How Did we Get Here? What is the State for?

There's been a lot of talk over the years of "cuts". i.e. cutting back public services. The thing is, when I was a kid, public services delivered a whole lot less than they are expected to deliver today.

Decades ago, the council was expected to deliver the basic public services: education, refuse collection, Fire, ambulance, police, etc; plus provide a basic social service like providing council houses.

Over the decades of my life, local councils have moved into providing a whole raft of added services. Every minority demands the provision of a public-funded community centre, social work extends into every aspect of our lives, environmental health has grown to support increasing EU legislation. The oft-maligned equality diversity officer is another position dreamed up within my lifetime.

Essentially, local government has extended beyond the expectations of my generation and those before me.

Today, under the current economic climate, we really need a re-evaluation of our expectations of what government is about, what it really needs to be doing and what it really shouldn't be involved in.

Government, both local and national should be involved in providing the things we couldn't possibly do on our own, like the armed forces, but shouldn't be sponsoring one-legged Latvian nose flute players.

Of course in between, there's a whole area that should also be up for debate. But strangely, there is silence.

So Let me Get this Straight....

The banks royally screw things up so that banks and then countries end up in massive amounts of debt. We pour money into the banks, but it gets us nowhere and we see no benefit from it, and now the countries that are worst hit now look like they're having senior banking figures installed in charge of government.

Simply the banks fucked up and let everyone overstretch their finances, the banks did it as well, then when the shit hit the fan the banks and the countries became insolvent and now the big central banks are blackmailing the governments (i.e. do as we say or you won't get any bailout money) into installing bankers as government figureheads.

Am I being thick or is this a coup detat? It sure looks like one.

After all for these moves to have any democratic legitimacy, then the governments should be dissolved and then the new regime should fight for election by the people just like any political party.

Just something to Ponder....

There's currently talk of Germany wanting to change the terms of various EU treaties, mainly to get them off the hook financially for bailing out the Euro.

Its being put about in Conservative circles that this may be an opportunity for Britain to claw back power from the EU by requesting concessions in return for voting the way Germany wants.

However, what if after careful consideration the majority of EU nations, led by Germany decided that the best course of action would be for every EU country to join the EU?

What would we do then, given that the majority of the 27 democratically elected governments of the EU had decided democratically to divvy out the riches of the other members? How could we go against the democratic will of the European people?

Would our pro-EU Parliament be royally in the mire? Would they discard their promises, roll over and vote to enter the Euro Zone? You betcha!

The more I look at the past week, I can see that Papandreyou knows how to work the EU machine to his country's advantage far better than our slovenly, craven government.