Tuesday 11 September 2012

In General

In a mere two years, the worst Government in living memory has brought this country to the brink of a General Strike by the heavily unionised public sector. At which point, the penny might finally drop, so to speak, that there is not really any such thing as “the private sector” in the sense that is usually meant. It exists only because of numerous forms of central and local government action. It therefore has vast public responsibilities, to which it is very high time that it was held.

Even leaving aside the private sector’s obvious dependence on education, healthcare, housing provision, transport infrastructure and so on, take out bailouts or the permanent promise of them, take out central and local government contracts, take out planning deals and other sweeteners, and take out the guarantee of customer bases by means of public sector pay and the benefits system, and what is there left? They are all as dependent on public money as any teacher, nurse or road sweeper. Everyone is.

And with public money come public responsibilities, including public accountability for how those responsibilities are or are not being met, accountability and responsibilities defined by classical, historic, mainstream Christianity as the basis of the British State and as the guiding inspiration of all three of this State’s authentic, indigenous, popular political traditions.

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