By IRNA,
London: Conservative leader David Cameron became Britain’s youngest prime minister in almost two centuries at the head of the country’s first coalition government in over 60 years during what proved to be a tumultuous 2010.
The year also saw the start of huge public spending cuts by the new government to help tackle the country’s record &155 billion deficit, causing the biggest protests on London’s streets since the height of the Iraq war in 2003.
‘I’m making clear that big change and a new politics is exactly what people can expect,” Cameron said after May’s general election resulted in stalemate. It was to be a “new politics,” he said.
But by the end of 2010, the first cracks appeared in the coalition with several Liberal Democrats ministers, entrapped by undercover reporters, criticising the speed of government changes that were described in one instance as a ‘kind of Maoist revolution’.
The year began with the last few months of Labour rule under the beleaguered leadership of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, unable to regain popularity that saw the party win three consecutive general elections since 1997.
Three US presidential-style election debates, the first-ever held in the UK, failed to prevent the looming deadlock in May’s elections, but unexpectedly provided what proved to be a short-term boost for Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg that was not reflected in the poll results.
The resulting hung parliament led to the Conservatives as the largest party and a surprising pact to enter government with the Lib Dems, while in the background was an unprecedented public outcry for democratic reform, including changing the unrepresentative first-past-the-post system.
Defeat caused Brown to resign, Labour to hold a leadership election during the summer and the entrance of former Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, defeating his older brother, former Foreign Secretary David Miliband, to become the party’s youngest-ever leader.
The new genre is one of presentational politics, completed and reflected by the youthfulness of Cameron and Clegg, both aged 43, and Miliband, 40, together with teams of advisers often fresh from university but at the expense of a lack in depth of experience.
The main task ahead was the program of austerity measures that was seized with zeal by the Conservatives, reluctance by their coalition partners the Lib Dems, and accusations from Labour and trade unionists of being ideologically motivated.
On the eve of government cuts being announced, a broad coalition of community leaders, campaign groups and the general public joined in a mass protest rally at the British parliament in October organised by the Trades Union Congress (TUC).
“They want us to believe that they have no choice and that this is economic necessity. Yet economic experts across the spectrum warn us that the cuts are too deep and too rapid,” warned TUC general secretary Brendan Barber.
Successive reports found that the planned average of 15 per cent public service cuts across government departments, rise in VAT tax and reduction in welfare benefits, would hit the poorest and most vulnerable the hardest while risking any fragile economic recovery.
The president of the Police Superintendents’ Association, Chief Superintendent Derek Barnett, added a warning that the cuts could lead to widespread protests, industrial tensions and social disorder in Britain.
By November, students were leading mass demonstrations, university occupations and nationwide rallies against education cuts to be paid for by the trebling of tuition fees up to £9,000 a year.
A succession of four national marches in London erupted into sporadic violence and rioting and criticism of police tactics of horse-charging and kettling protesters, including school children, in freezing conditions without food, water and sanitation.
At the end of the year, Britain’s largest trade union, Unite, said it was ‘preparing for battle’ with the government over its ‘unprecedented assault’ on the welfare state, and would build on the example of students in their campaign.
Barber warned the British public that 2011 will be a “horrible” year due to public service cuts and said the government will be faced with more angry protests and industrial action against job losses.
The year of economic and political change brought uncertainty about the future of the coalition, with the Conservatives under pressure about the pace of austerity measures and being overtaken by Labour in opinion polls despite Miliband’s hesitant leadership.
At stake in the realignment of British politics was the very survival of the Lib Dems as a viable party after entering government for the first time in 80 years but at the expense of reneging on many election pledges in their pact with the Conservatives.