Monbiot comes out fighting

On Wednesday night I joined about a hundred people at Warwick Arts Centre for the opening night of “Gentleman” George Monbiot’s Left Hook tour.  I wrote the event up for the Guardian.  His central contention was that the Conservatives are opposed to big government simply because state spending means transferring money from the rich to the poor. To do this they have exploited the current economic crisis to undertake a massive programme of deregulation and the withdrawal of state funding. The key to achieving this? “Strike hard and fast in the first six to nine months before people wake up to what is happening.” This, he concluded, is exactly what we are now seeing in the UK with a programme of cuts much faster and deeper than the deficit demands.