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NHS being wired for demolition at breakneck speed
That Cameron was a wolf in sheep's clothing comes as no great surprise. But the degree to which his pleasant manner and social concerns cloaked a more ideologically driven government than Margaret Thatcher's still comes as a shock.
Until poll tax hubris overcame her, Mrs. T's bite was more circumspect than her bark: she was more pragmatic when hurtling into trouble than her legend suggests. Not so this government. Whatever slight brakes the Lib Dems apply, ideologically-driven runaway trains are careering full tilt down one policy track after another. The worry is not just the direction of travel, but the recklessness and ignorance of the drivers. Do they understand what they are doing? There is an insouciance about their gigantic reorganizations that is truly alarming.
On the economy, Osborne is warned by the IMF, rightwing economists and the markets that he is in danger of crashing the recovery as he cuts spending by half as much again as Labor's already too tight plans. But his shrink-the-state engine ploughs through all red signals. In education, it was remarkable that the cerebral Michael Gove bungled the cuts in school rebuilding so atrociously. Remarkable, too, that one known for politeness never had the courtesy to tell each school its fate. It bodes ill for the haphazard formation of his new "free" schools.