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Miss Thrifty8 April 27, 2009
Isn’t it funny how times change? One of my reasons for starting this blog was to vent all my frugal tips, ideas and money saving prerogatives – because I sure as heckers didn’t know anyone else who wanted to hear about them! And now? In the past few weeks interest from potential advertisers has soared, I’ve appeared in one national newspaper, appeared on BBC local radio and had a couple of TV researchers round my house. Thrift is hot again, sweeties!
David Cameron (for non-UK readers: he leads the opposition party in government) is the latest recruit to the cool gang esteemed convert to the frugal cause.
From Bloomberg:
The Conservatives would replace Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s “spendaholic” administration with a “government of thrift,” Cameron told his party’s annual spring conference in Cheltenham, England today. The election, which Brown must hold by June 2010, should bring in an “age of austerity,” Cameron said.
“We need a massive culture change at every level of government, so the state is no longer casual, but careful, with public money,” the 42-year-old said. “Delivering more for less, on a sustained and long-term basis, cannot just be about top- down cuts imposed by ministers.”
I’m not a political party animal, but I must confess that I’ve been rather impressed by Cameron lately. His speech after the Budget announcement last week was a scorcher:
We’re in a tight spot; that much is clear. Is David Cameron the one to get us out of it? Can he deliver?
8 Responses to “David Cameron and the “Government of Thrift””
Abi says:
I’d love to believe it, but I have the nasty feeling that, for the Conservatives, imposed “thrift” will just apply to the people without a lot of money. I think they will simply run down public services in the name of thrift whilst they and their multimillionaire mates will be swigging champagne and getting the “thrifty” to wait on them hand and foot for lower wages, whilst they enjoy top private healthcare and schools. I don’t think that former members of the Bullingdon club and their ilk have any idea what the word “thrifty” means for most people, I’m sorry to say.
I live on a pretty low income, and actually, I like it that way as I have a lot of freedom. However, I am only able to do it because I can rely on the NHS and general public services that I pay for through the tax system. I don’t tend to rely on them much, I have to say, but it’s nice knowing that they are there, should I be in need.
The Conservatives have, for me, too much faith in a market-based system. Look at where said market-based system has got us! I don’t think that the way forward is to take the jobs from public sector workers and use the money instead to contract everything out to private companies whose greatest loyalty is to the shareholders. The Conservatives contracted out the hospital cleaners, replacing experienced NHS staff with low paid agency cleaners. A few years down the line and look…dirty hospitals, with superbugs! These problems only came to light during the labour government because the Tories didn’t collect statistics on infection rates, funny that.
I have to admit being disappointed in Labour for reasons that are too numerous to count, however, I worry that if we don’t watch out, we’ll be sleepwalking into an even worse situation.
April 28, 2009 at 11:59 am
FruGal says:
Hey, I just wrote about this same topic yesterday. I’m also really impressed by Cameron lately. He’s thrift’s new poster boy!
Congrats on all your successes too – looks like being thrifty pays!
April 29, 2009 at 12:38 pm
John Davies says:
The man is totally pointless. Just the son of Blair. If and when he gets in power I give him 2 years in power.
May 20, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Sceptic says:
How can you own three large properties and be thrifty? He’s just jumping on a bandwagon.
May 21, 2009 at 8:44 am
F.G. says:
It seems to me that the best way to get out of debt is NOT to borrow any more money. Now even the rest of the world is sceptical about whether we can pay it all back and have lowered our credit rating.
May 22, 2009 at 4:52 pm
PPI says:
One thing that makes me shudder is his “controlling parent” tone of voice and his “humiliating” and “demeaning” choice of words. For example on the radio this week he said in response to Labour advising people to strike “You should be ashamed of yourself”. He really is a totally unfeeling person. How can you run a country when you do not feel?
September 18, 2010 at 10:31 am
Geraldine says:
That’s the only way, that’s how.
We will soon lose BA because of the strikes, many frequent fliers have already changed to other airlines, and who can blame them? We lost the steel and the ship-building, sadly, we need someone strong enough to bear being unpopular to extricate us from the current problems
September 18, 2010 at 7:57 pm