It is amazing what some people are willing to listen to on a Saturday. I have just watched Charlotte Church’s speech to the small fringe of ‘anti-austerity’ activists in Westminster at the weekend. And my reaction is very much ‘Coo!’ Of course I knew how humourless this portion of the left can be, with their beliefs that Ukip is a ‘fascist’ party and that the current government is secretly selling off all schools and hospitals. But even I didn’t think that they would wish to spend their weekends hearing lectures on David Cameron’s ‘neo-liberal vernacular’ from Charlotte Church. Yes, she actually used that phrase in her speech.
Highlighting one of the problems of the contemporary far-left, her whole speech was fascinatingly over-written. And I’m not saying that to patronise, but simply as an observation. Parts of the speech were visibly difficult for Ms Church to say – indeed a flush of relief crossed her face when she found the end of some sentences. Muddled language is usually a front for muddled thoughts. But amid the confusion one sentence struck me as having a clear point. It was this:
‘Let us remember that the NHS was born at a time when national debt to GDP ratio was significantly larger than what it is now. Let’s show the government that we are not afraid of national debt.’
This is very interesting. But it begs two questions I would love Ms Church to answer if she could find the time.
The first is this: Does Ms Church know why Britain was so in debt in 1948? Does she think that any of the debt accumulated in recent years has anything much to show by way of comparison?
The other question is this. Has she ever been to Greece? It is possible that Ms Church herself is unafraid of national debt. But on the other side of the continent a most interesting set of events is underway, and these suggest that a truly blasé attitude towards national debt could be a misguided attitude in the long term.
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