{"id":19626,"date":"2013-03-14T13:29:02","date_gmt":"2013-03-14T13:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=19626"},"modified":"2013-03-14T13:29:49","modified_gmt":"2013-03-14T13:29:49","slug":"the-tory-revolution-is-aimed-at-creating-a-managed-corporately-controlled-and-deeply-unequal-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2013\/03\/14\/the-tory-revolution-is-aimed-at-creating-a-managed-corporately-controlled-and-deeply-unequal-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tory revolution is aimed at creating a managed, corporately controlled, and deeply unequal \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcdemocracy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wrote about the 'Tory revolution' this morning<\/a>. That's the process I described in The Courageous State <\/a>where this\u00a0government\u00a0(and to some extent the New Labour one that\u00a0preceded\u00a0it, but with this one being much worse) has sought to create what I call a cowardly state:<\/p>\n

This is.... a state that sees responsibility and runs away from it. This is a state that now exists solely to facilitate the looting of its power to tax for the benefit of an elite who want to own its assets through the PFI scheme, and be guaranteed a high and risk-free income for doing so. It is a state that wants to privatise its education system through \u2018free schools\u2019 \u2014 free only because yet more tax goes to the private sector in the process. And it is a state that wants to hand control of one of the UK\u2019s greatest achievements \u2014 the National Health Service \u2014 to the market so that we can copy the US healthcare model and double the cost of provision in exchange for worse healthcare outcomes \u2014 all so that a few can cream off from the tax revenues a wholly undeserved and excessive risk-free return for being in the right place at the right time, somewhere near their old school friends who might now be in power in Westminster.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I am not alone in thinking so. Ivan Horrocks put it another way in a comment this morning<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not surprised at all by this news. It\u2019s the inevitable conclusion of a strategy and process that was undoubtedly conceived while the Tories were in opposition and in concert with many of those who stand to benefit.<\/p>\n

As I and others who read this blog have commented before, it\u2019s all part of the UK equivalent of the \u2018shock doctrine\u2019: in this case the use of the banking crisis and subsequent deficit as cover to dismantle the state \u2014 while arguing that it\u2019s about paying off our debt and rebalancing our economy. That economic goal has always been a secondary concern \u2014 the primary objective was political and social \u2014 to finish the work that Thatcher began in the 1980s. This is a crucial distinction far too many economic commentators miss, thus providing further cover for the primary objective.<\/p>\n

Now the Tories are aware they\u2019ll only be in power for one term completing the demolition of the state, the fire sale of public assests and services, and the engineering of the corporate control of as many regulatory and governmental institutions as is possible will gain pace drastically. As will the tempo and harshness of the attack on the poor and less fortunate in our society. This is absolutely inevitable because one of the deep seated beliefs of modern day Tories is that Thatcher wasted her first term in office (as did Blair as they see it) and thus they are not about to make the same mistake. Expect the Lib Dems \u2014 as weak and lacking in strategic vision as they have shown themselves to be so far \u2014 to simply be swept aside.<\/p>\n

Make absolutely no mistake as to what the desired result of this Tory \u2018revolution\u2019 is: a managed, corporately controlled, and deeply unequal \u2018democracy\u2019 of the type that would make Putin envious.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I agree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wrote about the ‘Tory revolution’ this morning. That’s the process I described in The Courageous State where this\u00a0government\u00a0(and to some extent the New Labour
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservatives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19626\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}