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Tories now wide open to attack: when is Labour going to exocet them?

CameronEven on their own terms the Tories are now exposed to assault on several grounds. Cameron threw down the gauntlet by asking: Who do you trust? Labour should pick it up. Large majorities in the electorate think the Tories are the party of the rich, not for them; witness the tax cuts for millionaires and the latest tax breaks in Cameron’s speech which are worth 4 times more for the richest 10% than for the lower-paid 50%. They think the Tories are out of touch and have little understanding of, and even less care about, how austerity has hit the poor, including prominently the working poor. They think the Tories are not committed to improving public services on which so many depend, and even on the totemic NHS they don’t trust the commitment which the Tories espouse. They also think the Tories are far too obsessed about Europe and that their ideological zeal is a distraction and a drawback from prioritising problems in the UK.

Do people trust the Tories for keeping their promises? They said they would impose no further top-down reorganisation of the NHS, never mentioned a word about this in their election manifesto in 2010, and then set about the most nakedly ideological dismantling of the NHS in favour of their privatisation obsession. They promised that in the face of austerity we would all be in it together, when in fact they have loaded the cutbacks almost exclusively on public services and social security benefits, with no tax increases on the rich. They promised to deal with the deficit, but it’s still £100bn, even beginning to rise again, and at least £50bn more than they forecast in 2010. Even the universal credit they lauded as ending work disincentives has turned out a fiasco, wasting a huge mass of taxpayers’ money, and a failure on its objectives.

The Tories are keen to say they can at least be trusted on the economy. Really? They say the country is broke, so not a penny of extra expenditure can be afforded, but then Cameron reels off his electoral bribes costing over £7bn, totally unfunded. He’s also entered into an open-ended third war in the Middle East without explaining how it’s going to be afforded. They like to talk about their economic management, but then play fast and loose with it when it suits them.

On issue after issue the Tories have been shameless in junking their promises and doing the opposite. Labour should go for them tooth and nail on their record of untrustworthiness.

10 Comments

  1. Carole McCulloch says:

    Here are a few other issues not my work copy and pasted.

