Left in Britain in Deep Denial

 The new Conservative government of Great Britain has been making hefty cuts into operating costs of the national government. While these Christie-style cuts are also coupled with tax increases, they appear to be shrinking the government's deficit and cutting off funds to recipients of welfare who don't work. But still, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, writing in the Independent, isn't too happy.

Our country is in the hands of dogmatist free-marketers who had the good fortune to come into power at a time of financial crisis and vulnerability when Britons feel lost. The mission is ideological – to demolish the principles and structures of the welfare state, including the humane idea of a shared and caring nation, where those who can support those who can't and even the minority who won't. I have paid taxes since 1975. Some of the money has gone to the "undeserving" indigent – so what? I know about privation. During desperate times, my mum lied to get loans and sometimes "forgot" to pay back neighbours. When the classes are divided by serious inequality, you do what you have to. The poor are castigated if they envy the rich, but the rich, it seems, can now freely express and enact the politics of resentment. 

This seems to sum up a lot of American politics, too.

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