Tory response to UKIP surge: More of the same

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The Conservative Party’s capacity for deception and (self-) delusion would be hilarious if it weren’t so dangerous.

Faced with the emergence of UKIP as a serious contender and the new third-placed party in British politics, David Cameron pledged – not to change Tory policies into something remotely in touch with what most people want, but to “work really hard to win back” former Conservative voters who have defected.

In policy terms, he’s determined to do more of the same, as we’ll explore later in this article, but the plan is to dribble gibberish into the ears of the Party’s formerly-faithful and hope that they’re stupid enough to believe it.

What’s really worrying is it might work. This is a group including people who stopped supporting the Conservatives because they were disgusted with current welfare policies (Atos/Unum, ESA, WCA, 73 deaths per week on average, by now you should all know the facts), only to vote for a party that describes benefit claimants as “a parasitic underclass of scroungers”.

UKIP’s policies include forced unpaid work for all Housing and Council Tax Benefit claimants (presumably this now applies to people on Council Tax Reduction Schemes, and it will be interesting to see how the 90+ per cent of HB claimants since 2010, who already have jobs, would manage this extra unpaid work commitment), slashing ESA to Jobseekers’ Allowance rates, and cutting childcare support for working parents.

A more rational view of the situation might be that the defectors are people who, disgusted with Conservative policies, invested their vote in the current ‘party of protest’ – UKIP – for one election only, in the hope of effecting real change in the mainstream parties.

Fat chance. The Conservative Party is not a mainstream organisation but a minority-interest party working for the tiny proportion of extremely rich people who are sitting at the top of our society, manipulating the rest of us while taking all our money.

Look at Cameron’s response. He said he understood that people “want us to do even more for hard-working people”. That was the Tory slogan, though, wasn’t it? “For hard-working people”? So no policy change there.

“More to help with the cost of living, more to turn the economy round, more to get immigration down, to sort out the welfare system.” In other words, more of the same.

Note that the cost of living has skyrocketed under the Conservative-led Coalition government. Grocery bills are up by around a fifth, energy bills are up under the privatised profit-driven companies, rents are up because of greedy landlords sucking in all the Landlord Benefit they can get before the benefit cap turns off the tap for them. Need I go on?

If the Conservatives do more to turn the economy around it will crash altogether. They halved infrastructure investment when they came into power, raised VAT, cut benefits and wages, meaning the money supply was cut off; rich people bank the majority of their money and do not spend it, which is why ‘trickle-down’ economics is nonsense. Poorer people, who do spend everything they get, no longer get anything to spend. There is no money going into the system, and there has been no investment in modernising the system to make it work.

The problem with immigration is not that it is too high but that it is uncontrolled. As I wrote yesterday, people in the UK would not travel to live in a foreign country where they didn’t have a job or place to live and couldn’t speak the language, so why should anyone come here under the same conditions? They need to be moving here for a good reason – because they have work here. That’s all the system needs – why provoke a confrontation with Europe when all that’s required is a small tweak?

As for the welfare system, which is the single part of government spending that has suffered the heaviest cuts, affecting the poorest, the most vulnerable, the least able to protect themselves – Conservative policy on welfare is the greatest disgrace in British politics of the 21st century. It has put innocent blood on their hands that they should never be allowed to wash off. Hearing the Conservative Prime Minister who supported these policies say he wants to accelerate them is like hearing that a wolf has been set loose amongst a fold of sheep.

Let’s not forget that Cameron said UKIP’s policies would be “subject to proper scrutiny”. Can we hope that this scrutiny will in fact go into the policies, rather than into efforts to smear particular candidates or councillors, which is where the Tories concentrated their efforts before the election?

So really, when he says “we need to do more”, Cameron means “The plebs are getting uppity so we must punish them”!

Still, it’s good news for some. One of my less-attractive acquaintances wants to find himself a young woman who admits voting Conservative. His attitude is: “If she’ll let David Cameron and Eric Pickles shaft her, then even I might be in with a chance!”

He’s working-class. I don’t think he’s thought it through.

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19 Comments

  1. Anthony Turtle May 4, 2013 at 11:11 am - Reply

    Apart from my annoyance at the way everyone links National and Local politics, how voting for a councellor who can spend my Council Tax on potholes is akin to voting for a Parliamentary Member who can spend my IncomeTax on Foreign Aid, I’ll never know.

    So it’s six of one or half a dozen of the same! If people had voted Labour you get money wasting prats who spend what they haven’t got, LibDem and you get a bunc of wet blankets that can’t make up their own minds. Conservatives and UKIP and you get a bunch of Neo-(Deleted for Godwin’s Law reasons) who hate the disabled and are Euro-sceptics.

