Follow the money

This deficit business. Don’t you think it’s weird that we have one, yet so do the French, the Spanish, the Germans, the Americans, the Italians, the Irish, the Greeks, and most of the rest of the western world, in spite of the fact that we’ve all had governments of differing philosophies, in power for different lengths of time and with differing attitudes towards public spending and taxation?

Given Cameroon and the tea boy keep insisting upon the fact that the reason we’re in the mess we are was because of Labour’s profligate spending, surely those nations that didn’t have Labour in charge and had specifically right wing governments – eight years of Bush the baboon for instance – and hardly any public sector on which to lavish fortunes should be in infinitely better shape?

And yet they’re not. As I say, odd.

Yet not. Because the reason we’re all in the mess together was because of the banks. Remember a couple of years back when they went into meltdown and then held a gun to the head of the world’s economies, saying that if you let us die, we take you down as well? That’s where the deficit came from, because of the money that had to be pumped into failed institutions, that had to be injected into otherwise crippled economies, that had to be made available to ensure liquidity.

Remember in this country the way we had to give the kiss of life to Northern Rock and the rest, a process that was repeated around the globe? That’s where our deficit came from, and where the rest of it came from.

So why then are we getting rid it of by slashing public spending, by following a policy that will see children going to schools that are falling down around them, that has pensioners having to find £8billion over the coming years thanks to the VAT increase, that will see the NHS privatised?

Why aren’t we taking back the money – our money – from the banks? Banking is bizarrely, embarrassingly, one of the few growth sectors in this economy. Bonuses are beginning to come back for those at the top end – not the normal workers of course - profits are being made, and it’s like nothing ever happened.

What about taxing all bank profits and bank bonuses at 100% until the deficit is recouped? After all, Barclays, for instance, made profits of £1.8bn in the first quarter of 2010. At that rate, wouldn’t take us that long to get the bulk of it back would it? Never mind the NatWest sending volunteers out to paint cricket pitches green or whatever those idiots are doing in the adverts, give us our bloody money back. And then we might be able to keep hospitals open, rather than selling them off.

It’s pretty obvious really, I can’t think why it is that Saint Vince Cableanduseless hasn’t thought of it. Unless the government has a specific agenda that it wants to push under cover of the “crisis”. And they’re doing it well, because the public appears to be feeling virtuous that they’re helping to get the nation’s finances back in order. As Goebbels demonstrated, there is nothing so successful in propaganda terms as the big lie, and as a former - and current - PR man, Cameroon knows that better than anyone.

The biggest lie sits beneath the surface, the idea that the cuts are for the greater good. They’re not. They’re to change the face of this country, to smash the state’s role in the economy and in so doing ultimately create a situation where the need for tax revenues will be massively reduced.

The end game here is to bring the top rate down, perhaps as far as 30%, and who gives a damn if the schools and the hospitals are crap. Those at the top end can simply opt out and use their hugely increased pay packets to go private. Won’t we all feel virtuous then, when we’ve washed away a century of moving towards greater equality, an equality which is easy to give away, but much harder to recapture.