Cameron’s Coup: How the Tories took Britain to the Brink
by Polly Toynbee and David Walker
(Guardian Books with Faber and Faber, £9.99)
As the British general election approaches, many books and articles will examine the record of the Tory/Liberal Democrat coalition; but few will be as caustic, incisive and well-informed as Cameron’s Coup.
The authors are severe in their analysis of the Conservative Party’s years in power. They describe Cameron as a politician without high ideals or aspirations, and only a hazy understanding of the country beyond the triangle of Cornwall (photo-ops), Central London (parliament), and Oxfordshire (his constituency).
He leads a party that has been captured by ideologues, people with ‘shrunken aspirations’.
Cameron’s political project – the ‘coup’ – has been to roll back the state, and particularly the welfare state, while pretending this is not his purpose at all. He is a dissembler, his well-bred charm distinguishing him from Margaret Thatcher, whose political outlook he largely shares.
The authors make a solid argument against Cameron’s project and the related imposition of austerity. They contend that a strong state is necessary not just to defend the poor and ensure social justice, but also to protect capitalism from itself.
After all only decisive interventions by the British and Irish states saved the banking systems in both countries from collapsing and bringing down the economies with them.
Even mainstream Tories must find some aspects of Cameron’s programme of dismantling the state bewildering, for his targets include organisations they have traditionally held in high regard, such as the police and the armed services.
The authors do not accept the need for austerity: in an era of cheap money the country could have borrowed what it needed to tide it over until growth returned; and if more money was required the government should have raised it by increasing taxes – a more equitable way of boosting revenue than reducing spending on state services, on which the less well-off are disproportionately dependent.
The main concern of the authors is for the future of the NHS, the most cherished institution in the country. The population of the UK is growing and ageing, while spending on health is falling as a proportion of GDP. As spending decreases life will become ‘harsher’ both for those requiring care and those who provide it.
Toynbee and Walker have travelled the country, meeting and interviewing people; their arguments are backed by statistics supplied by reputable state agencies; and their conclusions are damning. The UK is a “plutocratic state”, one of the “most unequal countries in Europe” and one in which “most have less than they did five years ago”.
The Cameron years have been a time of deepening political engagement in Scotland. As the title suggests, the Tories brought the UK to the ‘brink’ of fragmentation, partly because Cameron did not strike early against the SNP. Instead of calling a speedy referendum on Scottish independence he gave the nationalists almost two years to prepare for one. They organised so effectively that they were ahead in the polls with only days to go before the vote.
Cameron would have won more easily than he did, had he exploded Alex Salmond’s economic arguments for independence – the authors do so with ease – and made a much more passionate case for the union.
Economic arguments are now irrelevant. If, in the referendum on EU membership Cameron has promised, Scotland votes to stay in and England to leave, then the UK is finished: he will have taken it over the brink.