{"id":6423,"date":"2024-05-26T19:42:22","date_gmt":"2024-05-26T19:42:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/?p=6423"},"modified":"2024-05-26T19:42:24","modified_gmt":"2024-05-26T19:42:24","slug":"the-tory-austerity-fetish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/?p=6423","title":{"rendered":"The Tory Austerity Fetish"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>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 <a href=\"http:\/\/really.zonky.org\/?p=1243\">the time<\/a> that even if austerity was necessary (and it probably wasn&#8217;t), it wasn&#8217;t the sort of thing to cheer about. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;ve since seen the effect of their austerity fetish taking effect on our public services &#8211; NHS waiting lists grown out of all proportion, trouble filling public-sector vacancies, pot-holes in the roads, libraries closed left, right, and centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even if it were necessary, the initial cheering tells us everything we need to know about Tories. They don&#8217;t give a damn about most of us &#8211; they would rather cut taxes for their rich pals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So remember when you vote &#8211; the Tories aren&#8217;t on your side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"695\" height=\"927\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/really.zonky.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022-06-06-dover-castle-gateway.jpeg?resize=695%2C927&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"A long road to the gatehouse\" class=\"wp-image-6182\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/really.zonky.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022-06-06-dover-castle-gateway.jpeg?resize=768%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/really.zonky.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022-06-06-dover-castle-gateway.jpeg?resize=225%2C300&amp;ssl=1 225w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/really.zonky.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022-06-06-dover-castle-gateway.jpeg?resize=1152%2C1536&amp;ssl=1 1152w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/really.zonky.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022-06-06-dover-castle-gateway.jpeg?w=1240&amp;ssl=1 1240w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 695px) 100vw, 695px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Dover Castle Gateway<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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&#8217;t), it wasn&#8217;t the sort of thing to cheer about. We&#8217;ve since seen the effect of their austerity fetish taking <a href='https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/?p=6423' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[2230,2231,2229,2227,210,176,30],"class_list":["post-6423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-austerity","tag-austerity-fetish","tag-cheering","tag-election-2024","tag-tories","tag-tory","tag-uk","category-3-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/mstdn.social\/@grumpygrimnir\/112509094611575487","error":""},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1f2KI-1FB","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6423"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6424,"href":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6423\/revisions\/6424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}