It is all right for a nonentity like me to speak his mind, there is a small audience, and in addition, you may not think it, but I’m careful in what I say and whom it can affect. The megaphone politics across the pond, damages more than it improves the thoughts of the electorate. It’s a barrage of short bursts of rhetoric, for political effect rather than to serve any other serious purpose. How much damage it will do in the long run will only be discovered when a new president has been in office for a while.
George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, accused the PM of planning a spending splurge that will saddle two generations with debts. As far as I understand,. Osborne made no attempt to show the basis of these statements, and did nothing more than give some of us the impression that he was fighting the next election. The majority of us have been cut off at the knees by the sudden change in our fortunes, savings being taken from us, and the future, especially for the worst off, looking bleaker than it has for a long time. Anyone who has read my blog will know that I have little respect for the sagacity, the management capabilities, and the unbiased interest of a large proportion of our senior politicians. In this particular case, Osborne has done nothing but increase the depth of worry by adding more imponderables to the equation, which is already overloaded with worry, doubts and changes in circumstance.
It is the responsibility of the opposition to oversee the conduct of the government and if necessary draw attention to any shortcomings, mismanagement, or irregularities. Westminster as a whole is the main controller of our destiny, and in these days of central government has an overpowering influence on our lives. This responsibility does not solely rest with the government in power, because ours is a democratic government. When the credit crunch started I pointed out that not only was the government responsible for not having policed the extravagances of the stock exchanges, it was also that of the opposition. Osborne, when he came to the conclusions that he is now professing, and trying to obtain Brownie points by making bald statements on television, should have set out carefully and in detail, his conclusions and the basis upon which he had arrived at them, and presented them to the government as a criticism of their policies. If, in fact, he has already done it, and the government rejected it, then I would have thought he would have taken every opportunity to say so. In his speech, I don’t believe there was any such reference, instead he has added to our worries, and increased doubts, without allowing us to have sufficient information that we can decide for ourselves what is the truth of the matter.
High speed communication is responsible for things termed sound-bites, which I believe serve no useful purpose, give only a part of the problem or the solution, and are generally tossed off when a microphone is thrust forward, or there is a political axe to grind. Those responsible for the running of our country should think long and hard before they make statements concerning matters that are at the root of our existence. I have found time and again there has been an awful lot that we should have known about and we never heard, or read. It seems silence is selective.