Cameron to axe sell-off policy

[Joanne98]

Source: Independent

The highly contentious plans for a £250m sale of England's forests will be abandoned because of the furious backlash that has hit the Government.

David Cameron humiliated his Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman in the House yesterday, and shocked MPs, when he disowned the policy.

The Prime Minister signalled the retreat when he admitted he was unhappy with the proposals under which woodlands owned and run by the Forestry Commission would be sold off over the next decade

The U-turn came after MPs and hundreds of thousands of members of the public joined the vigorous protests against moves to transfer 637,000 acres of woodlands into private ownership. Details of the abandonment are expected be spelt out tomorrow by Ms Spelman.



Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/cameron-to-axe-selloff-policy-2217131.html

[Mojorabbit]

1. What wonderful news!

Over 500,000 people pushed back and won for now.

[Turborama]

2. Margaret Thatcher's extremism has already been outdone by this coalition

Neil Clark
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday February 2 2011 14.01 GMT

Ask any genuine socialist or progressive which was the most extremist British government since the war and it's long odds-on that they'd say one of the three administrations of Margaret Thatcher. But I believe that is now an outdated judgment. For when it comes to political extremism the present government has already outdone Thatcher.

The coalition, which its supporters ludicrously claims occupies the centre ground, seems hellbent on privatising the entire British state. Everything must go: our publicly owned forests, our postal service, our state-owned bookmaker, our air traffic control. And though the government denies that its health bill represents the privatisation of the NHS, there can be little doubt that it's real aim is to open the door for profit-hungry private companies to take over surgeries and hospitals.

Thatcher may have started privatisation in Britain, but even she knew when to stop – for instance, when it came to the Royal Mail. She also said that the NHS was safe in her hands and, in broad terms, it was. In just seven months, David Cameron – for all his pre-election pledges – has shown that the NHS is certainly not safe in his.

The haste with which the coalition is proceeding in its ideological crusade to destroy the last vestiges of the post-1945 settlement is in stark contrast to the more cautious approach taken by Thatcher when she came to power in 1979. The dominant neoliberal narrative is that she came in all guns blazing to rescue Britain from the horrors of socialism. The reality is that the Iron Lady's first term wasn't that radical at all. The really hardcore (and extremely damaging) neoliberal reforms (Big Bang, demutualisation of the building societies, the cutting of the top rate of income tax and the privatisation of the utilities), came later on in her second and third terms – when the threat of a Labour comeback was reduced after the SDP split. But the coalition, using the excuse of cutting the deficit – which as a percentage of GDP is significantly lower than it was in 1945 when the Labour government built the NHS and the welfare state – has gone into extremist mode right from the off.

Very insightful article, read it in full with the replies here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/02/margaret-thatcher-coalition-lib-dems

(BTW "paywall refugees" mentioned in the comments refers to trolls who used to be members of Murdoch's http://www.timesplus.co.uk/tto/news/?login=false&url=http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article2916707.ece">Timesonline site before he put his paywall up)

Anyone who thinks that the British Conservatives are like Liberals in America are very sorely mistaken.