One of these things is very much like the other

So, late, cryptic and probably way behind everyone else, I thought I'd do a quick post on the whole twuntfest that is the Coalition. Don'tworry, I'm not going to go into what others have said, far better, and elsewhere. Instead I'm going to offer a quote. It should probably be on the other blog, in fact, but even fewer of you fuckers read that one. Besides, there's an original anecdote in this one.*

The kind of crisis Friedman had in mind was not military but economic. What he understood was that in normal circumstances, economic decisions are made based on the push and pull of competing interests ... However if an economic crisis hits and is severe enough ... it blows everything else out of the water, and leaders are liberated to do whatever is necessary (or said to be necessary) in the name of responding to a national emergency. Crises are, in a way, democracy-free zones - gaps in politics as usual when the need for consent and consensus do not seem to apply.

- Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine

The only addendum I'd insist on is that there is a consensus on this occasion - the consensus of the political class and the media. It's only unions, right-wing economists, centrist economists, and left-wing economists and those tiresome types who keep thinking we should try to build a better world rather than a worse one who don't agree.

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*True story, a friend who claims to have some kind of centre-left credentials announced her admiration for Ken Clarke yesterday, on the basis of the 'we're too poor to afford new prisons' policy. Just to be clear: he's not a nice man, he's a bastard standing next to a shower of cunts. There is a difference. And remember, if a Tory ever does the decent thing, it's either an accidental spinoff of something evil (in this case unnecessary and destructive public sector cuts), or just plain accidental. Stopped clock etc etc...