In the second of our regular comments on prevailing issues, Ben Aulakh gives his view on the recently formed Coalition government.
The first coalition government for 70 years has been formed in the United Kingdom, between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.
Not surprisingly though, given the prevailing ideology of each party and its supporters, there are plenty of people on both sides of the political fence who are not very happy about it.
I am one of them. I voted for the “third party” in 2005 and again this year precisely to stop a Tory government. Now I see the politicians I voted for jumping in to bed with the party I least want in power.
What are my reasons for being so implacably opposed to a true-blue government? Put very simply I am the sort of person who feels that an annual cap on immigration, an inheritance tax cut which will benefit the 3000 richest estates in the country and voting against European legislation – in all its forms – as being tantamount to buying a Range Rover, taking up fox hunting along with an annual subscription to Horse and Hound.
Mocking Tory lifestyle cliché’s aside, I am extremely worried about what Clegg, Cable and co are letting themselves in for doing back-room deals with a party that makes Lucifer look honest. You may think that my allusion to the prince of darkness is somewhat flippant, however if the newly appointed Deputy Prime Minster had entered into a power sharing agreement with the guardian of hell, I would feel more assured about the future of this country than I do now.
This is because the devil would be the devil; he wouldn’t waste time pretending to be Father Christmas, or the Easter Bunny. He wouldn’t be anything other than what he actually is, the bringer of pain, misery, death and pestilence.
He would at least be “honest” with us as to what his plans for us all were; and, even if he wasn’t, you would have to be more than a little simple not to be able to work out what his wicked plans might be.
There hasn’t been a single moment since Cameron began his assault on Number 10 when I have believed that he was being honest with me – and the country – about what he would do if he managed to claw his way into power. The overwhelming feeling I have towards him and his party is that they are making out to hold genuinely social and liberal values when all they are really interested is following their typical modus operandi of cutting taxes for the rich and slashing public spending, which will of course hit the very poorest in our society the hardest.
This feeling is in no way allayed by the fact that the party I voted for are in bed with their politically diametric opposites. The Lib Dems may have been given positions in Cabinet and Cameron may have taken on board some of their policies; however I have very little confidence that the Liberals can exert any real influence on the Tory machine, if any influence at all.
We shall of course all have to wait and see exactly how bad or how good things turn out to be
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