    I’m voting “NONE OF THE ABOVE” at the next General Election.

    • Ian Jd Andrews May 4, 2013 at 12:59 pm - Reply

      Only trouble with voting like that is that the voters who always vote Tory/Labour/Libdem (pick one of your choosing) will control who gets in and the status quo remains for another 5 years

    • Karen Davies May 4, 2013 at 1:20 pm - Reply

      Vote green instead.

  2. Glen Miller-paul Redfearn May 4, 2013 at 11:55 am - Reply

    Someone give Cameron a gun to blow his own head off the man is a pr*** and the people are sick of his b*llsh**

    • David. May 4, 2013 at 2:19 pm - Reply

      I presume you are a staunch Guardian reading Labour supporter judging by the kind of language you deem fit to use on a public posting.

      • Mike Sivier May 4, 2013 at 2:53 pm - Reply

        The Guardian went all Lib Dem in 2010 and hasn’t really recovered. I, however, am a Guardian-reading Labour supporter – what about MY language?

        Having said that, I do try to keep the language on this blog to acceptable levels. Can everybody please abide by that?

  3. Angie May 4, 2013 at 12:18 pm - Reply

    As you wrote yesterday, “people in the UK would not travel to live in a foreign country where they didn’t have a job or place to live and couldn’t speak the language”, sorry but I have to call your attention to the 1000’s of British people more to Spain, Cyprus, Turkey, France, to live (retire) and they don’t bother learn the language, they live in there own little community’s and think they will be okay until something happens and they need to understand the language, I have seen this first hand when I lived in Turkey, a lot of British people have moved out there and not bothered to learn Turkish, I remember some of then saying to me that the Turk’s should learn English I was teaching in a school in Antalya lot’s of Brits there, who could not speak Turkish not even the basics so you see it’s not just the immigrant’s we do it to.

    • Mike Sivier May 4, 2013 at 1:36 pm - Reply

      That’s an attractive argument.
      If these British nationals are going abroad to retire, though, I take it they’re not using any of the native public services, then? They’re not drawing a pension from that country? They must use the health service there – do they pay for that? It could be argued that, if they’ve made their money, are paying their way, and aren’t upsetting anybody, then that’s fine.

  4. Mike Sivier May 4, 2013 at 1:42 pm - Reply

    I’ve just been reminded of something I had intended to mention in the article, which was that we’re seeing a buildup of knee-jerk reactions in the leader of the Conservative Party – and that means he’d better be careful for his image.

    What do you get if a series of knee-jerk reactions all run together at once?

    Goose-stepping.

  5. guy fawkes May 4, 2013 at 1:53 pm - Reply

    Mike are you a labour councillor?

    • Mike Sivier May 4, 2013 at 2:04 pm - Reply

      No but I am a member of the Labour Party.
      You may have noticed I don’t agree with everything the party does, mind.

  6. guy fawkes May 4, 2013 at 2:11 pm - Reply

    Yes you did say that, but I was just trying to ascertain the fact that if you were in any way working for the council or other public agencies you would be carrying out policies you did not agree with, rather than opting for industrial action against such policies as is happening at the moment.

    • Mike Sivier May 4, 2013 at 2:51 pm - Reply

      Labour is in opposition on our council, so I would be opposing policies I didn’t agree with and putting forward better (hopefully) alternatives.

  7. ms teresa howie May 4, 2013 at 2:39 pm - Reply

    I agree %100 with comments, Cameron hasn’t clue bwt real people his policies are disgusting and out of touch.they spend thousands and more in pretex getting wot he perceives scroungrs off benigits ie paying private agences to follow people also Atos they can call people back for 4 medicles per year,i know of one woman who this is still happening too.if we baught something and it wasn’t fit for purpose,law states we can take back
    Conservitive policies is not fit for purpose why are we not having early election get them out.bedroom tax a mother is not allowed to keep her soldiars son bedroom when he out fighting for his country.they need stability wen they come home.

  8. Thomas M May 4, 2013 at 2:50 pm - Reply

    It’s sad that the protest vote has gone to the fascists.

    • R33 May 4, 2013 at 3:30 pm - Reply

      Fool Britannia

  9. guy fawkes May 4, 2013 at 2:54 pm - Reply

    Mike Sivier

    That’s good but I don’t think those in power or at the top of your own party take much notice.

    • murray May 4, 2013 at 5:19 pm - Reply

      Luckily we in Scotland have an alternative, to all the tory parties you have south of the border.

  10. Jill. May 22, 2013 at 5:50 pm - Reply

    I think we will all be moving to Scotland when they vote to go it alone!

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