Finding a narrative of hope
17 September 2010
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17 September 2010
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In these grim dark days of austerity and cuts, the coalition urgently needs to find a compelling political narrative of hope and optimism. David Cameron’s Big Society rhetoric occasionally threatens to contain some philosophical depth, but suffers from the same problem as most new fangled analyses of the world. Namely, it is so fluffy that it becomes bewildering.
To the government’s credit, they have managed to prepare the public for the upcoming belt tightening. This achievement is all the more remarkable given the woeful refusal of either coalition party to admit the scale of the fiscal problem facing Britain during the general election campaign.
Read the rest of the article on the Spectator’s Coffee House blog.
3 thoughts on “Finding a narrative of hope”
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Well said! And three cheers for the Old Whigs! I do think you need a dual narrative – practical necessity on one hand, hard ideology on the other. That way, statists are also caught on the horns of a dilemma. The ‘big society’ agenda needs to be kept ticking over, and ‘libertarians’ need to try and shape it as far as possible – I thought Steve Baker MP did a great job too.
As an aside, there is a brief discussion in the Constitution about restricting the franchise from those in the pay of the public sector, or even anyone in receipt of public benefit (although that would mean everyone, which indicates the scale of the problem!). Personally, although not ‘practical politics’ I think it’s a
superb idea as it would mitigate against the vested interests of the 6million public sector employees and the tendency of voters to vote themselves largesse. We could also thinking about restricting the ability of public sector unions (and even employees?) to be members of and/or donate money to political parties; whilst it might seem draconian, it would seem to be a fair restriction on vested interest.
Hayek’s attack on ‘progressive’ taxation as a form of discrimination is also worthy of thought. I’ve often wondered in the HRA or EHRC could be made to attack it – it mightn’t work, but it would be the height of irony and a great campaign!
All animals must tighen their belts equally.
But some animals must tighten their belts more equally than others.