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Voting closes at midnight on Saturday 31st July.

Clegg and Cameron are pissing off Middle England

This article of mine appears in the First Post.

Neil Clark: You know the Tories are in trouble when the Telegraph and the Morning Star agree.

Here’s an extract:

The most interesting thing about British politics at present is the way that the ruling coalition's extreme neo-liberalism has put it on a collision course not just with the 'old' left, but with conservative Middle England. Aside from the Morning Star, there has been no daily newspaper more unrelentingly critical of the new government than the Daily Mail - the authentic voice of the country's small 'c' conservatives.

You can read the whole of the article here.

The (very welcome) death of 'liberal interventionism'

Olching writes:

Liberal interventionism must be viewed in the same light as any other aggressive, traumatic foreign policy of, say, the last 200 years. This must include rejecting the story of 'good' interventions in Yugoslavia and/or Afghanistan - it has always been part of the same brutal agenda.

Anyone doubt that now?

The Destruction of the NHS

continues apace....

From today’s Sunday Telegraph:

An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph has uncovered widespread cuts planned across the NHS, many of which have already been agreed by senior health service officials. They include:
* Plans to cut hundreds of thousands of pounds from budgets for the terminally ill, with dying cancer patients to be told to manage their own symptoms if their condition worsens at evenings or weekends.
* The closure of nursing homes for the elderly.
* A reduction in acute hospital beds, including those for the mentally ill, with targets to discourage GPs from sending patients to hospitals and reduce the number of people using accident and emergency departments.

Dr Peter Carter, the head of the Royal College of Nursing, said he was “incredibly worried” about the disclosures.

Dr Carter said: “Andrew Lansley keeps saying that the Government will protect the front line from cuts – but the reality appears to be quite the opposite. We are seeing trusts making job cuts even when they have already admitted to being short staffed.

How disgusting. We have a government that is prepared to spend £4bn a year on an unwinnable war in Afghanistan, but not prepared to properly support the NHS.
On the contrary, they are actually planning for its destruction.

But while the vast majority of Britons will be adversely affected by the destruction of the NHS, we can be sure of one thing. That this government of multi-millionaires will never have to worry about their own health care needs.

Austerity Cameron-style: Hungary shows there is an alternative

This piece of mine appears in the First Post.

Amid warnings of a new UK recession, Hungary reminds us there is another way – growth

At first sight, Hungary and Britain have much in common. Both started the year being led by men called Gordon B. Both have seen unpopular nominally left-of-centre governments replaced, after spring general elections, by the conservative opposition. Both have relatively large government deficits.

But when it comes to dealing with the deficit, the approach of the British Conservative-led government and their Hungarian counterparts could not be more different.

You can read the whole of the piece here.

Former MI5 chief exposes the neo-cons’ Iraq War pretence

There was no evidence whatsoever that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington, the Iraq war was unjustified and it ‘significantly increased' the risk of Britain being subjected to a terrorist attack.

Wow, who’d ever have thought it! Well actually, quite a few of us who opposed the war did say so at the time.

You can read Robert Fox’s piece on Lady Manningham-Buller’s testimony at the Chilcot Inquiry, here.

Read it and you’ll understand why the neo-cons want ‘closure’ on Iraq and for everyone to ‘move on’. But remember, the same lies which were told about the ‘threat’ Saddam Hussein’s Iraq posed in 2003, are now being told about Iran (and the neocons are telling lies about Belarus too-another independent country they hate-as our friend and regular commenter Karl Naylor reports on his excellent Eastern Europe Watch website.)

Overdose -The Pride of Hungary returns!

Good news from central and eastern Europe. The Hungarian government has stood its ground against the IMF and EU and has refused to ditch its tax on the financial sector and impose further austerity on the long-suffering Hungarian people.

And the incredible Hungarian wonder horse Overdose is back, winning a Listed race in Bratislava on Sunday (see above) after a 15 months absence from the racetrack due to a serious foot injury.

Let’s hope ‘The Budapest Bullet’ can get to Paris in October, safe and sound for the Prix de L’Abbaye and right one of the great sporting wrongs.

And let's hope too that Hungarian government can continue to stand up to the pressure from the 'markets' and put the welfare of its own people before the interests of the international money men.