DUMB WAITER – June 24, 2010

Barely a month into the new coalition, the Tory government has shown its true colors, and the Liberal Democratic leader is being exhibited as bought off for a wooden medal in the form of the title of Deputy Prime Minister. The price for this empty title seems to be a total jettisoning of the entire Liberal Democratic agenda, including the items whose inclusion in the Government’s promises were an integral portion of the ostensible agreement founding the present ruling majority. The Liberal leader says nothing while the Tories rake over the earnings of public servants and working people generally, taking their past earnings in the form of their pensions, and their present and future earnings in the form of cuts in salaries and wages, essential welfare support and public benefits, and the continuation of programs in housing, education, and health, including even the costs of school lunches for indigent children. These are all things that New Labour had predicted and which the Tories had sworn to protect, though in truth the New Labour scammers would have done also, but not as much and not as blatantly, rather like the New Democrats in USA. Housing is understood by its supporters as destined for the lowest level of public support since 1924, university tuition caps are understood to face increases from 3G/year to 5G or 7G, and even 10G is mooted in the press. The children of working people would be largely excluded’ with the places being “sold off” to those who can afford the tariff, with much less emphasis on proven academic ability. And the dumb waiter sits in silence, delivers the votes when those are called for, taking the worthy defeat of Gordon Brown as full payment by the party always representing the interests of the rich and powerful. And short of a denunciation by the Liberal Democratic Party, these will have tolerated their full political castration.