William Temple, one of the instigators of the welfare state and Archbishop of Canterbury until his untimely death in 1944, once said the big business would 'sell you the air you breathe if they could get away with it!'
But now it is not big business who are trying to sell off what we already own, but the state. Thatcherism led the way in the mass privatisation of society, and sales of resources such as housing and the railways had devastating impacts on homelessness and affordability of public transport. From water companies to education, huge segments of the 'common good' went into private hands.
Now, as Rachel Johnson (Boris' sister) described it on Radio 4 yesterday, they are trying to sell, not just the family silver, but the family itself. The sale of woodlands and forests, to raise £250 million for the government, is brutally short sighted. David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Caroline Spelman must have been the only people not to have seen the film 'Avatar'. DO NOT TRUST THE PRIVATE SECTOR WITH OUR WOODLANDS. We don't have much of it left, it is not to be messed around with.
This is just another ideological crime being committed by this government, who think that they can use the recession as an excuse to do even the most outrageous acts of neo-liberal vandalism. We must do all in our power to stop them. The other Cameron, James, is busily filming Avatar 2 and 3, about the sale of woodland by the Condem Goverment to their business backers, and how the people of the nation rose up and defeated them.
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