News OnTheWight always welcomes a Letter to the Editor to share with our readers – unsurprisingly they don’t always reflect the views of this publication. If you have something you’d like to share, get in touch and of course, your considered comments are welcome below.
This from HK Butcher, Seaview. Ed
I am probably not going to agree with the political outcome suggested in some of your recent letters, comments and opinion polls. Is it really going to be a slam-dunk when it comes to ousting the present government at the next general election, or might the Conservatives be re-elected by default?
Conservative Ministers are once again revealing their true colours. Continuing to impose cuts by stealth by insisting pay settlements have to be met out of existing budgets, bullying those beneath them, whilst embarking on a pre-election fear campaign, sowing division within our society, to draw attention away from their inadequacies and historic litany of failures.
Expect the usual round of fake promises
No doubt closer to the general election voters will be thrown a few crumbs along with the usual round of fake promises. What was the last one announced on the steps of Downing Street by Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson? ‘We will fix Social Care’.
Well they haven’t. Many of our elderly still live in fear of losing their family homes to pay care home fees of around £2,000 a week, for often minimal levels of care.
A return of the ‘nasty party’
Senior Conservatives have been quietly raising concerns that they might once again be seen as the ‘nasty party’, which I have to say, I find a little bit rich. For many they have always been seen as the ‘nasty party’.
I mean, listen to the loathsome rhetoric coming out of the mouths of Deputy Conservative Party Leader 30p Lee Anderson, Suella Braverman, Priti Patel, Jacob Rees Smug.
Recessions inflict misery on millions of people
Then you’ve got the more silver tongued spiel and actions of Jeremy Hunt, who spent years undermining our NHS in order to monetize health care. Now, as Chancellor, he has said he is indifferent about Britain falling into recession. Clearly, he doesn’t give two hoots about the misery a recession would inflict on millions of people.
No doubt Hunt and Sunak see a recession as an, ‘entrepreneurial opportunity’, for the chosen few to make yet more money at the expense of the public.
Unpleasant, threatening and divisive
Then there’s the deeply offensive utterances of Dominic Rabb, who wrote in his book, Britannia Unchained, that British workers are amongst the worse idlers in the World. Delve back into recent history and there’s the equally arrogant views championed by the likes of Liz Truss, Esther McVey, Sir Gavin Williamson, the Minister many believe only became ‘Sir Gavin’ because his stint as Party Whip gave him all the dirt on his Conservative colleagues. The list goes on and on. The truth is, being deeply unpleasant, threatening and divisive is, and has always been, part of the Conservative Party’s DNA.
Why do we continually vote for these people? Do any of them truly reflect the values we hold dear as generous and kind people?
Driving our country’s people into the ground
The Conservative Party is the Conservative Party. The question has to be, is it the Conservatives, and their VIP cronies who made off with £billions of taxpayers money, who are responsible for torching our once great Country and driving its people into the ground?
Or is it us, the electorate, for continually voting them into power? Food banks in the sixth richest country in the world? 4.2 million of our most precious asset, children, living in poverty? What a legacy after over a decade in power.
Kind, caring and considerate derided as being ‘woke’
If you are kind, caring, thoughtful and considerate, then you are now derided and ridiculed as being ‘woke’. What a messed up world we are living in where being ‘woke’ is seen as a negative attribute.
Perhaps it’s time for some serious reflection? But what are the alternatives? There, in a nut shell, lies the problem.
Who is holding the Government to account?
Why are none of the opposition Party’s holding our Government to account? Where are their policies? It’s as though they are too timid and scared to challenge the current malaise, or offer any imaginative ideas.
My guess is none of them really want to be in Government, it’s much easier to simply draw your parliamentary salary, with all the bolt-on privileges, without having to do any hard graft, and enjoy sniping from the opposition benches instead.
The electorate need to be offered a credible alternative
For real change to happen the electorate need to be offered a credible alternative, along with a range of policies they can believe in, and get behind. With nothing on offer the view that all politicians are the same and in the job for their own selfish aims gains sucker, and before you know it, the current government is back in power.
So come on Greens, Lib Dems, Labour, let’s see what you’ve got, it’s time to pull your fingers out.
Image: For illustrative puposes only – Old pound coin being squeezed in nutcracker by Howard Lake under CC BY 2.0
