David Cameron has just celebrated his first hundred days as leader of a government that has moved quickly to consolidate its vision of a neo-liberal conservative age and making the most of what was expected to be a lacklustre but usefully diversionary Labour leadership contest. As in 2010, the consolidation has met with much success. But there is a difference: this tim,e it has been less an opportunity to set an agenda of Labour’s previous fiscal irresponsibility and much more a positive and rigorous insistence that austerity is essential and “there is no alternative”.
Well within the hundred days, the government has brought in a raft of changes including a sell-off of housing-association stock, further NHS privatisation, the centralisation of education control, coupled with cuts in 16+ education funding, further controls on labour rights, a planned easing of financial regulation, a substantial cutback in spending on rail investment, and controversial welfare changes.
All of this is in the context of a brilliant if unexpected bonus: the veritable euphoria in Conservative Party ranks over the sudden emergence of Jeremy Corbyn as a serious contender for the Labour leadership, igniting the prospect of Labour being little more than a sidelined protest party heading for certain defeat in 2020.
