Here’s why the general election is a deadly serious matter
Boris Johnson in one of his more sane moments. Do you really want this man negotiating with Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong-Un? The alternative is Emily Thornberry, who today (May 14) made mincemeat of Michael Fallon on national television.
I just posted a response, on Facebook, to a confused gentleman who didn’t want to vote Labour because he doesn’t like Diane Abbott, and thinks her finger might be on the nuclear button in a Labour administration.
He also thought the shadow Home Secretary might have a hand in negotiations with Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong-Un.
Okay – firstly, those responsibilities belong to the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary.
Secondly, unless he lives in Ms Abbott’s Hackney constituency, what happens to Ms Abbott is a tangential matter for him. I told him:
The Conservatives are worse than useless when it comes to running a country.
“If I were you, I’d look at the candidates in my own constituency and try to decide which of them are any good; and I’d also ask if – overall – the Conservatives really are a better choice than Labour.
“Have a think about it. Conservatives want to close the NHS and bring in private healthcare. They’ve been privatising publicly-owned services and selling them off to foreign companies, so our money goes abroad, rather than being invested in British business. They’ve been starting useless foreign wars so that people have been recruited into terrorist groups dedicated to harming us. Their policy on social security is to drive claimants to suicide, or death due to their own physical illnesses, and claim their policies had nothing to do with it. Their policy on tax is to take your money and give it to the rich, who will then take it out of circulation and hide it in tax havens. Their policy on industrial relations is to crush the workers, paying them a pittance and giving the rest to people who do very little work but own the companies.
“The Conservatives are worse than useless when it comes to running a country.
“I cannot understand why you would worry about Diane Abbott when you should be worrying about Philip Hammond, Boris Johnson, David Davis who sexually assaulted Diane Abbott in a House of Commons bar and got away with it, Amber Rudd, Michael Fallon – the man who reckons a “growing economy” will allow him to replenish the UK’s defence investments. Growing economy? It’s shrinking because of Tory policy! Liz Truss – the Justice Minister would wouldn’t stand up for the judiciary. Justine Greening, Liam Fox, Damian Green – the man who denied the self-evident truths in the film I, Daniel Blake despite being bombarded with real-life examples caused by his own government department. Chris Grayling – responsible for thousands of DWP deaths before depriving most of us of access to justice; now messing up transport. Sajid Javid, who went on a jolly to Australia when he should have been trying to save Tata Steel. I’m reeling these names off the top of my head because their disasters are so fresh in my mind.
A vote for the Conservatives is a vote to harm the British way of life. It always was.
“Labour has all the ideas. Labour’s draft manifesto was leaked last week by somebody who wanted to make the party look bad, and it backfired massively because it’s one of the best party political programmes ever devised. The only thing the Conservatives have been able to put up against it is a feeble claim that Jeremy Corbyn is “not a leader”, supported by less evidence than a troll on one of these comment threads. The only reason people believe their tripe is because the BBC dutifully reports it as though it’s scripture. It isn’t.
“‘Strong and stable’? Conservative government is ‘Stuff from a stable’!”
If you have a friend who is thinking of voting Conservative, please share this article with them and ask them to think carefully and seriously about the good of the country.
A vote for the Conservatives is a vote to harm the British way of life. It always was.
The only political organisation with a plan to rebuild the UK after so many years of Conservative and neoliberal ruin is Labour.
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Hear Hear!!!!
I think Mike that the man you advised has been saturated with decades of Tory propaganda. It is very worrying that people think like that, but I personally know a man who is an ardent Labour supporter who reads the Sun and he has allowed that rag’s malicious propaganda to influence him against some Labour personalities.
Diana abbot hmmm she well is a true labour person perhaps putting the wrong foot forward but then the tories have boris oh dear I now who I’d be voting for if you want a lot of honest people then vote labour yes they have a few greedie ones but not has many has the tories got oh dear. Vote Tory then aktion t4 rolls along alot quicker has they been given the green light to cull the stock further
Good point Jeff, but I think an election win for the homicidal Tories would be an automatic green light, especially as May will have a lot of humiliations to avenge!!!
Apart from the people with interest in the private sector that outweighs their morals, it seems to me that the majority of people still willing to vote for the Conservatives at this time are far more interested in personality politics than actual policy. You get a lot of “I agree with these Labour policies, but I don’t like X in the party, therefore I won’t vote Labour.” (Usually Corbyn).
The issue is that the media paints dangerous tory politicians as normal, as to be expected from people in the profession. Yet people like Corbyn and Abbot are painted as dangerous, useless, abnormal. It creates an ‘us vs them’ culture, when somehow the rich toffs who only care about other rich toffs are considered ‘us’ whilst more principled, more ordinary politicians become ‘them’… or in this case, communist stalin-lovers (despite the fact that the key negative aspect of Stalinism is authoritarianism, which the Conservatives have a huge monopoly on).
And it’s hard to persuade those people out of these views, because typically they worship a specific newspaper or news source as if its word is gospel, and you essentially become one voice against what these people believe is the consensus of the public. I know this through experiences with my own father… he’s not a tory and would never dream of voting Conservatives, but he’s strongly anti-Corbyn, because the Guardian tells him to be. He calls the Guardian trustworthy and factual, when it has bent truths, exaggerated facts and outright made stuff up in ways that often rival the likes of the Daily Mail.
Show him all This Site’s articles showing up the Graun for what it is these days, if you haven’t already done so.