Way back when the Tories got into power (2010), they had a bit of a cheer-a-thon when austerity measures were announced. I said at the time that even if austerity was necessary (and it probably wasn’t), it wasn’t the sort of thing to cheer about.
We’ve since seen the effect of their austerity fetish taking effect on our public services – NHS waiting lists grown out of all proportion, trouble filling public-sector vacancies, pot-holes in the roads, libraries closed left, right, and centre.
Even if it were necessary, the initial cheering tells us everything we need to know about Tories. They don’t give a damn about most of us – they would rather cut taxes for their rich pals.
So remember when you vote – the Tories aren’t on your side.
Well yes, the Tories need a new party leader to rebuild their party after the next election. Before the election? The new leader will just be a sacrificial lamb that’ll probably be thrown out onto the slag heap (hopefully a nice soggy wet one) at the next election.
It’ll almost certainly not save them from being wiped out (and that’s from 6 months ago; if anything, things are even worse today) at the next election.
An overwhelming majority of people want an election now and changing leaders now in what will be seen as yet another undemocratic move (it isn’t; it’s just people like to think they’re voting for a particular PM when they’re just voting for their MP) is likely to make the Tories even more unpopular.
If I were Starmer, I’d launch a parliamentary vote of no confidence as soon as the replacement showed up in parliament :-
The people don’t want you. We don’t want you. The other parties here don’t want you. And if they were honest, half of those on your side don’t want you either.
– Me putting words in Starmer’s mouth.
He’d lose of course, but the people will see it as an honest attempt at doing the right thing.
Some of us who are anti-Tory are encouraging the use of tactical voting – voting not necessarily for the party you would most like to represent you, but instead voting for the party most likely to defeat the Tories. The Tory government has been so inept, corrupt, morally bankrupt, and generally icky, that giving them a total hammering is only right.
But there are plenty of people out there who don’t feel that Labour (or one of the others in certain areas) really represent their views. Labour has moved too far to the right – which is something I would agree with.
But politics is about compromise and with first-past-the-post system, we have to compromise more than other systems of voting. There will never be a political party that exactly represents my views, so I have to select the one that closest matches my views. In an ideal world anyway.
In a less than idea world, we have to compromise more and vote for the candidate in our constituency that is most likely to defeat the Tories. There is no point in voting for the Green party in a constituency where they typically get 2-3% of the vote when switching to the Liberal-Democrats are in second place and most likely to defeat the Tories.
The left in Britain is somewhat more fractured than the right (although if we give the Tories a bloody enough nose that might just change) which with the FPTP system gives the Tories an inherent advantage. We need to overcome that advantage and without a change in the voting system, tactical voting is the way to do that.
Give the Tories a bloody nose and vote tactically.
For the benefit of those tuning in late, or to refresh the memories of those coming back to this years later, Dominic Cummings (Boris Johnson’s chief political advisor) has been caught breaching lockdown restrictions whilst ill with the coronavirus.
Now there are those who believe he did nothing wrong; they’re idiots but it is no longer a question of what he did or didn’t do, or whether it was against the regulations themselves, or whether it was against the spirit of the regulations. Or even if he put other people at risk.
Although it is worth pointing out that as his wife was already sick with coronavirus he was not supposed to leave the house for any reason.
No, now it is the response that is more significant.
If Dom and his buddy Boris had responded sensibly – admitted that it was wrong, and Dom had resigned – that would be fine. Or at least no worse than we expect from the Tories.
But to claim that he did nothing wrong when to most of us it has all the appearance of one rule for us and quite another for the Tory toffs, is just inflaming the situation.
Now that we’re in the middle of a pandemic (or close to the beginning of it), everyone is proclaiming health care workers to be heroes. Not that I disagree.
But if they’re heroes, why have you been cutting their pay for the last ten years? For seven years there was a 1% cap on cost of living pay increases, which came to an end with a 6.5% increase over three years – which is nowhere near enough to make up for the shortfall.
Today a nurse is earning less in real terms (i.e. stuff he can buy) than a nurse earned in 2008.
Is this how you treat heros?
Now we are not individually responsible for taking a few more of life’s little luxuries away each year, but collectively we are.
So make a resolution: Never under any circumstances vote for a Tory ever again.
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