Tory Archives - Page 2 of 7

Boris’ Partygate: Why Now?

Jan 172022

So it appears that the Tory idiots in government have been partying hard all the way through the Covid pandemic including those periods of time when the law prohibited such events. They’re trying to masquerade them as “work events” but even those were prohibited during the height of the pandemic. And you do have to wonder just what they were doing that required physical in person meetings – almost everything that occurs during such meetings can take place virtually.

Idiots? Yes – drunken antics in Number 10 carry a substantial risk of leakage, and anyone with half a brain would be worried about the backlash on leaks that the government was busy partying whilst the public were prohibited from meeting other people for purposes far more serious than getting sloshed.

But the big mystery is why the delay in the news coming out. Anyone could be forgiven for suspecting that the story has been “held” until certain people have decided that it is time for Boris to go.

Why The Current British Government Is So Useless

General, Politics No Responses »

Aug 312020

I’m not a Tory; I don’t agree with their economic policies, social policies; hell I’d be hard pushed to find anything that I’d agree with them on. But in the past the occasional Tory government did at least have some basic level of competency – it was not just an endless serious of shambolic decisions and U-turns.

Just take a look at this (which is just one week).

Now I’m not opposed to U-turns – if you make a mistake, staying with that mistake because to make a U-turn makes you look bad, is the worst thing you can do. But too many U-turns is a sign of something far more serious – too many mistakes.

It’s Brexit.

Yes I know it’s all too easy to blame everything on Brexit, but sometimes it might just be true. I have a sneaking suspicion that any Tory with half a brain is in hiding until the chaos is over – whatever you think of their policies it is usual for at least some of the government to be smart, but the current government seems completely devoid of any clue.

It makes sense from their point of view – it would be better to have driven a stake through the heart of the Brexit concept, but without that option it is best to stay out of the limelight and look to picking up the pieces afterwards.

But it probably won’t work that well.

They’re Heros Now, So Why Have You Been Cutting Their Pay?

Politics No Responses »

Mar 212020

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.

So Near, But So Far

Politics No Responses »

Jun 172017

The election result is in, and the Tories have failed; specifically they failed to increase their majority and indeed no longer constitute a majority. Yet the alternatives have failed too.

The likelihood is that the Tories will form the next government propped up by the reactionary Unionists from Northern Ireland. We can crow over May not getting her increased majority, but she is still in number 10. Which means more years of Tory misrule.

So what went wrong?

Well we could argue that factors such as different attitudes to Brexit, doubt over the Labour leader’s leadership, etc. But there are two big factors.

Firstly the media lies by the Tory press (which seems to be pretty much most of them). Whilst the press is owned by a clique of super-rich Tory supporters, the good news is that the newsprint industry is slowly fading into irrelevance – no doubt helped by their ridiculous bias. And tasteless journalism – the sort of which led to the Sun being boycotted in Liverpool.

Secondly, and perhaps the biggest aspect is that a large segment of the working class has bought into the big Tory lie – that they support the ordinary working family and small businesses. In reality Tories support the super rich with their tax cuts, and don’t give a damn about the working class. The real working class.

Which is not what most people think of when they hear that phrase; it is not just the horned handed agricultural labourer and the worn out factory worker, but it also includes office workers, lawyers, “knowledge workers”, etc. It is everyone who works for a living, Somehow workers in the Tory heartlands are fooled into thinking that the Tories are on their side.

What the Tory alternatives need to do is to persuade these deluded workers that voting Tory helps only the super-rich, and not by painting themselves a fetching shade of blue (as New Labour did).

Are Final Salary Pension Schemes Generous?

Politics No Responses »

Apr 302017

Short answer: NO!

One of the infuriating things I come across is the notion that final salary pension schemes are generous; it seems that a generation of Tory propaganda has persuaded people that such schemes were wildly over-generous and completely affordable. Of course many of those doing the persuading are taking advantage of those “generous” pension schemes.

What it is easy to forget is that many of those final salary pension schemes collapsed because successive governments turned a blind eye to the private sector looting pension scheme surpluses and panicking when the surpluses turned into deficits. In other words when pensions were profitable they were affordable, but whenever a company suddenly had to contribute more than it expected they were suddenly too expensive.

Now don’t get me wrong – with increasing life expectancy there are problems with funding pension schemes, and we can decide that they are too expensive, or not. But if a pension scheme was perfectly reasonable in the 1970s, it doesn’t suddenly become overly generous in the 21st century.

As it is, we have “decided” that rather than share wealth out amongst the working-class, it should be kept in the hands of the already wealthy.

Of course we could always decide to revisit that decision and spend more time thinking about it.

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