I have spent many hours in conversation with Quin of Quintessential Havoc (blogroll will get you to this insightful blog) discussing Europe and the UK….I will admit that I am a bit confused with the politics in the UK and especially the EU and he tries desperately to help me understand……..

I remember (damn I am old) the days of Reagan and Thatcher……the 80’s were an interesting time at least in global politics, but (there it is again) I had a hard time trying to recall some of the policies of the Thatcher admin……sooooo…I had to go a hunting…..

I found an article by Chris Marsden which compares, at least somewhat, Cameron policies with those of Thatcher…..

British Prime Minister David Cameron’s “Big Society” programme offers an ideological justification for the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition’s efforts to impose between £85 billion and £100 billion in cuts over the next four years.

Cameron is Thatcher’s heir, but he cannot display similar candour or malice, given the bitter experience of millions of people with the results of Thatcher’s slash-and-burn strategy. Instead, he cynically portrays cuts as opening “opportunities” for charities and local communities and privatization as a means of facilitating “greater local democracy.”

The paucity of the actual programme Cameron announced was in inverse proportion to the scale of the rhetoric employed. Describing the “Big Society” as a “huge cultural change,” and employing words such as “freedom” and “empowerment,” he offered up four “vanguard” schemes—in Liverpool; Eden Valley, Cumbria; Windsor and Maidenhead; and the London Borough of Sutton. These involve such initiatives as reopening a closed local pub and a volunteer programme in local museums, involving unemployed youth.

The objective of voluntary work is to force down wages, a central component of a vast privatization campaign. Last week, the Guardian reported that under the guise of an efficiency drive, ostensibly aimed at boosting productivity in the health service and elsewhere, billions of pounds are being made available for private companies.

“Outsourcing firms are preparing for a bonanza of local authority contracts to provide everything from binmen to back office bureaucrats and have reported a doubling in the number of deals on offer this year,” the newspaper reported. “Private health companies are also expected to earn billions of pounds from the planned overhaul of the NHS in which GPs would take over responsibility for spending £70 billion.”

Just a few points in the article that I found interesting……some of it sounds feasible and some of it sounds like the privatization crap of the Reagan years, which has NOT been that good for the people…companies have made out like bandits but Main Street has seen a slowing of wages and opportunities……

I would like to ask my friend Quin to comment on the return of Thatcherism…….oh crap!  An overhaul of the health system…hopefully the Brits will be more adult about the debate than their American brothers…