Peer Steinbrueck - German finance minister - critical of UK interventionist government
Mick Fealty – soon to be an occasional poster here – has picked up on a worrying feature of the direction that David Cameron is adopting in the teeth of the current downturn.
What I think Mick is picking up on is the point at which British Conservatism and libertarianism intersect – the general prejudice that no situation is so bad that it isn’t made worse by a concious decision to collectively address the problem.
Certainly, it’s hard to think of a Conservative since MacMillan that has seen government as a positive agent for change.
And while Gordon Brown is addressing the current crisis by a fairly aggressive use of state intervention, Cameron seems to be allying himself – indeed outflanking the German Christian Democrats in his criticism for the big government approach. There are dangers here, as Mick sees them:
“The Tories certainly need to hold to the ‘society not the state’ line they had before (and let Labour flee to the big government high ground pour la duration de la deluge), whilst seeming to be relevant to macro economics required to allow a sick and convulsing international banking system to recover.
But if they are not careful, like a couple of stir crazy old shipmates too long becalmed at sea, one may wind up inadvertently cutting the other’s throat.”
He concludes…
“At a time when the larger populus sees governments (plural) as the only salvation for international markets, the Tories might do well to keep their old contempt for government of whatever form firmly in check; and their weather eye firmly on the rising horizon.”
And what relevance does this have for local democracy? Well, in a downturn, perhaps – as Peter Brindle argues here (likewise, Matthew Taylor)- the state sector needs to over-perform and fill the gaps left by the crisis of capital. That may be Brown’s plan. And it makes a functioning local democracy more important than ever.
But is it Cameron’s plan?
