This speech has obvious gestation in recent events. After a collision with the shock troops of Little England in the local elections last week, Her Majesty's Government has clearly looked out the Dummies Guide to Reactionary policies (British edition).
It then appears to have dictated bits at random from its collective position in the downstairs lavvy - a stance necessitated by the collective overflow of effluent.
This is 2013 and the General Election is coming over the hill, and suddenly they are losing votes to the right ...Is it a monster? Over to Her Maj, charged with carefully annunciating the collective wisdom in the traditional pantomime but barely hiding her boredom as she did so. At least some pensioners still do well under this government.
So a nasty bit about foreign types? Check
Keeping up the privatisation drive? Check
Mention of red tape strangling business? Check (No one bothers what deregulation means, especially when it attacks workers rights)
Further attacks on pensions? Check
Gimmicks on health and social care? Check
Into the mix stir some rhetoric about "hard working families", and support for those who "save for retirement" and stick in “a fairer society where aspiration is rewarded". The clichés mount up, each more absurd than the last. This speech had the intellectual content equivalent to that of a "speak your weight" machine and the emotional intelligence of a dalek. Few media publications will treat it that way, though.
On any impartial analysis, this is a government with the world view of an ostrich with its head in a hole. As the economy crashes and the livelihoods’ of the 99% continue to be squeezed, while the financier class continue to cash in their bonuses, Cameron and Co fall back on voodoo economics and social policies General Pinochet would have been proud of.
It’s time that the 99% fought back.
Jane Carolan