Do we no longer live in a democracy?

[LilyBolero]

The United Kingdom purports to be a democracy. And yet, the people of this country have no say in what happens in this country.

Look at the NHS reforms. Nobody voted for them. Cameron and Lansley KNEW that if they announced what they were planning before the election, they would be roundly beaten. And so they kept it secret. Now, when polls say that 73% of voters oppose the use of private companies in the NHS, and 62% of voters do not trust the Tories on the NHS, when they are opposed by many health organisations (Royal College of GPs, Royal College of Nurses, Royal College of Midwives, Royal College of physiotherapists, and the list goes on and on) - their solution is to shut the door on them, and to exclude them from any further discussions.

How is this democracy? Most people DON'T WANT the reforms. Most medical people DON'T WANT the reforms. Even half the government DON'T WANT the reforms. And yet, because Cameron and Lansley want them, this is what is going to happen. Cameron said 'No more top-down reorganisation of the NHS'.

Then we have Michael Gove imposing his 'ban on termtime holidays'. Is it not up to parents to decide how to bring up their children? Has he forgotten that it is not 'his' country, to rule as he wishes, but all of our country.

Even on the economy, we have no democratic say. At the last election, there were 2 distinct approaches. The Labour way, and the LibDem way was to halve the deficit over 4-5 years. The Conservative way was to cut savagely and to eliminate the deficit in 5 years. Although elections are rarely fought on one issue, I think in the extraordinary situation of 2010, it would be fair to say that the economy was the over-riding issue, and if ever an election was mono-issue, it was that one.

The first solution, of shallower cuts received about 15.4 million votes. The second solution of savage cuts received 10.7 million votes.

So we get the second option.

The Lib Dems campaigned on a ticket of 'pledging to oppose ANY rise in tution fees'. In government, they are trebling the tuition fees.

David Cameron before the election said he 'liked child benefit being a universal benefit'. He said 'I LIKE child benefit, I WOULDN'T CHANGE child benefit'.

Now he is abolishing child benefit for some in an unfair and incompetent slash at families.

They are liars, and buy votes through lies, and then do whatever the hell they want. We should be able to force an election and actually hold politicians to account. We don't live in a democracy, we live in a fascist dictatorship.

After Dinner speaks a lot of sense. It was clear the coalition, particularly the LibDems, had no real idea quite how shocking a financial state Labour had left the country in. If I were an MP I would howl back "you spent all the money" every time a Labour politician stood up and dared to criticise any of the austerity package at all. The truth is the actual reduction in the growth of public sector spending is far less than it would have been under an all-tory government, and in fact is currently slightly less than Labour proposed. The "cuts" are currently running at £81bn. Labour proposed £82bn. And this is why people like Darling are so frustrated, and why politicians like Denham are working on cross party initiatives.

I am not a fan of the current NHS changes but the vast majority of these could have been brought in without any changes to primary legislation at all. Because they followed on directly from Labour's plans. I don't like them, and have campaigned against several aspects of them, but I've been following it long enough to be fed up of being patronised by the Labour party. I'd sack Lansley if I had the chance. I'd have sacked him during the "pause" myself.

Labour's approach to Parliamentary democracy and Cabinet government was shocking. At least the coalition brings in far more checks and balances.

And please, please, do not compare dodgy changes to a crap NHS which fails thousands of people every year with an illegal war which killed hundreds of thousands. The stupidy of the war in Iraq is mind blowing, and the effects on our daily life terrifying.

Yes, our democracy is flawed, but there is a massive difference between disliking a government and its policy and saying they are undemocratic.

Using the Darling Plan as an example amuses me.

Darling has come out and said that with the benefit of hindsight, he actually would not have followed his own plan and would have done many, many thing that the current government have since done. Much to the annoyance of Ed Balls.

I have respect for him for admitting that, and admitting to mistakes. It does help to restore a level of credibility for me. I think its helpful to everyone to try and get out of the mess we are in. Its also good for politicians to be willing to admit to being wrong rather than keep insisting they were right in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

AnotherCupofCoffee
"If I were an MP I would howl back "you spent all the money" every time a Labour politician stood up and dared to criticise any of the austerity package at all."

Hate to tell you this, but the Tories, up to the banking crash in 2008, backed Labour's spending plans, and promised they would "match them, pound for pound".

Come the crash, there was a choice as to how to manage it, Labour steered us through it, avoiding a depression, we'll never know whether that was the best course or not. But don't be under any illusions that the Tories were warning against spending up to that point, and not really afterwards, it's just that's the last time they promised to 'match the spending, pound for pound'.

