A Matter of Degree

It's a time of tremendous change. There is hope for freedom in countries that have never before known hope. Egypt and Tunisia are forever changed; Baharain, Libya—the futures of all of the small countries of the Middle East are uncertain as their governments are held to question. One can only hope the best for them.

But as Cameron makes his grandstanding appearance in Cairo (seeking to paper over, perhaps,the fact that much of the mess in the Middle East is the legacy of the British), supposedly to promote freedom and the building of democracy, his government, ideology run amok, is tyrannically imposing the tyranny of the market on the British public.

With all public services for which Britain is highly regarded held out to tender, with the unbreakable contracts that can be bought and sold that this move will bring, the social fabric of the UK will be so badly torn that it is doubtful if it can ever be repaired. There will be no choice for anyone about this. In consequence, human need will be at the mercy of the cash-cow milkers, the bean-counters and the bottom line. Cameron is supposed to be an educated man, but in terms of the inhumanity of market-run services he seems to have a massive blind spot.

What can be done to halt this dehumanizing takeover? Can Britons take to the streets with any effect, or will the sort of police brutality that was seen during recent student gatherings in London put people off? And what, pray, is the difference between this government's intolerance of protest and that of the tyrants it purports to rejoice to see overthrown, except one of degree?