Proud To Be British? By the end of 2011 you won't be, not in Cameron's Britain

There is a distinct difference between being a supporter of something, and being an apologist for that same thing, or for elements connected to that thing.
I am a Leeds United supporter, but I am not a Ken Bates apologist, and I do not claim to support everything he does in the name of the club.

In the same way, I am a Labour party supporter, member to be exact.  But I am not, and will not be an apologist for everything they do - and I do not claim to be so.

There is a folk song the chorus of which is: “We’ll sweep away the old year, and bring the New Year in...”
However, looking back now at the start of 2011 as the black clouds of austerity blow in over the horizon, are you proud, can you be proud that Labour were deposed?  Or more accurately, can any of us be proud of the Government that we have been lumbered with? Anybody that is probably won't be by this time next year.

I would prefer to direct your thoughts to the Joni Mitchell lyrics in Big Yellow Taxi: "Don't it always seem to go, That you don't know what you've got till it's gone."

Before we all start getting carried away with the optimism of the New Year, and dreaming up resolutions which doubtless we’ll break before the week is out, allow me, if I may, to direct your attention towards an excellent column in yesterday’s Sunday Mirror.  Written by Jason Cowley it outlines in stark detail what 2011 may really hold in store for Britain:

"Like most people of a certain age, I can ­recall exactly where I was and what I was doing on the day Lady Diana married Prince Charles in the summer of 1981.

I was 15 and, along with nearly everyone else, caught up in the excitement of it all.

But even then, nothing seemed quite right to me. A gilded princess, golden carriages, the opulence of St Paul’s Cathedral – what did any of this have to say about life in modern Britain?

In the intervening period, ­everything and nothing has changed. And the similarities ­between 1981 and 2011 are striking, including plans for another ­national holiday to celebrate ­another royal wedding in April.

In 1981, Britain was in turmoil. The chill wind of Thatcherism was blowing through the land. ­Unemployment was rising sharply. There was social unrest and riots in the inner cities.

A Tory ­government had used an ­“emergency budget” to herald a new age of austerity. VAT was ­increased from 8 to 15 per cent.

There were punitive cuts in ­public spending.

The welfare state was under assault. Labour was in ­retreat.

Today there’s a comparable sense of crisis.

Trade union leader Brendan Barber has warned that it will be a “horrible year for the coalition” as the fightback against the cuts begins in earnest.

The details of the Big Squeeze to come are stark. On Tuesday, VAT goes up from 17.5 per cent to 20 per cent as David Cameron and his chums start to pick our pockets.

VAT is a regressive tax, which hits the poor hardest, because it is they who are compelled to spend. George Osborne, the Chancellor, has said that the VAT rise – which will cost the average household £450 a year – is “unavoidable”, just as David Cameron used his new year message to reiterate that the cuts were “tough but necessary”.

But let’s be straight on this.

These are political decisions by the ­Bullingdon Brothers, not ­economic necessities.

There were alternatives.

For example, the Government could have introduced a far steeper levy on the reckless bankers.

Britain is, according to Gavin Kelly, head of the ­Resolution ­Foundation and a former deputy chief of staff at 10 Downing Street, in “the midst of the biggest squeeze on living standards since the 1970s”.

In real terms, wages are falling just as the cost of living is rising. Over the next few months ­everything from train fares to fuel duty will increase sharply.

Meanwhile, cuts in tax credits and to welfare benefits will make an already difficult situation worse for millions.

On top of this, as many as one million people aged between 16 and 24 are unemployed, ­including 100,000 graduates. They are the so-called Lost Generation.

In 1981, the soundtrack to a summer of social unrest was “Ghost Town” by the Specials, an anti-Thatcher protest song which went to number one.

“No job to be found in this country,” sang the Specials. “Government leaving the youth on the shelf. Can’t go on no more. The people getting ­angry.”

Any of this sound ­familiar?"

Viva La Revolution!