Lily, I don't think this should be about which party is better than the other. I think it defeats the point of this debate tbh.

Both main parties are guilty of mistakes with the benefit of hindsight. The responsibility must lie primary with the party in power not the opposition who say they would do the same thing.

But if you really want to get into a debate on spending extra, then perhaps you should think about why, when John Major left power the country was in the best financial state ever, having pretty much paid off the national debt. We then had one of the longest periods of economic boom in history, and we still end up with this situation. Regardless of how much money was used to bail out the banks, there was serious financial mismanagement going on.

Australia on the other hand, has done very well in the last couple of years by 'planning for rainy day'.

Perhaps a Tory government would have done exactly the same thing. I don't have a crystal ball... Its pure speculation.

The fact what happened did, is something that the Labour party needs to face up to and take responsibility for, before they get back into power. And actually I think we do too in our demands of what we expect from politicians and how our taxes are spent.

I don't want it to be a debate that is party-political either. I pretty well hate all of them. The reason I posted about the spending promises is because the Tories always cite Labour spending as the 'only reason for the world financial crisis' which is clearly bunkum. And it is worth pointing out that all the while they hark on about how 'bad Labour spending was', they weren't criticising it at the time, but promising to match it.

Incidentally, I believe in 1997, the national debt was £352 billion, about 42% of GDP at the time.

(But please note, I am not defending or attacking any spending plans here, just observing that no-one was criticising the Labour spending plans at the time).

I think all three parties are 'at fault' mainly because they've been in the pockets of banks and big businesses since Thatcher's regime. In a nutshell, she broke the unions' hold and replaced it with the City's.

Major oversaw a period of plenty: even then it was looking like an over-inflated bubble and Blair also took advantage of it. The banking crisis could have been anticipated - and was - but nobody had the nerve to tell the money boys to back down. We were already locked into a debt-driven economy that could only be altered by deeply unpopular reforms. In the end, of course, the country had to suffer pain for the banks' greed anyway. Brown managed to get our national interest rates down, improve NHS results against all the odds and it looks possible that he could have steered us through this better than an inexperienced crowd of supremacists. We'll never know that now.

But it really, really upsets me that Twitter does a better job of observing the true facts and offering solutions than the fucking government! I don't care what colour is in parliament because none of them are up to the job. I just want them to listen to the electorate (on social media) and responsible experts (in the Lords, of all places.) The fact that they're too arrogant/greedy to do so - or even to admit that we are in crisis - makes me feel we're living in more of a dictatorial oligarchy than a capitalist democracy.

And it frightens me. A lot. Sonia Poulton wasn't wrong to compare it with pre-war Germany.

Yes, people were criticising the Labour spending plans Lily, and holding our heads in our hands. The evidence was there in the explosion of the tax credit system; in the PFI contracts that were not advantageous for the govt; in the expansion of the 'non jobs'; in the expansion of higher education; in fighting a war in Afghanistan without adequate kit; in the GP contracts; in the caving to Europe on our rebate for the non reform of the CAP; the expenses fiddling; councillors being able to make a living out of being a local councillor, whereas before it counted as your community service and small expenses only were refundable.

You only had to look at the raid on the pension funds; the selling off the gold and the claim to have broken the cycle of boom and bust to work out that something was going on.

scaryteacher - so why did Cameron and Osborne say "We will match Labour's spending, pound for pound?". They have culpability too.

garlicfrother - yy, I totally agree with your post.

Promising to increase spending on Labour's plans.

Garlic - I think the rates started to drop substantially after black Wednesday, which iirc (and I do) was under a Tory govt. Before then rates had been as high as 13-15%; they dropped to a low from then on.

I would have thought that had Brown been reelected then the IMF would have been called in by now. I think you are unfair calling the current govt 'supremacists' considering the last lot were ideologically driven with tunnel vision and no experience of the real world.

As for Twitter; how does that 'offer up the true facts and offer solutions?' Running a country and getting it back on track takes more than a series of 140 character soundbites. There are other avenues to find out what the electorate thinks than by social media.

The govt knows we are in a crisis - that's why they are cutting expenditure; allowing QE and artificially low interest rates to make sure it doesn't worsen. You want a dictatorial oligarchy - go to Greece, or come to Brussels, that's where they are.

What 'experience of the real world' do Cameron, Osborne and Clegg have, exactly?

Those 140-character soundbites contain links, you know :) Unfortunately, our ruling numpties seem to have absorbed the importance of soundbites without noticing they only carry weight when backed up by in-depth, hard data.