    Tories have axed 576 Sure Start Centres.
    Bankers’ Bonuses have risen by 64% in just 1 year.
    Food Bank usage has grown by 700%+ in 3 years.
    1 million are now employed on Zero-Hours Contracts.
    The Disabled have suffered real term cuts of 1.7% this year in benefits some now live in official poverty as defined by the DWP.
    52,701 firms have been declared Insolvent.
    379,968 persons have been declared Insolvent.
    Unemployment is 20,000+ higher today than May 2010.
    Private Rental Homes costs £9,084 to rent (£1,128 up from Apr 2010)
    Tories have axed 5,601 Nurses since May 2010.
    Council Tax rises imposed on the poor & disabled have led to 450,000 being summoned to courts since April.
    1 million people have had to sell their family home to pay for Elderly Care in the last 5 years (in fairness that does include 2 years of a Labour government). HOWEVER Cameron promised that no one would have to sell their family home to pay for elderly care.
    More than 250,000 Disabled people have been forced to take place in the Work Programme unpaid.
    Water Charges are up 20% since 1 Apr 2010.
    20% of Law Firms are facing bankruptcy and 500 have shut in 6 months amid Legal Aid cuts.
    Stamp Prices are up 46-56% since May 2010.
    Suicide Rates have climbed 8% in just 1 year.
    Number of Children in Class Sizes of more than 30 has doubled in a year.
    Free Schools are under-subscribed but they get more money per pupil & freeze out poor kids.
    Tories axed 5,000 Firefighters and hundreds of Fire Stations.
    Waiting Lists for families seeking to rent social housing have soared to record highs.
    Housing Benefit Bill has climbed to more than £20 billion as Private Landlords cash in with record rents.
    The number of Cancelled Operations in our NHS have doubled and are at their worst for 8 years.
    OBR predict Household Debt will grow more than £500bn this parliament.
    The Tories sold the Royal Mail for 50% less than it’s now valued.
    Gas Prices are up 31% since May 2010.
    Homelessness is up 28-34% since May 2010.
    Rough Sleeping in London has grown 85% since Boris Johnson became Mayor.
    House Building, last year, fell to a 90 year peacetime low.
    Electricity prices are up 22-39% in price since May 2010.
    The UK suffered a 97% drop in Affordable House starts in 6 months under Grant Shapps .
    £12bn+ of NHS has been put up for sale under this government.
    33% of NHS Walk In Centres have been axed.
    Wage Growth is just 0.7% which is much lower than inflation.
    Profit Tax is to be cut by 25% (from 28% to 21%).
    3.5 million now live in Child Poverty as Tory welfare cuts & sluggish wage growth bite.
    800,000 more households are living in Fuel Poverty & this excludes the impact of recent price rises.
    Numbers of Working Poor have doubled in 3 years & include homes with 2.2mill children.
    Numbers living in temporary accommodation have grown 11.4% since Q2 2010.
    ‘The 50p rate’ High Earner Tax was cut by 10% (from 50p to 45p)
    VAT Tax was hiked by 14% (from 17.5% to 20%)
    EMA was scrapped for 500,000 as drop out rates climb
    Bedroom Tax clobbered 660,000 of which 2/3rs are disabled & 1/4 single parents.
    The Tories and their Lib Dem pals trebled Tuition Fees.
    Record number of PFI contracts signed in the first year of a Tory government.
    Bus Fares are up 22% under the Tories.
    £5bn spent on back to work schemes that are less than 2% successful.
    7,968 Hospital Beds Axed.
    Rail Fares are up 27% since 2010.
    The Number of GCSE Students getting A/A* Grades has fallen by 6% since 2010.
    35,000 Police personnel have lost their jobs under the Tories.
    42,000 Armed Forces personnel to lose their jobs even though £2bn went unspent.
    Tories abolished Equality Impact Assessments to cover up the immorality of their policies.
    Tories lost several court cases against NHS closures & the Risk Register.
    The Tories halved a worker’s right to 90 days Redundancy Notice.
    £168m in donations are raked in by the Tories including £20m from Private Health.
    Chair of UK Statistics Authority tells Gove to stop lying about Education.
    Chair of UK Statistics Authority tells Hunt to stop lying about NHS Spending.
    Chair of UK Statistics Authority tells Cameron to stop lying about Debt Reduction.
    National Debt has risen £447 billion.
    NHS Spending did not rise as promised.
    NHS ‘Never Events’ have more than trebled (evidence)
    NHS Negligence complaints lodged have increased 49% since 2010.
    35,000+ NHS Staff have been axed.
    5,000 Firefighters have been axed.
    Minimum Wage rises have been below inflation every year of Tory rule.
    University Applications fell by 6% in Jan 2013.
    Treatments are no longer free on the NHS in parts of England.
    10 Prisons have been axed & 4 more are to close.
    4 Profit Making Prisons have been opened.
    The Tax Gap has grown by £3bn to £35bn in the last year alone [evasion/avoidance]
    6% of Prison Cells have been cut in 1 year.
    £829m cut from the Children’s & Families Budget.
    The percentage of A-Level Students getting A/A* has fallen 3% since 2010.
    Food Prices are up 19% under the Tories.
    11,000 Fat Cat NHS Bosses given a 13% pay hike while nurses pay frozen.
    At least a third of Ambulance Stations have been axed since 2010.
    NHS GP Funding cut by £400 million.
    NHS Funding For Cancer, Stroke & Heart Patients cut by 12-26%.
    A&Es waiting times at their worst for 8+ years.
    Michael Gove overspent £1bn on Free Schools & Academies at State Schools expense.
    NHS Direct was axed and replaced by a botched and fragmented NHS111.
    NHS Patient Satisfaction went from record high under Labour to record low under the Tories.
    Government wasted £1.4 billion on NHS Staff Redundancy Payouts.
    Government axed a plan to rebuild 715 Crumbling Schools.
    Just 3% of CEOs in the FTSE 350 are Women & Cameron has fueled a more Sexist tone to our politics.
    31% of UK women have suffered Domestic Abuse and it has risen in 25% after the Tories came to power. Legal Aid cuts, police cuts & the Bedroom Tax make it harder for women to escape it.
    Tories cut Child Benefit for middle-class families while giving tax cuts to millionaires.
    Number of people Working Unpaid is at a 13 year high.
    The Government used your taxes to fund Racist Vans that drove around London warning immigrants to “Go Home”. The Advertising Standards Authority has now banned them.
    1.8 million workers now earn less than the National Minimum Wage.
    More than 600,000 Public Sector workers have been axed.
    Job creation: There were more workers born in the UK employed in Britain in Jul-Sept 2010 than 3 years later on 30 June 2013.
    On world disability day the Tories shut 36 Remploy Factories and axed 1,000 disabled workers.
    Job Creation: 70% of new jobs created in the UK under the Tories have gone to non-UK citizens which makes a lie of the Tory claim they’ve created a million new jobs.
    95 Tory Fat Cat Academy Bosses rake in more than MPs with the top 10 giving themselves £2million between them.
    The Tories have Privatised Educational Services, Auditing, Consultancy and Prison Services worth £5 billion.
    Were it not for Ed Miliband & the pressure of the UK public Cameron would have taken us to war in Syria.
    Tories have Privatised 1 major NHS Hospital, have put another major hospital up for sale and have handed 12 community hospitals to profiteers.
    Sure Start Funding has been cut by 28% as Cameron breaks his SureStart promise,
    In total the Tories have broke 12 key promises to the people that gave them their vote.

