the excuses stripped away, Clegg and his defenders have one last argument. There Is No Alternative. We Have To Do It. In a recession, you must cut. Tighten your belt! Family budget! Just rejoice! This U-Turner Is Not For Turning! It's especially strange to hear Liberals say this, since it was the greatest Liberal of the twentieth century -- John Maynard Keynes -- was explained definitively why this thinking is wrong and in fact caused the Great Depression of the 1930s. The reason why we need national deficits is precisely to revive demand when private consumption implodes. Like the Ghost of Christmas Future, our neighbor Ireland is collapsing deeper and harder into depression -- and they are just two pages ahead of us on the Cleggeron script. ("Look and learn from across the Irish Sea," George Osborne lectured us. Yes, we should George.)
The truth is that since 1750, our national debt has always been higher than it is now, except for two 40-year gaps. If we are "bust" now, we have almost always been bust. The debt was more than twice this level in 1945, and we still built the National Health Service and secured decades of prosperity. It is flatly untrue to say the bond markets will downgrade our debt if we don't cut: They just downgraded Ireland precisely because it did cut in this way and killed its economy. If Clegg believes massive cuts are "necessary" and "the only way," then he is a willing dupe.
There are plenty of alternatives, and he knows it. Instead of soaring tuition fees, they could introduce a graduate tax on all people who have been to university to fund the next generation of students. They know it would dissuade far fewer students.
And there is a win-win alternative to the government's ugliest policy -- kicking huge numbers of the poorest people out of their homes by slashing the subsidy for poor people's rents. Even the Conservative mayor Boris Johnson hyperbolically calls it "Kosovo-style social cleansing."
The reason why we have so many poor people piling up in private rented accommodation -- which is expensive -- is that, for a generation now, we have been whittling down our stock of publicly-owned council housing, under the Tories and New Labour. They were sold off, which was a good policy because it expanded home ownership. But instead of investing the proceeds in building more council homes, they were frittered away on tax cuts for the wealthy. It caused a drought in social housing, so the only humane option in the short-term was to pay rent for people. The real alternative is to begin a massive program of building social housing.
This has a double-benefit. House building employs a large number of people on low or average incomes, who then spend the money they earn quickly on other goods and services. Economists call it a "multiplier effect," spurring economic growth. It's one of the best economic stimulators we have. But instead, the ConDem coalition has decided to cut house building to its lowest level in generations and stage mass evictions.
Nick, you should remember that angry chant you heard echoing into the House of Commons this week as you stammered and yammered. It's the sound of the rioters you prophesied would come with Cameron's cuts. Whatever happened to that Nick Clegg?
You can follow Johann's updates on this issue and others at www.twitter.com/johannhari101
If you are a member of the Liberal Democrats appalled by Clegg's choices, you can join the Social Liberal Forum, an internal group that is trying to reclaim the party.
You can watch Johann on Democracy Now being interviewed about the cuts and the fightback here.
Follow Johann Hari on Twitter: www.twitter.com/johannhari101
Island fever... Napoleon went the same way towards the end... No one to give orders to but himself...
"It was predictable that the British people would be furious at this betrayal and fight back'
Very presumptive of you to announce that the "British people" are furious. I have seen no such evidence of this myself. Most realize that we have been living beyond our collective means for too long as a result of the policies that you and other Guardianistas championed such as creating a welfare culture that created rewards for engaging in generations of destructive personal behavior.
Secondly the NHS and other aspects of the welfare state were only built and sustained after WW2 because of massive amounts of assistance from the USA. Something that no self-respecting Guardianista could ever admit to themselves as it would cause such a cognitive dissonance as to render said Guardianista a shaking sack of nerves.
Now if you want to start a campaign of social housing building you have to acknowledge that part of the reason for the sale of council houses was the abject failure of many councils to properly maintain what were in many cases shoddily constructed dwellings in the first place leading to a market developing where people could take charge of their own properties. There is also the matter of the sometimes outrageous payments made to private landlords to house people who often live far better on benefits than do honest hard working people none of which is a concern for the rag for which you work.
massive riots orginized on every continet next summer?
voters and non voters alike
hmmmmmm independence from greed
sounds good to me
They havent betrayed Me Who actually voted for the lib dems (which was a first), my reasoning was that a coalition would reduce the speed at which the conservatives implemented the cuts needed to drag Britain out fo this quagmire, too many seem to feel that more of the same would magically cure our ills, and I am not surprised that the left sees everything bad about the governmental situation at the moment, as the move is away from big government and huge social spending.
