Cameron’s comedy turn won’t make anybody happy

Tags

benefit, benefits, building, campaign, Conservative, David Cameron, dead, deliver, depress, disability, economic, economy, election, employment rights, European, Farage, health, house, laughing stock, launch, local government, Mandatory Work Activity, marginalise, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, minimum wage, National Health Service, NHS, recession, recovery, referendum, reorganisation, revival, sickness, state, suicide, top-down, Tories, Tory, treaty, UKIP, unemployment, veto, Vox Political, wave, weak, welfare, Work Programme, Workfare

David Cameron should be very happy that UKIP is around to make him look acceptable.

We can’t ever say he’ll look good, but in contrast to the ‘Farage wave’, the spectacle of UKIP being thrown out of the venue where it was supposed to be launching its European election campaign, and the never-ending queue of candidates who are desperate to embarrass themselves publicly – what’s the latest one? “Women should be made to wear skirts because they’re a turn-on for men”? Ye gods… – it’s easy to think that the Conservatives are mild, or at least rational.

They’re not.

But Cameron was keen to project an image of competence at the Conservatives’ campaign launch for the local council elections. This is strange because, with his record of achievement, the things he was saying seem more like stand-up comedy than serious statements of ability.

Try this, about the European Union: “I have a track record of delivery – and believe me, whatever it takes, I will deliver this in-out referendum.” A track record of delivery? Well, yes. He delivered a top-down reorganisation of the NHS that nobody wanted, leading to an inrush of private health companies into the NHS – that nobody wanted. He has delivered the lowest amount of house-building, per year, since records began. He has delivered a withered economic ‘recovery’ that arrived three years later than if he had continued with the plan of the previous, Labour, government. He has delivered all the benefits of that ‘recovery’ to the extremely rich, rather than sharing it equally with the people responsible for it. And he has delivered a new high in employment, with no economic benefit to the country, that has left workers on wages that are so low they are going into debt.

He delivered the bedroom tax.

He delivered a massive increase in the National Debt.

He delivered millions of people into poverty and food bank dependence.

Ha ha ha. Very funny, Mr Cameron.

He told us, “People said I would never veto a European treaty. In 2011 that’s exactly what I did.” Well, yes. But the rest of Europe just went right ahead and carried on without you. You marginalised Britain as a member of the EU and made us a laughing-stock in the eyes of the world.

Ha ha ha. Very funny, Mr Cameron.

“We came through the great recession together; we are building the great British revival together,” he said. But he can’t say that to the many thousands of people who used to be claiming sickness and disability benefits but aren’t anymore because they are all dead. They didn’t come through the great recession. Cameron cut off their means of survival, forcing them into situations in which their health was allowed to worsen until their conditions overwhelmed them, or their situation induced such huge bouts of depression that they took their own lives.

Ha h- no. That’s not funny, Mr Cameron.

“The job is not done. If you want to finish the job we have started, back the party with a plan,” he said. Well, no. The Conservative plan (such as it is) will destroy your employment rights, scrap the welfare state, maintain a huge underclass of unemployed people to use as fodder for work-for-your-benefit schemes (a contradiction in terms if ever there was one) to circumvent the minimum wage, and to claim credit for successes that aren’t theirs.

There is only one reason to support the Conservative Party in this – or any other election.

That is if there is only one other political party on the ballot paper – and that party is UKIP.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Vox Political needs your help!
This independent blog’s only funding comes from readers’ contributions.
Without YOUR help, we cannot keep going.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:

Pleading to stay in the government is like begging to be left on the Titanic

Tags

austerity, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, cabinet, Chancellor, Coalition, Conservative, Council Tax Benefit, David Cameron, David Laws, Eric Pickles, Exchequer, fiscal, general election, George Osborne, Golden Boot Award, government, Liberal, Liberal Democrat, local government, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, minister, Parliament, pasties, pasty, politics, Tories, Tory, Treasury, VAT, Vox Political

The Lady with the curled lip, Baroness Warsi, wants to stay in the cabinet and shouldn’t have to worry – she’s not in your firing line.

It is hard to believe the lengths to which some people will go, to stay in the public eye.

This weekend, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi appealed to David Cameron to keep her on as chair of the Conservative Party in his forthcoming cabinet reshuffle.

Incredibly, she claimed she fits the demographics of all the people the Tories need to get voting for them at the next general election, being a woman, who is not white, from an urban area, in the North, and who is – most unbelievably of all – working class!

Good luck to her. I’ve always found her inability to listen to – let alone respond to – any views other than her own extremely off-putting. Keeping her in place would be the best way for Cameron to lose support from the groups she claims to represent. And I’m all for that.

One person who will, it seems, certainly return to the cabinet is former Treasury minister David Laws. His creative approach to accountancy necessitated his retirement to the backbenches after only 17 days in place, back in 2010. But it seems the kind of crime that would put any other citizen in jail for six months – defrauding the state out of £40,000 – is not serious enough to warrant the continued punishment of an ex-minister.

One thing I’ll say in Baroness Warsi’s favour: At least she’s more honest. She admitted failing to declare rental income (and was eventually let off the hook for it).

The main cabinet posts are also likely to remain fixed, despite some of their holders being unpopular, according to a Vox Political poll. The question was: David Cameron is expected to reshuffle the cabinet in the very near future. Who should he sack?

Before I reveal the results, I should warn you that the number of respondents makes this nothing like representative of general opinion. But it’s fun, so let’s open the envelopes and see the results.

In third place, with 7.7 per cent of the votes, is cabinet pie-muncher and local government minister Eric Pickles! It seems Eric’s plan to abolish Council Tax Benefit and force everyone to pay increased local taxes just to stay in their home has got your goat.

Second, by a massive 30.8 per cent share of the vote, you asked David Cameron to remove himself from the cabinet! Perhaps if he had concentrated more on solving the nation’s problems than playing video games or jaunting off on jolly holidays around the globe, ‘Call Me Dave’ might have avoided the wrath of the public.

But your winner, with an overwhelming 61.5 per cent shareholding, was Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne! Gideon’s persistent inability to balance the books, letting his rich corporate buddies off paying their taxes while squeezing the rest of us until our pips have well and truly squeaked, have had you squawking in protest (and tweeting, too). His fiscal austerity plan that forced the UK economy into a nosedive was a serious enough misjudgement, but what really browned you off was his idea to charge VAT on pasties, depending on how hot they were.

George deserves a prize and, considering the nature of this vote, I propose we call it the Golden Boot Award. I’ll be keeping it at my house until he can be bothered to turn up for it, at which point I will gladly bestow it upon his posterior.