Decades of discontent?

Good morning, readers.
I'll be quiet today - got two mega-meetings (one for each department in which I work), neither of which will be packed with excitement, adventure or really wild things.

I woke this morning to hear that the Prime Minister is promising massive cuts in public services 'lasting decades', but that 'everyone' is going to suffer equally.

A nanosecond's thought renders this unlikely. I can't help thinking that the multimillionaire class, of which Cameron and most of his cabinet are members, won't suffer in the slightest. They don't use the national health service, public transport, day-care centres for old people, respite care for disabled children, schools, libraries, job centres, Sure-Start nurseries and all the myriad things that this country has decided should be provided for by the government and paid for by us.

Instead, Cameron's plan, untrammelled by being in a coalition, is to institute what Naomi Klein called The Shock Doctrine. It's a 1970s idea: whenever you've got upheaval, take advantage of it to institute a very rightwing programme of abolishing government (apart from war-making departments: rightwingers like guns) for ideological reasons, while making it look like a solution to immediate problems. Environmental protection, financial regulation, child benefit, old folks' homes, libraries: these things are seen as fluffy luxuries by the hard-nosed rich who buy these services privately anyway.

This is essentially a coup.

We've saved capitalism by baling out the banks. Now they apparently want revenge. But who'll save the banks next time?