What the fuck is going on at The Independent?

'Do fewer things but do them better.'

Everyone knows that the next government will have to sort out the country's finances. Yet every new comment on this, be it from the European Commission, the rating agencies, economists writing round-robin letters to newspapers, whatever, serves further to confuse...

But the most depressing thing about all this, the thing that makes me want to weep, is that all this heated political debate, all the slagging off of each other by the politicians, is utterly irrelevant. It is irrelevant for two reasons.

First, there is no significant difference between the plans of the three main parties, insofar as we know them, at least as far as the big numbers of deficit reduction are concerned. It will have to be done a bit faster than the Government's present plans, as the European Commission acknowledges, but not a lot can be done in the coming financial year because, by the time the summer Budget can take effect, we will already be a third of the way through it.

Second, the central decisions will not be taken by the politicians anyway. The decisions will be taken by global savers, exercising their judgement through the financial markets, who will determine at what speed the deficit has to be reduced...

Given this reality, what we need is a different sort of politics: not ringing phrases or cute sound-bites, but rather competent, honest, detailed administration. It needs to be a government that does lots of small things really well and goes on doing them well year after year

Stunned silence from Chez Exile. What the fu...

And then there's 'Politicians' cosy consensus on NHS must be broken.'

No institution is more venerated than the NHS. Despite billions of pounds of investment over the last decade, which has seen it grow enormously and employ tens of thousands of extra doctors and nurses, it is regarded as untouchable. All political parties are agreed that it must be protected from cuts. None of them is proposing widescale reform.

Can this cosy consensus survive the storm clouds brewing over the state of the UK economy? History suggests not...

... the problems facing the NHS cannot be avoided, only postponed. To all those who work for or depend on it – prepare for a bumpy ride.

...ck?

And 'Where will the pain be felt? Nobody wants to say.'

On the cuts so far revealed, while few will mourn the £650m taken out of spending on management consultancy, the £550m that will be extracted from local government means poorer services and more sackings: The Independent's recent survey of councils revealed that 20,000 town hall jobs have gone so far.
...
Yet for many – the Bank of England, the credit ratings agencies, the IMF and now the European Commission – even current government plans are not ambitious enough. If a further £20bn in cuts has to be found, as the Commission suggests, cherished programmes such as the Trident replacement, may also fall into jeopardy.

For now, "frontline" services in three areas are ringfenced – schools (with a small real-terms improvement), the NHS and policing (both frozen).

However even these categories are only guaranteed immunity for two years and the pressure to trim them may become irresistible.

Boggle.

And something I've been saying for about a year, 'A hung parliament would not be a disaster for Britain.'

The latest opinion polls suggest that a hung parliament is a real possibility after the next election. They also suggest that the public rather likes the idea. According to a recent survey, almost half of voters would like the next government to be required to work with one of the smaller parties to achieve its legislative agenda.

This is an indictment of Labour and the Conservatives. The public evidently does not relish the prospect of outright control for either of the two largest parties, even those who are prepared to vote for them...

There is a powerful and ingrained prejudice among our political, financial and media elite against hung parliaments; an assumption that a lack of a single party with a commanding majority would be bad for the country. Yet it is by no means clear that such an outcome would be a disaster.

Frankly, though the Indy hasn't mentioned it, a hung parliament has a lot going for it. With no majority whoever is PM can't simply rely on obedient and unthinking lobby fodder and if it's still Colostomy Brown the poisoned chalice he might have hoped would end up in Tory hands will be there for him instead - with luck his own scorched earth policies would destroy him and Labour for at least as long as they've been in power if not longer. And a failure to win outright might do nearly as much damage to the Conservative Blue Labour as Obnoxio the Clown hopes. What can you say about DING if the spineless twat is incapable of unseating someone as monumentally feckless and uncharismatic as Colostomy Brown?*

Other than that I think the Indy has it right. Has it been taken over by right wing or libertarian bloggers?


* There is the outside possibility that fate and all of us are being very unfair to David Cameron. To use a golfing metaphor he might have looked at the lie of the ball, decided it was pretty shitty, and opted to let Gordon play it instead. If he is playing to lose the next election I think he's being a lot brighter and braver than he gets credit for, but sadly the Tory party will not let him get away with it. Even if he came out afterwards and announced that he'd got the result he wanted for his party he'll be damned for putting party ahead of country by those who believe him and treated to contemptible shouts of 'sour grapes' by those who don't. Personally I doubt it, but I'll admit the possibility.