The Grand Coalition

Germany’s grand coalition between the SDP and CDU is about to set to work. Two parties with outwardly opposing ideologies, the one socialist the other conservative, are about to join ranks in order to tell the German people, in the words of the Chancellor designate Angela Merkel, to tighten their belts. Proof positive, if any was needed, that when it comes to practice, those ideological differences account for little.

In Britain, too, we have seen New Labour overtaking the Tories on the right. Ultimately, party politics are simply a stage-set aimed at an unsuspecting population to give the semblance of democracy. On polling day we all have a chance to vote for a new shift to take over whilst the management stays the same. No wonder voter apathy is continually on the increase.

On the local level, too, they will run expensive but futile consultation exercises where they give us a choice between pre-conceived options, neither of them a radical departure from what went before.

When have you last seen a government reversing the unpopular policies of their predecessor? All our governments are heavily in debt to private financiers, and consequently they all run the same economic policies for the benefit of those financiers. If they don’t tow the line they soon find themselves ousted from power with a generous helping from within the media establishment. Money talks.