Of course I don't see how "New Labour" is all that different from what the LibDems USED to be.
Considering the start of the recession was the 2008 crash - caused directly by a small cabal of bankers and elite planners - it's simply punishing the victims. The perps get bailed out and no charges, the victims get cuts and punishments.
So far, the riots have been pretty mild compared to the magnitude of the provocation.
Bringing in these measures at a time when even more honest people are put out of work by the man-made crash and may be depressed about it is sickening.
The cost of higher education is soaring at the same time new communication, computer, and data technologies should be making it drastically less expensive. That students should bear the costs of expensive textbooks, of bloated university bureaucracy, dorming and travel expenses and the upkeep of vast campuses is absurd with the availability of todays technology. Some prestigious universities offer online education but this is mostly "continuing education" and very limited. Few courses result in Oxford qualifications at the undergraduate, advanced diploma and postgraduate levels. At Cambridge awards using online education are few and when available only allow up to 30% of reward requirements be completed online. By increasing the availability and stature of mixed learning vast numbers of students could be given top university programs.
Information technology is being used like this in medicine, commerce and industry etc. but our politicians still think in terms of office parks, campuses and road infrastructure. Human development is about ideas, exchanging information We don't need the staggering expense and waste of collecting brains in big glass towers anymore.
I could have told you there wasn't any difference between a London bankster and a NY bankster.
However, I wondered at the time of the formation of this coalition how the LibDems would survive as a party.
I mean, what is the point of voting LibDem if you are simply voting for an echo of the Tories?
This story doesn't change my question. I wonder what the LibDem back-benchers are thinking -- are they facing the extinction of their party at the next election?
And how do LibDem voters feel? I know if I were one, I would feel as if the leadership of the party jumped at the opportunity for the perks of power -- but at the price of sacrificing any say in the formation of policy.
At which point one would have to ask, "What is the point of being in government at all, if your part of the coalition just goes along to get along."
Just what DIFFERENCE has the LibDems made in the formation of policy in this government?
For all intents and purposes, it seems to me to be no different than had the Tories won an outright majority -- at least in terms of the policies of this government.
I know what the Tories may have SAID, but I also know the value of political promises.
Are the LibDems willing to force a new general election?
Wake up, people, before it's back to 1930s Germany, too late.
Clegg poo pooed the idea and said "his " economist was wrong and that "he" Clegg was right.
Just like the mother of the soldier on parade "oh look our Billy is the only one in step"
The respected Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) warned that Chancellor George Osborne's £81 billion cuts package was "regressive" except for its impact on the richest 2%. Families with children would be the biggest losers, it said.
In its analysis of the spending review, the IFS said the changes announced yesterday would reinforce the "regressive" nature of the Government's plans to tackle the deficit, including the £7 billion of welfare cuts.
"The tax and benefit changes are regressive rather than progressive across most of the income distribution. And when we add in the new measures announced yesterday this is, unsurprisingly, reinforced," said IFS acting director Carl Emmerson.
"Our analysis continues to show that, with the notable exception of the richest 2%, the tax and benefit components of the fiscal consolidation are, overall, being implemented in a regressive way."
David Blanchflower is Bruce V Rauner Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, professor at the University of Stirling and a former member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee. Former Bank of England policymaker David Blanchflower today accused the government of cowardice in planning huge cuts in public spending to tackle the budget deficit. Writing for the Guardian, Blanchflower said that chancellor George Osborne's cuts amounted to a surrender in the face of the financial crisis and warned that the policy of fiscal tightening would not work
WHY EXACTLY ARE WE HEARING THE SAME NONSENSE EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE? It's clear in America that The Tea Party are the willing dupes of "the rich," and while the Republicans believe they can control them, the Republican Party itself seems far more likely to be controlled by the extremists within their midst. My question is who is controlling the internal messaging that party leaders are using to defend their indefensible actions? We would seem to be living in a world that is increasingly controlled by Wall Street, the Big Banks, and political parties that are in the thrall of Big Business.
Now we hear lots of Democrats rushing to embrace tax cuts for the rich while denouncing the deficit which can apparently only be paid for by gutting social security and repealing universal (not really) healthcare legislation. It's interesting to see how invasive the powers that be are, and how they are operating in tandem everywhere.
We need to stop consuming their media, their goods, their sick ideology. Boycott is a powerful, silent tool.
We can rightly blame the greedy power-brokers of business, politics, and religion for their criminal behaviour but in the end, if we didn't buy the rubbish they sell (possessions & ideas) how could they hold on to power they wield against us??
F&F