This is refreshing. The gutless anonymous response employed, this time, not to smear me but to defend the politically indefensible. One thing I never thought to meet on LJ is someone who takes the corrupt crew of hacks who pass for a Labour Party seriously.
The majority of LJ readers are not British and may possibly not be aware just how disingenuous this person is. Therefore I will answer his/her putrid pack of lies at some more lentgth than it deserves (or than I would have to if the public were made up wholly of politically aware Britons).
1) The vast majority of local expenditure in the UK is financed from central government (a few years ago, I believe, it was 83% of local council budgets). If central government increases the demands on local governments without increasing its contribution, as it has cheerfully been doing, local government has to increase tax to fulfil its statutory duties.
2) Given the above fact, Raynsford's Unbridge-like outburst counts as shameless even by the standards of this Tory (yes) bunch of thieves that disgraces the name of government. He was seriously under the impression that the public will believe that local councils have just suddenly gone mad off their own bat and that he can posture as the noble defender of the taxpayers' purse. The fact that we have not heard from this Blairite hitman since then suggests that the public was not taken in. Incidentally, Raynsford's last bout of national prominence was as chief hitman in the Blairite attempt to destroy Ken Livingstone in the run-up to the first London mayoral elections - an attempt that backfired spectacularly, making Livingstone the recipient of the largest number of votes ever received by a British politician.
3)In other words, the Tory Blur, elected, if you recall, to put an end to seventeen years of Thugcherism, not only has kept one of the worst instruments of Tory plunder of the public purse (read the devastating account of what PFI really is in PRIVATE EYE magazine no.1102) but has expanded its reach further, making public services more expensive and more inefficient in order to line the purse of private contractors.
4)People also wanted the Tories out in 1997. What they got was another Tory government with a rose on its escutcheon. Now they realize they have no choice, and numbers voting are going down vertically. And while people want public services, they do not want them to be turned over to thieving private contractors functioning to line the pockets of corrupt directors.
5)But the hero of the Labour Left, Gordon "I never met a private contractors I did not like" Brown, gave them exactly that. It is Gordon Brown who has done most to impose PFI and similar abominations, and privatized everything down to the very barracks of the British Army (some of which are now owned by Japanese companies).
6)The hypocrisy of this is beyond belief. The government you support multiplies the loads on local government, forces them to go the expensive PFI route, and calls this "making local councils responsible for their own investment". Schools and hospitals are being pulled down faster than they are being replaced, and you know that, so don't come and lie to me.
7)Let's start by closing down all unnecessary PFI, which will save billions. Then slow down the rush to computerize everything, that has cost even more. Then let us properly tax all those multinational corporations such as Mr.Blair's buddies at News International, who manage to pay £3 per thousand pounds income thanks to carefully built offshore company structures.
Oh, and while we are at it, we might think of impeaching Blair and Brown, not, as is being currently suggested, for starting the war, but for wanton and corrupt waste of public money.
Further conversation with you is not desired. This Livejournal is not a tribune for Blairites to spread their lies. You are lucky I did not delete your post out of hand.
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Date: 2004-10-11 03:13 pm (UTC)The majority of LJ readers are not British and may possibly not be aware just how disingenuous this person is. Therefore I will answer his/her putrid pack of lies at some more lentgth than it deserves (or than I would have to if the public were made up wholly of politically aware Britons).
1) The vast majority of local expenditure in the UK is financed from central government (a few years ago, I believe, it was 83% of local council budgets). If central government increases the demands on local governments without increasing its contribution, as it has cheerfully been doing, local government has to increase tax to fulfil its statutory duties.
2) Given the above fact, Raynsford's Unbridge-like outburst counts as shameless even by the standards of this Tory (yes) bunch of thieves that disgraces the name of government. He was seriously under the impression that the public will believe that local councils have just suddenly gone mad off their own bat and that he can posture as the noble defender of the taxpayers' purse. The fact that we have not heard from this Blairite hitman since then suggests that the public was not taken in. Incidentally, Raynsford's last bout of national prominence was as chief hitman in the Blairite attempt to destroy Ken Livingstone in the run-up to the first London mayoral elections - an attempt that backfired spectacularly, making Livingstone the recipient of the largest number of votes ever received by a British politician.
3)In other words, the Tory Blur, elected, if you recall, to put an end to seventeen years of Thugcherism, not only has kept one of the worst instruments of Tory plunder of the public purse (read the devastating account of what PFI really is in PRIVATE EYE magazine no.1102) but has expanded its reach further, making public services more expensive and more inefficient in order to line the purse of private contractors.
4)People also wanted the Tories out in 1997. What they got was another Tory government with a rose on its escutcheon. Now they realize they have no choice, and numbers voting are going down vertically. And while people want public services, they do not want them to be turned over to thieving private contractors functioning to line the pockets of corrupt directors.
5)But the hero of the Labour Left, Gordon "I never met a private contractors I did not like" Brown, gave them exactly that. It is Gordon Brown who has done most to impose PFI and similar abominations, and privatized everything down to the very barracks of the British Army (some of which are now owned by Japanese companies).
6)The hypocrisy of this is beyond belief. The government you support multiplies the loads on local government, forces them to go the expensive PFI route, and calls this "making local councils responsible for their own investment". Schools and hospitals are being pulled down faster than they are being replaced, and you know that, so don't come and lie to me.
7)Let's start by closing down all unnecessary PFI, which will save billions. Then slow down the rush to computerize everything, that has cost even more. Then let us properly tax all those multinational corporations such as Mr.Blair's buddies at News International, who manage to pay £3 per thousand pounds income thanks to carefully built offshore company structures.
Oh, and while we are at it, we might think of impeaching Blair and Brown, not, as is being currently suggested, for starting the war, but for wanton and corrupt waste of public money.
Further conversation with you is not desired. This Livejournal is not a tribune for Blairites to spread their lies. You are lucky I did not delete your post out of hand.