As I mentioned a couple of entries ago, Lyn was supposed to be in the Mail on Sunday today. I went to the shop first thing to pick up a copy, but alas there was no sign of my beloved fiance in there. It’s a pity: thy must have cut the story for some reason; I daresay it may have been too liberal a story for that Tory rag.

Of course, I never go anywhere near the Mail, but having bought it, I thought I might as well take a gander at George Osbourne’s article in it today. Needless to say, if you don’t have the opportunity to read it you aren’t missing much. The only thing I find more nauseating than Osbourne’s economics is his writing style: he uses so many cliches, presumably in an attempt to make himself sound approachable, that it makes him seem even more of a prick than he is already. A more serious concern of mine, however, is his emphasis on cutting tax: I get how cutting tax benefits some people, but at a time when everyone is going on about how little money the state has, and how the state must pay off it’s debts, the state should be taking more money from those who can afford it. taxes should be going up, not down. Thus the whole article smacked of Tory thinking, where things are seen in terms of the individual rather than the collective. And favouring the individual over the collective invariably favours only the most able in society. Thus, for all his jocular tone, for all his claims to occupy the centre ground, for all his delusions that the majority of people believe he is doing the right thing, this article was nothing more than the ravings of a right wing neoliberal trying to justify his ideologically motivated actions.

And, believe me, another article with Lyn in it notwithstanding, that’s the first and last time I buy the Mail.