“The best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand tiny and almost imperceptible reductions. In this way, the people will not see those rights and freedoms being removed until past the point at which these changes cannot be reversed.”
The Guardian reports that “David Cameron is leading a government with a “worryingly authoritarian streak” that is seeking to undermine the Labour party’s funding arrangements through the trade union bill.” It’s a pretty damning statement coming from Baron Kerslake, former Head of the Home Civil Service but its one that is becoming all too familiar in British politics today.
In essence, Kerslake’s furious attack confirms what many believe; that David Cameron, George Osborne & Co are effectively rigging the system to ensure that the balance of power is firmly tipped in their favour.
In early January, a confidential Labour party document affirmed that the party was facing an expected and quite sudden £6m drop in its annual income as a result of the changes to the political levy being introduced in the Conservative’s Trade Union Bill, making it impossible for it to maintain its current structure, staffing or offices. Income from affiliation fees could fall to as low as £1million.
In reality it means that Labour will lose around £35 million in funding over the lifetime of a parliament and the Bill has been described “as the most unfair alteration to political parties’ funding since the second world war and marks an end to a long-standing convention that issues of party funding are agreed on a cross-party basis. In reality it represents the most agregious abuse of power in office as it clearly sets out to stifle competition and create a one party state. Democracy is threatened.
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