Binaries

I’m not sure I buy into binaries. There are two kinds of people in the world: those who think there are only two kinds of people in the world, and those who don’t.

Here’s a binary for you: either there is an unprecedented crisis which can only be solved by austerity politics, or there isn’t.

I don’t know which of these two states of being is true – I lean to the latter, but I could be wrong. But today, let’s pretend we believe otherwise. The government’s narrative is that we are in crisis, that the crisis isn’t of their doing, and that austerity measures are required to solve the crisis. The narrative is, indeed, that this course of action is succeeding: we are moving “from rescue to recovery“

So if that’s true, if austerity is the only way, then they are justified in freezing civil service salaries and reducing pensions. If that’s true, then they are justified in capping benefits and reviewing payments to people with disabilities and making people pay for their “spare” rooms.

If that’s true…

If that’s true, then MPs can’t have a pay rise.

If that’s true, then it doesn’t matter how much evidence they can adduce that their salaries are uncompetitive. It doesn’t matter how much evidence they can give us that they “ought to have” and “need to have” and “deserve” more. Because in the world where the government’s austerity narrative is true, that hasn’t mattered to anyone else.

Welcome to the real world, MPs. This is what austerity politics feels like from the sharp end.

There are only 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don’t.

Courtesy of Wendy Bradley at tiintax