The Tories - Either they were fast or they were lying

The Tories have already broken some kind of new world record but I can’t tell which one it is.

A mere two days before the General Election which tragically gave the UK a Tory (read ‘Nazi’) majority ‘government’, the Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, refused to say where the £12 billion in cuts to the welfare budget would be coming from because “we would have to have done the work on it, that’s why, and we would have to have reached agreement as to exactly where those are”.  The inference being that no work had been done on where the cuts should be made in the welfare budget.

The full section of the debate is reproduced here (taken from www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/iain-duncan-smith-admits-tories-5641217):

Asked to outline specific welfare cuts, he bleated: “As soon as we have done the work and had it properly modelled then we will let everybody know what that is.”

Shadow Minister Rachel Reeves slammed his response, saying: “People have a big choice to make in two days’ time.

"But it’s very difficult to make that choice when they don’t know what the choice is.”

Mr Duncan Smith was asked why it wasn’t “relevant” to explain where the axe would fall during BBC2’s Daily Politics welfare debate.

“Because we would have to have done the work on it, that’s why, and we would have to have reached agreement as to exactly where those are,” he said.

“Everyone is very clear that after the next election, you get a Conservative government - we have already said that we will save £12billion on essentially working-age benefits.

“The work that we do on this will be done in the Spending Review, and we will announce that.”

You can see the full debate here:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=__RAYwS_Uv4

This was also the story given by virtually any Tory who was asked about the cuts to the welfare budget, cuts that will negatively affect the most vulnerable people in the UK including the disabled.

Imagine my surprise, then, when, mere hours into the new administration, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) published the Impact Assessment on the cuts to the Access to Work fund that helps people and employers cover costs of disabilities that might be a barrier to work.

Wow!  That’s some quick work.  Yes, the policy was mooted back in March but, surely, if that was one of the areas they were looking at, the voting public should have been told.  Even areas of debate regarding cuts should have been mentioned as potential areas for cuts especially a cuts to a fund like Access to Work that helps people with visual or auditory problems get into and stay in work.

It’s quite funny how the Impact Assessment, obviously commissioned by the Tories, states that “[Spending] has risen significantly over the past five years … One of the significant strategic questions we face is how to establish the right balance between the need to support as many disabled people as possible and what it is reasonable to offer individual users” whilst the Tories stated in their manifesto that although "last year alone, 140,000 disabled people found work" also says that "the jobless rate for this group remains too high.” The Tories pledged that "As part of our objective to achieve full employment, we will aim to halve the disability employment gap: we will transform policy, practice and public attitudes, so that hundreds of thousands more disabled people who can and want to be in work find employment".

Does cutting the fund to help people with visual and auditory impairments get work really help with their pledge to halve the disability employment gap?  I don’t think so.

The fact that an Impact Assessment could be published so quickly into the new administration means that work was already being done on where the cuts in the welfare budget were coming from, the Tories just didn’t want anyone to know before the election because it might have affected their chances of winning (assuming that the public had some kind of moral compass that states that it’s wrong to punish the weak).

So the world record has to be for the quickest piece of work ever done, shouldn’t it?  Or should that be for the quickest a lie has been uncovered following an election?  I can’t make my mind up on this.  Which do you think is the least naive answer?

The quotes from the Impact Assessment and the Tory manifesto were sourced from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelection/hours-after-the-election-the-dwp-says-it-is-looking-to-cut-a-disabled-access-to-work-scheme-10237191.html

UK Apocalypse has begun!

When the cuts started to bite during the first couple of years of the last administration in the UK following the 2010 General Election I predicted protests and riots across the UK.  Perhaps I was naive or just underestimated the amazing amount of tolerance the Great British public seems to possess when it comes to inequality and the inevitable deep cuts that come associated with a Tory ‘Government’ when the number and scale of protests and riots was nothing near my prediction.

However, I think the Great British public have reached beyond that point when earlier today, just a day into the new Tory-only administration, London was the scene of an impromptu protest.

It turned ugly.

Police became politicised in protecting the State over protecting its citizens and violence ensued.  I don’t think that this is the end of the trouble as, even though the police should be on the side of the protesters (given that their numbers have been slashed due to Tory cuts), as protests spring up, with their reduced numbers, the fewer police will have to contend with larger and larger crowds of protesters.  Fear of the sheer weight of numbers will lead police to become ever more brutal in trying to put down protesters and the violence will surely escalate on both sides.

I hope I’m wrong but I fear my former predictions weren’t of the 2010-2015 coalition administration but of the new Tory-only 2015-2020 administration and that I may have underestimated the troubled times that are to come.

If I’m right, the UK Apocalypse has begun and it may very well end in a lot of blood.

 

For some shocking footage, IN FULL, please visit this link - http://bambuser.com/v/5499931

Please share this news!

