A Bit Rich

Many of Labour's most equitable achievements were hardly publicised. The massive home improvement overseen by John (now Lord) Prescott passed without barely any acknowledgement. The same could be said for the Supporting People Budget administered by the National Housing Federation.

The million or so people the fund helped to be housed are pretty close to the most vulnerable in society - the homeless, those recovering from mental illness, those who have escaped from trafficking gangs and severe domestic violence. Ths is the kind of work a compassionate Government carries out quietly and its returns are only measured in knowing they did the right thing in protecting the weak and oppressed.

Coalition plans to lump 40 percent off the NHF budget are no surprise. These Ministers have quickly got out the habit of making any judgement on the human worth of current spending projects - their determination is to continue reducing the deficit without regard to the social and economic catastrophe which will ensue.

When it comes to identifying these areas of wasteful spending, who better then Billionaire retailer Philip Green to tell Ministers where to wield the axe? Green certainly can be relied on to dispense with sentimental affectation.

Cameron's decision to use Green as a kind of Whitehall troubleshooter is just the worst idea for achieving what they laughably call "fair and equitable savings". Green cannot have the first idea of the value of social services to the poor and elderly. He would hardly be likely to casually pick up that knowledge in between massive takeovers of retail firms.

One hopes it is a gimmick but I am sure he will be allowed at some point to express his judgement on the undeserving poor. The only hope is the counter culture to commercial success aka the Civil Service, frustrates him at his every turn.

Resistance is Low

I suppose you can't exactly blame David Cameron for pressing on with such boldness on his plans to slash frontline public services. He has faced such little vocal opposition, he may yet have convinced himself there is something of a consensus for the imminent steep rise on the country's levels of poverty and joblessness.

By his recent suggestion, Council houses should be leased, implies he views social housing as one stage of a family's property needs before they go onto own more substantial dwellings; here he confuses the safety net for the trampoline.

The Tory Government has fallen into the ideological trap of considering the economy of the nation as no diferent in principle from that of a household. Cameron said just yesterday, "We cannot live beyond our means," as if the lower income groups had been recklessly extravagant in recent years. But when he spills out this drivel, there is barely a murmur from the opposition and media in reminding us the huge debt derives from the six elephants in the room: the bailed out banks which cost us the taxpayer about £100Bn to support their profligacy.

Of the five Labour leadership candidates, it pains me to say, only Ed Balls has barked back at any discernable volume. On the considerable risk this sixth-form economics experiment will tip the country back into recession, Balls said, "Cameron is ...wrong to say the most urgent priority for Britain is to slash the deficit..[it] should be to secure Britain's economic recovery by boosting jobs and growth."

And yet it falls to the oldest radical of all, Tony Benn (above) to organise the "resistance". His article in the guardian today (www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/Aug/04/time-to-organise-resistance-now) sets out in cold anger what those who oppose the Tories should be doing. His new group already has substantial intellectual support, now its aims need to be considered by the wider public as mainstream view. After all it's only our future.