A Warning

As I suggested towards the end of last year, it looks like 2011 might be horrid for many, although how the cuts may actually pan out is hard to say.  But the threat to the weakest hasn't been captured much better than this, about another period of planned ideological cuts:

If Margaret Thatcher is re-elected as prime minister on Thursday, I warn you.

I warn you that you will have pain–when healing and relief depend upon payment.

I warn you that you will have ignorance–when talents are untended and wits are wasted, when learning is a privilege and not a right.

I warn you that you will have poverty–when pensions slip and benefits are whittled away by a government that won’t pay in an economy that can’t pay.

I warn you that you will be cold–when fuel charges are used as a tax system that the rich don’t notice and the poor can’t afford.

I warn you that you must not expect work–when many cannot spend, more will not be able to earn. When they don’t earn, they don’t spend. When they don’t spend, work dies.

I warn you not to go into the streets alone after dark or into the streets in large crowds of protest in the light.

I warn you that you will be quiet–when the curfew of fear and the gibbet of unemployment make you obedient.

I warn you that you will have defence of a sort–with a risk and at a price that passes all understanding.

I warn you that you will be home-bound–when fares and transport bills kill leisure and lock you up.

I warn you that you will borrow less–when credit, loans, mortgages and easy payments are refused to people on your melting income.

If Margaret Thatcher wins on Thursday–

- I warn you not to be ordinary

- I warn you not to be young

- I warn you not to fall ill

- I warn you not to get old.

Neil Kinnock in Bridgend, Glamorgan, on 7 June 1983 - some time before he became leader of the Labour party.

But however great that rhetoric was, the damn Tories were still elected.

So given that, with the release of her cabinet papers under the 30-years rule,  there is a lot in the press about Thatcha's first term in office at present, I just thought it was worth reminding ourselves how criminally inept, damaging and dispiriting the regime was, to individuals and to the country as a whole. 
We still have a long way to go to fully recover.  And under this bunch of clowns we seem instead to be making great strides backwards.