Beaker squeaks out

After the trouncing the Lib Dems got in last week's local elections - each Lib Dem has been taking it in turns to pop out and tell us all they're going to show us how different from the Tories they are - except they're also saying the coalition is still on - that it's going to last the course... *cough*

This is Danny Alexander's turn: "I'm not George Osborne's bodyguard"

It's the worst of them so far. But I think it's probably because he's the most Tory like of them all. I can see him being awarded with a Tory peerage a few years down the line.

‎"...But he refused to accept that the party's disastrous electoral showing last Thursday was a verdict on its commitment to cut the deficit so quickly, saying that "the case for backing the deficit programme is now ever stronger".

-No? Then he's a complete idiot. The negative growth figures and the flat-lining economy are screaming out loud that cutting the deficit so quickly and deeply isn't working. And oh look, what did Ireland do? Exactly what Osbourne is doing now -and ooops! didn't do them any good at all did it?

If the economy isn't growing then the markets are going to say the UK can't pay off it's debts as easily and will put down it's credit rating - they've rattled the sabres at the US already.

Oh god, no - help!

Is this the start of a long Conservative hegemony? - Poly Toynbee.

Apart from the Greens winning council seats in Brighton/Hove, and the SNP winning Scotland. (Yay! Glimmers of hope). I am now very depressed for the future. My only other hope is that the Lib Dems find where they've hidden their gonads and walk out of the coalition. But they won't - despite last night's thrashing they're still in love with the attention they getting. Cameron can piss on Clegg's head and tell him it's raining and Clegg will believe him.

Privatised Britain is not a fait accompli

We've had healthcare in the hands of the voluntary and private sector before – prior to the creation of the NHS – and the result was that thousands died unnecessarily from diseases such as diphtheria and polio and infant mortality rates were around one in 20. We've had education exclusively in the hands of the non-state sector before too – and the vast majority were denied a proper education. And anyone who travels regularly on the privatised railways in Britain and in the rest of Europe, where state-owned companies still dominate, won't need me to tell them that the continental railways are far superior – as well as being considerably cheaper.

You won't read about it in the Economist, or on the websites of "free market" thinktanks, but the extraordinary rise in living standards and improvements in healthcare, education and public transport – and the reductions in inequalities – which Britain enjoyed during the third quarter of the 20th century coincided with the increased role of the state. As the state's role has been reduced since 1979, so services have deteriorated and inequalities risen.

Neil Clark