Sit, stay, roll over, play dead!

It seems that big business has the Condems neatly wrapped up. 
I've already blogged about the despicable privatisation of education by Michael Gove, but now they've taken another step in that horrible direction in the form of Andrew Lansley's 'reforms'.

One would imagine that when the Condems talk about modernising and making things more efficient that their policies would be a little progressive and forward thinking, but no. Lansley has decided to abolish the Food Standards Agency, a watchdog set up in response to the growing concerns of consumer groups and after the BSE (mad cow disease) crisis which occurred, I should add, under Tory watch after they loosened regulations. I'm sure I don't need to go to much into the whole crisis, but some 150 have been killed by vCJD caused from eating infected meat, with a further 5 cases diagnosed every year (average). The FSA was set up to prevent anything like this happening again, and has been vital to strict regulations in regards to food. I don't think that strict regulation being imposed on the food industry is overly active government, and the FSA have battled with the food industry and helped make what we buy in supermarkets healthier, battling fast food companies and the ingredients they use.
To abolish the FSA for protecting consumers, that's everyone who eats (so, everyone) is groundless and can only been denoted to Lansley and the Condems yet again servicing big businesses and industry. Gove and Lansley have already mastered sit and stay, soon they'll learn play dead.
It worries me that this "government" (and I use that word with a pinch of salt) is managing to get away with this. They take advice from the Taxpayers Alliance, a group that has no relevance and certainly does not represent the tax payers in terms of their make up (upper middle class leadership, and can boast only several thousand members.... not exactly much in comparison to the tens of millions of actual taxpayers) and their vehemently conservative outlook, as well as media moguls like Rupert Murdoch - the Ernst Stavro Blofeld of the media. And when a regulatory body such as Ofcom challenge the relationship between the Tories and Murdoch the Tories turn around and squeeze them, threatening their very existence.
There's a big difference between pluralism and elitism.

I'm of the opinion that a government is there to serve the people, not the other way around. And removing protective watchdogs is NOT in the people's best interest. That's not a matter of opinion, it's fact, plain and simple.