Saturday 12 January 2013

Unless You're Rich, The Coalition Doesn't Give A Shit

In case you were unsure as to whether government hates the less well off, or if they're just bluffing, this might help you to make up your mind.

The coalition this week came out with a ""full, frank and unvarnished" assessment of the coalition's pledges". Included in the crime and policing part was this.
We have published a cross-government alcohol strategy and launched a consultation on the merits of key policies, including a 45p minimum unit price for alcohol and a range of measures to reduce burdens on business.
Yes, they are still desperately trying to pretend minimum pricing is a public order issue despite over 90% of those calling for it being full-time professional public health finger-waggers with an eye on how to finance their next new car.

Firstly, minimum alcohol pricing was not in either of the Conservative or Lib Dem manifestos. Secondly, I can't remember, can you, it being a 'pledge' in the coalition agreement.

So how this can be seen as some sort of coalition triumph is baffling.

It's not an achievement, it is just more conclusive proof that the cabinet increasingly ignores societal happiness in favour of vested interest lobbyists and chasing those areas which contain people who are more likely to vote.

The poor have long since lost interest in politics simply because they are ignored wholesale. Minimum alcohol pricing is designed exclusively to punish the poor and proves that any talk of 'progressive' government is a pathetic sham.

This 'success' succinctly says that if you're not well off, none of the three main parties could give a flying fuck what you think. And they're boasting about it.


5 comments:

SadButMadLad said...

The politicians don't care about carrying out the wishes of the people anymore. They no longer represent us.

As said by Stephen Crowther, Chairman of UKIP, in a recent email - "Politics is not, I'm afraid, just a matter of your opinion or your conscience"


Its all about the party. The party is number one. And if that means kowtowing to some lobby group because they will give you votes and money then fuck the people.

https://twitter.com/NickyWoolf/status/290198961015386112

Woman on a Raft said...

Not just the poor. Folks of the middlin' sort are fed up with being treated as wallets for the grandiose plans and indiscriminate largesse of the ruling classes.

The behaviour of both major parties mirrors Stalin's (and other dictators) favourite policy of liquidating the middle classes in order to use their wealth to bribe the rest of society temporarily. Whether that is a few members of the elite who have become skint, or the mass of workers who are trapped in a bureaucracy which refuses to let them get ahead by keeping what they earn, the government tells that that's all the fault of the kulaks.

Despite the demonstrable observation that this always leads to the slow decline of the society, we seem to be allowing it to happen again. Many of the kulaks died staunchly defending the idea that Stalin was a hero, when he was patently killing them deliberately to prevent any challenger arising from their endeavours.


Surely it must be time to junk the ravings of mid-Victorian Russian theorists which have been shown, time and time again, to lead to nowhere but destruction.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Yup, that's the general idea. GIve these people vouchers instead of letting them buy booze or fags or lottery tickets. They don't know what's good for them but the government does.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

That comment would have looked equally comfortable sitting underneath my latest article. ;)

Dick_Puddlecote said...

Oops, got caught in the spam filter. Apologies {blushes}.