I would think they said it because they didn't know how bad the situation was, and when they found out; they reversed that. I think they need to publish just how bad it really is, but they won't do that because it is so scary and they are trying not to frighten the horses. They need to retain some degree of public confidence to get through this, otherwise you get demonstrations like we have seen in Athens and Spain.

That youtube clip is from 2007; the situation had changed somewhat by 2010.

scaryteacher - exactly - they are peddling a myth that they would have 'behaved differently in the good times' - but up until the recession hit, they absolutely were not advocating a more prudent outlook. I wish they had, and I wish the Labour government had done that, I'm not defending them at all, just pointing out that that Tories have no space to claim the moral high ground.

""Garlic - I think the rates started to drop substantially after black Wednesday, which iirc (and I do) was under a Tory govt.""

Black Wednesday - absolutely was under a Tory Govt - in fact, on the day the UK crashed out of the ERM - who was Norman Lamont's special advisor in the Treasury? One David Cameron.......!!!!

picture here

Lily:
'On 14 November 2008, in an intervention described by the BBC's Nick Robinson as "pretty extraordinary", Osborne spoke out warning that the more the government borrows the less attractive sterling becomes. He said: "We are in danger, if the government is not careful, of having a proper sterling collapse, a run on the pound." Labelling Gordon Brown's tactic as a "scorched-earth policy", which a future Conservative government would have to clear up, Osborne continued: "His view is he probably won't win the next election. The Tories can clear this mess up after I've gone."'

I think Clegg is a nonentity and a makeweight until he can be ditched. Cameron has worked in the private sector, and Osborne has a business background, given his family firm.

The coalition is practising the art of the possible as far as I can see within the economic constraints handed down by the last govt. They are attempting to dig us out of a very deep hole, whilst keeping the markets on side and the IMF at bay. A difficult balancing act I think.

Moving out of your comfort zone is hard, and that is what the Coalition is asking us all to do, to get the debt down. It needs to be done.

Yes, Lily, I know it was under a Tory govt, as the mortgage rate went up to 16%. I remember it well thanks. It proved as many thought, that ERM and thus a single currency wouldn't work, and look, we were right.

Lily, the whole debate is not about moral high ground - it is about being pragmatic and going with what will work to get the country out the mess that we are in. It is about implementing unpopular reforms and cuts which will keep the balance sheet just this side of OK for the markets. I don't like some of what is being proposed, and I hate what has been done to HM Forces who are bearing the brunt of the Labour legacy of Defence mismanagement and incompetence, but there is a black hole that has to be filled somehow, and at least the Coalition are trying to fill it rather than sticking their fingers in their ears and their hands over their eyes and pretending it isn't happening.

scary - November 2008 was after Lehman brothers collapse, and really once we were into that economic downturn, how you get out of it is much more complicated than 'not spending too much' - the Labour government took a decision to borrow in order to limit unemployment and to limit as far as possible the depth of the recession. The rights and wrongs of that are absolutely debatable - they may have been right, they may have been catastrophically wrong.

But the Tories are perpetuating the myth that BEFORE that point they were warning about Labour spending too much - they would call it spending, others would call it investing. Again, this is debatable, they probably should have been saving money for a rainy day. BUT the Tories CANNOT say they warned about it.

This thread wasn't meant to be party political actually, and not even meant to be about moral high ground. I still maintain that it is wrong to 'buy votes' from the electorate on the basis of absolute lies - and that is what their NHS agenda is, along with the Lib Dem uni fees agenda. Those are the two big lies. VAT, child benefit, EMA - those were lies too, but perhaps could be argued by 'finding out what the situation was' (though the child benefit cut is ill-thought-out and unfair, the EMA is not necessarily a good cut, and everybody KNEW It was a lie about VAT).

But to say 'we will put a stop to any more top-down reorganisation of the NHS', when you have been working for a significant period of time on the biggest top-down reorganisation in its history, and know you will bring this in as soon as you get power, and to have said this because you KNEW the electorate would never vote you in if they got wind of it, is lying and deception.

Similarly with the LibDems - maybe they shouldn't have made that pledge. But they won several university seats on the back of the PERSONAL pledge that each made, promising to VOTE AGAINST any rise in tuition fees. And that is the reason why after the next election it is highly likely that the LibDems will be just about wiped out, and so we will be reduced to a 2-party system. At least with the LibDems, I think they BELIEVED they would vote against it at the time, even if they couldn't follow through on their promise, whereas the Tories knew full well they were spinning a lie.

