Quote Originally Posted by Banquo's Ghost View Post
I thought you might enjoy one of the great rants of our time.

Then you have the chaps and chapesses who can’t stand the constant raids on their wallets and their privacy. They can’t understand why they are taxed at 50% on their income and then taxed again for driving into the nation’s capital. They can’t understand what happened to the hunt for the weapons of mass destruction. They can’t understand anything. They see the Highway Wombles in those brand new 4x4s that they paid for, and they see the M4 bus lane and they see the speed cameras and the community support officers and they see the Albanians stealing their wheelbarrows and nothing can be done because it's racist. And they see Alistair Darling handing over £4,350 of their money to not sort out the banking crisis that he doesn’t understand because he’s a small-town solicitor, and they see the stupid war on drugs and the war on drink and the war on smoking and the war on hunting and the war on fun and the war on scientists and the obsession with the climate and the price of train fares soaring past £1,000 and the Guardian power-brokers getting uppity about one shot baboon and not uppity at all about all the dead soldiers in Afghanistan, and how they got rid of Blair only to find the lying twerp is now going to come back even more powerful than ever, and they think, “I’ve had enough of this. I’m off.”

The worst of it is, that it's all true.
Out of all these, the campaign against hunting with dogs can be pointed to as the result of the liberals. The economy can be argued to have been mismanaged, although how it could have been managed better is uncertain. The rest, however, is the result of populist and popular policies (other than the hunt for WMDs, which was the result of going step by step with US foreign policy). The congestion charge was aimed to keep London's streets clear for Londoners - suburbanites may not like the charge, but they don't live in London. The roads and ever more extravagant cars are a continuation of Thatcher's policy of a car for every family and more. Conservative Britain will not allow an easing up on drug laws, while taxes on drink and cigarettes have been an accepted constant for decades. Train fares? Blame privatisation. The Albanians? The usual complaints about a misbehaving social underclass, except that the ranter has thrown in the racial stereotype as well.

If he doesn't like these things, he should wear a badge and knock on doors, because most of it is the result of government policies that were popular with voters, and continue to be popular with voters.