Last week, Theresa May triggered a general election after denying she planned to do so. That’s the latest in a long list of lies from the Prime Minister, but that’s another story entirely. On June 8th, the country will go to the polls to decide a new Government for this country, and decide whether they want the Christian that doesn’t seem to really give a damn about other people like her religion says she should, or a man who means well but doesn’t have practical experience of running in positions of power having spent almost the entirety of his political life on the back benches.
Bit of a duff choice, you may think. But if you truly believe that Corbyn isn’t a viable option, let me outline why the country is pretty much screwed under a Conservative Government.
- Hard Brexit. It’s the biggest electoral bullet, and will likely blow all other national issues (the sort of issues people should REALLY care about) out of the water in the publicity run-up to the election. Theresa May will protest as loudly as she can that she will get a “good deal” for the country. But the hard and fast truth is that whatever deal we get from leaving the EU, it simply won’t be even the slightest bit as good as the deal we have from being a member of the European Union. And we even risk leaving with nothing at all.
- Electoral Fraud. The news that 30 Tory MPs are being considered for charges of alleged electoral fraud will come as no real surprise to many cynics. The Leave.EU campaign is also being investigated over spending during the referendum run-up. What guarantees do we have that the Conservatives don’t apply the same lack of judgment or accuracy in their other Governmental dealings?
- Education. The Conservative plans to bring back Grammar schools in a big way was lauded (by them) as a way to narrow the class gap, when all the evidence points to it doing the exact opposite. At this point any Tory voter should be smelling a rat, and asking their party to justify fully their plans.
- Healthcare. Under the Conservatives, waiting list targets have been dropped, missed and changed. Spending, regardless of what the Government will say, has been slashed. Contracts are handed out to the likes of Virgin Healthcare like confetti, and contracts have been cancelled when private companies have realised there’s no profit to be made from them. This mostly impacts care in the community, care for older people, and mental healthcare. Oliver Letwin said, before the last election, that within a few years of a Tory Government, the NHS would not exist. Mental healthcare has suffered hugely under this Government, with funding for providers being slashed heavily. It seems this Government doesn’t see mental health as a real issue.
- Welfare. The change to Universal Credit has not been a smooth one, and whilst the idea of centralising all welfare payments under one umbrella is a reasonably sound one, the implementation by the Conservative-coalition, and now the Conservative Government, has been, to be kind, shambolic. And that’s before we even start on the ideologically-driven cuts to disability benefits.
- Immigration. The Conservatives have been on the run ever since people stupidly began to give now-seven-time electoral failure Nigel Farage extended media coverage. And it has impacted Labour too, with their 2015 manifesto promising controls on immigration showing their fear of losing voters to the purple of UKIP. But controls on immigration are based on, frankly, xenophobia. Immigration has brough FAR more benefits to this country than any perceived problems people say it has caused. And if we close our borders at Brexit, who will serve your coffee, who will pour your pint, who will clean your toilets, who will wipe your bottom in hospital? Because you can be bloody sure that today’s overly-entitled Brit children won’t be considering it, because they think it’s beneath them. As an afterthought, who can forget those “Go Home” vans?
- Job Security. Theresa May is well-known for wanting to remove us from the European Convention Of Human Rights, partly because of how she was humiliated by Abu Qatada (despite it mostly being her own fault she couldn’t deport him), but mostly because she may actually want to remove protections that workers receive in their jobs. The Tories have already mooted ideas along this line, such as shares for rights where employees give up their working rights in exchange for a pittance of shares in their company. They have also made it more difficult to bring cases of unfair dismissal, by piling costs on to those who have to bring such charges. They have changed the law regarding when it is okay for a company to fire an employee. They claim (because they know there are enough people out there who will buy such idiotic claims) that making employees more vulnerable, they’re giving employees more job security. Wonderful logic!
- Taxation. The Tories tried to raise National Insurance this Parliament, but had to wirhdraw it when it was noted that they actually pledged not to make any rises to National Insurance. Council tax is a hot topic as well, with Surrey County Council allegedly receiving a sweetheart deal from the Government allowing them to get more central funding without having to call a local referendum to raise their council tax charges.
These are just some of the most important issues facing this country on June 8th. But you can bet your bottom dollar the only one that it will actually be fought on is Brexit. Because that’s pretty much the only thing people actually care about right now. They may claim to care about healthcare, education, welfare, job security and all that, but really they don’t actually care that much at all, especially if it doesn’t immediately affect them. We are a nation of NIMBYists, and if an issue isn’t affecting us or our own, we simply do not care.
People also tend not to change a Government on subjective issues, rather more large-scale issues tend to see Governmental change. 1974’s three day week led to a Labour Government. Thatcher’s victory in 1979 was down to the Winter Of Discontent. Blair’s landslide win in 1997 was down to sleaze allegations throughout the Tory party of the time. In 2010 it was the bank crisis that led to a Governmental change. What do all of these have in common? Well, the media. All of them were turned into single-issue elections because of the way they were covered through the press. And all of them were fought based on competence to run Government, not the actual issues themselves.
This, to me, is the main reason the country is screwed if it chooses to elect another Tory Government. Because if we cannot make people care about issues without a national scandal, how do we convince them that they should reject this Conservative Government?
At the end of the day, it is highly likely that the election on June 8th will result in a Conservative Government again. People will blame Corbyn, people will blame whatever they can, but the simple fact of the matter is that Theresa May hasn’t proven herself incompetent enough to warrant removing, in the eyes of the people, or the media. When we learn that, we can finally start formulating a way to get Labour into Government, and to keep them there.
Vote Labour. Do your best to convince people that a Labour Government is the best thing for this country right now. But don’t be disheartened, or distracted by the blame game when the Tories win.
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