It might interest you to know that I didn't vote Labour at the last election - though that is probably where my natural politics are - because I thought they had messed up too badly, and needed time out of office. I still cried at the sight of Cameron and Clegg heading into Downing Street - don't know who I thought SHOULD run the country, but I think what we have is not good - one party abandoning its principles for power, another forcing through an agenda that no-one had an opportunity to vote on.

And wrt to filling a black hole - it is tough, I know! But don't you ever feel that Osborne has his head in the sand - he's got his 'idea' of how you 'fix' the economy - but his idea is not bearing the fruit he promised - growth in every quarter, falling unemployment, the private sector stepping in to fill the gaps - and he really ought to have the humility to at least LOOK at some other steps. As lots have said, getting the tax owed by the multi-nationals and the super-rich might be a start. Cutting tax at the bottom, as that goes straight back into the economy, whereas cutting tax for the rich goes offshore or into trust funds/bank accounts etc.

And it isn't easy at all, but if we don't get any growth in the economy (and don't forget it has flatlined for a year now, and shrank last quarter), then that black hole isn't filled, it gets bigger. He is already borrowing 150billion MORE than he forecast he would....

I don't think Ed Balls has the answer. But I do think that a 3-party coalition with major players from all parties, in the proportions they were elected, in this extraordinary economic time, might have been a better and more democratic solution. And it might, although it doesn't seem intuitive, have provided a better opposition - across the table in the treasury instead of soundbites in the Commons. This is, I think, what the LibDems were thinking when they went into coalition, but they then rolled over on some of their key issues, which lost them credibility.

So that would be my 'democratic' solution - in the absence of an outright majority, the coalition government is made up of members of all parties above a set size, in the proportions they were elected. Backbenchers are free from the whips to oppose as they see fit, and in the key area of the Treasury, there is a key person from each of the 3 parties. And it should be for a short fixed term.

They do it in wars - why not in economically unprecedented times?

"It might interest you to know that I didn't vote Labour at the last election - though that is probably where my natural politics are"

No shit

For a thread that isn't meant to be party political, you sure land a lot of digs in on the Tories and a lot of defence for Labour.

Nice to see someone actualy debating though, and not just 'Toooorrryyy c uunnntttss'

"Australia on the other hand, has done very well in the last couple of years by 'planning for rainy day'"

1. Nope; they're just riding the Chinese tiger. The Aussie bubble will burst when the tiger bites.

1. Australia has had a Labor government throughout the crisis.

Also, for the information of the person above who stated that the Royal Colleges are health unions - they most definitely are not. They are licensing bodies. The BMA is (effectively) the doctors' health union, but not the Royal Colleges.

Besides, the Royal College of Surgeons is for the NHS bill....I wonder why that would be? Could it have to do with the suggested new "cap" of 49% of private patients jumping the queue for operations and lining the surgeons' stinking pockets????

mingofmongo!

Honestly, there was so much I didn't like about the last Labour government, but the thread is about the government we have, and how we've got here I guess - in terms of whether it is democratic or not. I don't think it was particularly democratic that we wound up with Gordon Brown as PM, with no election, even amongst Labour MPs - but I don't think it would be right for just one party to choose a PM. Similarly John Major when he took over from Margaret Thatcher (though he did of course subsequently win an election).

But I do feel this coalition is undemocratic, and so I guess a lot of the argument is going to be against it. And the business of defending Labour - I don't defend them for many things, but I think it is disingenuous when the Tories criticise Labour's spending 'in the good times' because they weren't opposing it, and were promising to match it and indeed raise it'. And I hate it when people try and change history to make themselves look better.

Hello

Just to let you know, we've moved this thread to 'Politics'.

Thanks
MNHQ

Going back to George Osborne, I do worry greatly that he has his head in the sand about the economy - looking at other countries, the US is starting to turn the corner, having had more of a fiscal stimulus, the country that went down the austerity route bigtime was ........Ireland. And I don't think anyone would say that Ireland was a great example to follow. Though Osborne did describe the economy there as 'an Irish Miracle that is a shining example of the art of the possible'. And he desired that it should be emulated here. And is now following the Irish plan of austerity.

Like I say, I don't think we should go full steam ahead with a full-on Keynsian plan. But perhaps some heads from all sides of the political debate would come up with a more balanced plan of action.

Rowanmumsnet - that's fine, but wondered why?

(Sorry if that sounded a dumb question, obviously the thread is very political! But I did put it in AIBU specifically, because I wanted to have a lively debate about it, as we have done, thanks all! - and politics is often a lot quieter than AIBU!!!!).