The Fable of the boy (or girl – I’m not sexist) who cried wolf.

Incase for some reason you’d never heard of it. Here it is… (there is more on this afterwards).

There once was a shepherd boy who was bored as he sat on the hillside watching the village sheep. To amuse himself he took a great breath and sang out, “Wolf! Wolf! The Wolf is chasing the sheep!”

The villagers came running up the hill to help the boy drive the wolf away. But when they arrived at the top of the hill, they found no wolf. The boy laughed at the sight of their angry faces.

“Don’t cry ‘wolf’, shepherd boy,” said the villagers, “when there’s no wolf!” They went grumbling back down the hill.

Later, the boy sang out again, “Wolf! Wolf! The wolf is chasing the sheep!” To his naughty delight, he watched the villagers run up the hill to help him drive the wolf away.

When the villagers saw no wolf they sternly said, “Save your frightened song for when there is really something wrong! Don’t cry ‘wolf’ when there is NO wolf!”

But the boy just grinned and watched them go grumbling down the hill once more.

Later, he saw a REAL wolf prowling about his flock. Alarmed, he leaped to his feet and sang out as loudly as he could, “Wolf! Wolf!”

But the villagers thought he was trying to fool them again, and so they didn’t come.

At sunset, everyone wondered why the shepherd boy hadn’t returned to the village with their sheep. They went up the hill to find the boy. They found him weeping.

“There really was a wolf here! The flock has scattered! I cried out, “Wolf!” Why didn’t you come?”

An old man tried to comfort the boy as they walked back to the village.

“We’ll help you look for the lost sheep in the morning,” he said, putting his arm around the youth, “Nobody believes a liar…even when he is telling the truth!”

So there we have it.

What does that have to do with politics? I hear your brain quietly yelp.

Well in the past few days many Lib Dems have very publicly stated that they want to quit the party but few have yet to do so. The general consensus is they are going to wait until after the Spring Conference to see if they can remove Nick Clegg or not. If they can’t then they are out. However so many people are saying it at the moment that it just isn’t registering any more. Talk is cheap.

This is all to do with tuition fees. Now if people voted for the Lib Dems in May for the sole reason that they wanted free tuition for university students then they have every reason to be unhappy. However I doubt many Lib Dem party members went to the effort of joining a political party on one issue. That to me makes very little sense. Some may prove me wrong but really – are there people out there who think that free university tuition is the be all and end all of UK politics? If there is then those people are morons.

The political party is about so much more. Yesterday figures came through on both the Pupil Premium (good) and the public sector council cuts (bad). Everyone knew these cuts were coming and that they would be bad. Looking at the numbers the cuts are actually relatively equal across the board. I have read some blogs that the Labour north is getting screwed but it doesn’t seem to be the case. The full data sheet is available via this clicky link.

One Point of Order is the Hampshire Fire Brigade is getting a 0.23% Budget increase. Good times for my old county. There and Cheshire Fire (0.26%) are the only raises I could see.

So anyway – I was rambling about people crying wolf. People are saying that they didn’t sign up for a party who’d oversee cuts. Well folks – y’know what – everyone knew cuts had to happen and if you don’t like cuts then you aren’t going to like any of the political parties. The other question was how quickly the cuts would be brought in. Labour would’ve pumped up the public sector like a baseball player on steroids for another year or two before shutting down the money pipe and cutting even harder then.

So it is a question of cut today or cut even harder in a few years. Them’s the choices.

If you think that there should never be cuts then you’ve got to form your own party and be prepared to tax the workforce to buggery. That is the only way that the public sector can get bigger and fatter and continue to gorge on public money.

Those that know me know that ideologically I’m all for high taxes and world class public services. I’m happy to pay more money in tax if I know our education, health, police services are the best. I’d like the railways to be re-nationalised and subsidised. However the war chest of money isn’t there for that now so the best thing to do is address the debt and address it fast. Once that is under control then things can be reassessed.

If you don’t agree with what your party is doing then don’t be a member. Don’t keep crying wolf. Either be realistic about the current state of affairs and swallow your ideologies until the country is in a position to act on your ideologies or take some time out of politics and come back when the country can afford to do everything you want. I choose to debate and tackle the real issues head on – something I think the coalition are doing – country before politics.

If Labour are any good they’ll waltz the 2015 General Election – and they very well might. However a survey the other day said Lib Dem voters at the last election trust Cameron a lot more than they do Ed Miliband and that is a worrying sign for the Labour Party. It shows that the very vocal Nick Clegg detractors are not the majority of the party (or it shows that no-one – not even Ed himself probably) knows what Ed Miliband stands for.

I’m not exactly sure the point of this ramble but still. I think my main point is we are in the shit – deal with it. Those that don’t believe we are in the shit – hear this – we are in the shit – all the parties agree – the only thing they disagree on is on how quickly to deal with the shit.

Until you learn that fact – then the wolf cryers will never be happy.

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