GE2015: I’ve done my duty and voted…

About an hour ago, at the time I started writing this, I cast my vote in the General Election.  As I went to the booth to mark my ballot papers, or betting slips would be a more accurate description, I turned to the people handing out the papers and said “what I’m doing now is my democratic duty…so why do I suddenly feel so dirty?” and I can honestly say that I did, and do, feel dirty and ashamed.

During my worst period of depression last year, and I feel ashamed to admit this, I was so bad that all thoughts of personal hygiene were forgotten and I barely moved from the sofa that has been my bed for so many years now.  I went for over a week without a shower, hardly leaving the flat and stinking of stale sweat from the almost constant excessive sweating caused by the medication I have to take.  My duvet was soaked in sweat and covered in cat hairs all of which added to the aroma of desperate, hopeless depression hanging in the air and which I had to sleep in.  Today, the simple act of voting made me feel dirtier now than I did then.  Doing my democratic duty shouldn’t make me feel this way, surely?

It wasn’t the act of voting for my local councillor, although that job wasn’t very easy given that no council candidates came anywhere near knocking on any doors around my area, but the act of voting for the local Parliamentary candidate that made me feel sullied.

The complete lack of any real alternative to the main party candidates and no proper ‘None of the Above’ protest vote have shown me just how outdated and anachronistic our voting system is; actually you could argue, and I have, that the whole political system is corrupt and no longer fit for purpose.

It’s horrific to think, in an election in which, more than ever, every vote counts, I feel that my vote means nothing to me, to the electorate, to the Government.  Let’s face facts – this election, according to most commentators, will end in another coalition which is essentially another unelected administration like the one it will be replacing.  Where is the sense of democracy in that?  Everybody votes, no one gets the Government they voted for.  There are no winners, only losers and the extremely pissed off.

In probably the most important election for years, we are faced with the truth we have ignored for so long – democracy died in 2010 and is unlikely to be revived unless the whole political system is changed to reflect the society of the 21^st Century.

Although I try to believe that my vote is important and stands for something, I can’t shake off the feeling of shame and disgust of having been part of participating in such a sham of democracy.  There isn’t water hot enough or a surface abrasive enough to clean the grime of this election from my body.

GE2015: E-mail from ‘Re-elect Jackie Doyle-Price’

I received an e-mail from Jackie Doyle-Price’s campaign team yesterday (although I didn’t read it until this morning), I felt quite affronted that her team even dare to contact me after the way JD-P ignored my nicely written and polite letters so I sent them a nice reply.  Below is the e-mail I received.

The e-mail I received

  

Dear Myles Cook,

ONLY A VOTE FOR THE CONSERVATIVES CAN STOP LABOUR AND THE SNP

Tomorrow, Thursday, is the most important election in a generation.  By Friday morning Ed Miliband could be our Prime Minister.  You can help stop that from happening by voting for me, here in Thurrock.

Ed Miliband can only become Prime Minister with the support of the SNP. That means he’ll be held to ransom by Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond on every vote in Parliament – and we’ll pick up the bill.  I don’t know about you, but I think we send enough money to Scotland. The SNP will also have a veto over anything the UK Government does in places like Thurrock – whether it affects Scotland or not.  That just isn’t fair.

It also means the progress we’ve been making to secure Britain’s future will be put at risk. Higher taxes and borrowing for people here to fund extra spending and benefits in Scotland. But because Thurrock is one of the most marginal constituencies in the country – your vote can stop this. But only if you vote Conservative.

I won by just 92 votes last time.  And if I am elected again that is one less vote for Ed Miliband and the SNP.

With the economy growing again, David Cameron and the Conservatives has been able to invest in good schools to help our children reach their potential.  Here in Thurrock that means three new free schools – one in Tilbury and two for Chafford Hundred – as well as a new Studio school in Ockendon.  We are investing in a better NHS that will always provide the best care for you and your loved ones. Here in Thurrock we will be making money available for GPs surgeries to be open for longer hours.  Ed Miliband and Labour have no plan and would make the same mistakes they did last time – wrecking the economy, and putting our public services at risk for future generations.

This election is close. Your vote will decide the national outcome.

If you want to stop Labour and the SNP taking us back to square one, Myles, please vote Conservative tomorrow.

Best wishes,

P.S.  For the past five years I have been fighting for Thurrock and fighting for you. I have delivered three new schools; new investment in the A13 and J30 of the M25 and improvements at Basildon hospital. Don’t put the progress we’re making locally at risk. Vote Conservative.

My reply

I ignored some of the obviously fictitious material in her e-mail and gave what I believe to be an appropriate response.

Fuck off, Jackie Doyle-Price!  You've had many chances to engage with me in the past and you ignored me and blocked my e-mail address so you didn't get my politely written e-mails.  You're a blight on the human race as is every Tory tosser.

I think regular readers will probably agree, given her dismissive attitude to my e-mails in the past (and which new readers can view on this blog), that is a very appropriate response.