  2. Abdul AZIZ says:

    Labour, go the extra mile and announce plans to scrap Trident and its obscene replacement.

    1. Robert says:

      You better strap Miliband to the missile then because he does not have the guts to even consider it now.

  3. swatantra says:

    Too many Tory business types have got their fingers in the Defence Armaments industry, so its unlikely Trident will be scrapped.

  4. Rod says:

    The LibLabCon are obessed with implementing austerity. Miliband tells us that Labour must implement Tory policies because anything else would be without credibility.

    There is a simple solution: don’t vote for these clowns.

    1. Robert says:

      I do not intend to do so, having a weak kneed bloke like Miliband in charge would be like giving the keys to parliament to Blair.

  5. Rod says:

    “He’s also entered into an open-ended third war in the Middle East without explaining how it’s going to be afforded.”

    Well Michael, you voted for the uncosted, open-ended third war in the Middle East.

    Perhaps you could devote your next Left Futures piece to explaining this decision?

    1. Robert says:

      He voted for Iraq and then said he had been blind sided by Blair, so maybe Michael has bad eyes sight my own feeling is he’s to the left because it suits him, but deep down he is the issue with labour these days the left is weak.

  6. Mukkinese says:

    Sad to say, but the LibDems, of all people, are making a better job of attacking Tory policy than Labour.

    Where the hell is Labour? what are they doing?

    They should be all over the Tories, remorselessly haranguing them and pulling their policies to bits.

    Instead we get a few desultory shrugs and mumbled whining. This is pathetic.

    We deserve better Labour. Start acting as though you are in a fight – and want to win…

    1. Robert says:

      You know as well as I do it the labour party was to say anything the Tories would hit back with how do you intend to pay for it, labour would love to state through welfare reforms and the Tories would hit back yes labour attacking the bottom.

      labour cannot argue it case it cannot state we need to borrow to spend to get the country growing it does not have the people, Ball’s would be shouting no no austerity follow the Tories it’s the only way Blair would be having fits and screaming no labour needs to cut cut cut and do not charge me for my £6 million nice new home so the mansion tax is out.

      The next coalition will not be the Liberals it will be Tory and the labour party a party made in heaven.

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