As I haven’t written anything during the Tory conference I decided to do a bit of a round up to cover the main highlights of the week and providing links to further articles on each subject.
The “Big Bold Welfare Shake Up”
David Cameron started the week by announcing he would be cutting incapacity benefits by finding 500,000 people to switch to Job Seekers Allowance instead at £25 less a week. The plan is to medically reassess people to see if they are really fit to work, as if that doesn’t already occur anyway. You cannot just claim “I am incapacitated” and get incapacity benefit, your claim has to be strongly backed up by medical evidence from professionals who decide how much help you are entitled to based on certain criteria. The fondness for stories highlighting benefit cheats who claim they can barely walk but then take photographs of themselves wrestling crocodiles probably give the impressing that anybody can falsely claim but these stories are the minority. The majority on incapacity benefit genuinely cannot work because of physical or mental impairments and have already faced assessment to ensure their claims are genuine.
As for announcing that these people pulled off incapacity benefit would then be given help to find work, as if helping people to find work were a radical suggestion, several schemes already exist already under Labour which help both the fit and able and those with disabilities; New Deal, Access to Work, Job Introduction Scheme, Employment Zones, Pathways to Work, Progress2Work, Work Trials, Programme Centres and more. The help is already there so basically all Cameron is suggesting is taking £25 a week of certain people who “aren’t disabled enough”. That’s those caring Conservatives for you.
Further reading:
The Tories see the welfare bill as a piggy bank to be raided for tax cuts of deficit reduction. – Graeme Cook.
Cameron’s ‘new’ policy on jobs has a whiff of the 1980s about it. – David Coats.
Holes In Conservative Welfare Plan – James Purnell.
Cant Judge a Party by Their Homophobic, Xenophobic Friends…
The Tories kindly invited their friend Michal Kaminsky of the Polish Law and Justice Party to speak at conference, despite the fact that this man and his party hold dangerously homophobic, racist, sexist and nationalistic views. It’s worth remembering that the Tories have other European friends, such as the Latvian ‘For Fatherland and Freedom’ Party who hold similar disgusting views and also like to celebrate their role in Hitler’s SS. Charming stuff.
Quite rightly Kaminsky’s appearance caused an outrage, prompting this open letter to David Cameron asking him to reconsider the Tory grouping with such a party, signed by high profilers such as Stephen Fry and Eddie Izzard and much questioning as to whether or not the Tories in general have changed their views on gay and lesbian relationships or was the Section 28 apology just part of the “not the nasty party”, “caring Conservatives” facade? Hmm… I wonder?
I’m sure not all Tories are homophobic but there’s definitely still elements of the party who I highly doubt have changed their minds since they brought in Section 28 back in 1988. If they truly were a party free from homophobia then they simply would not ally themselves with such people in Europe, they would be appalled by the views of such parties and want nothing to do with them, like the rest of us. Apologizing for Section 28 and holding their first gay pride event at conference means nothing whilst they still group themselves with these parties.
The Tory response so far seems to be that they will be “monitoring their new partners in Europe for evidence of homophobia”, well I’m sure that will make all the difference…
Further reading:
Tories quizzed over links to EU allies with ‘extreme views’. – Michael Savage.
How can Cameron be fit to be Prime Minister with such dubious allies in Europe? – Rachel Reeves.
Tory MEP’s false claims on gay rights. – Will Straw.
George Osborne: Bad With Sums
One would hope that a Shadow Chancellor could get his maths correct but George Osborne’s sums just didn’t add up during his speech to conference on Wednesday. At first it was announced with gusto that raising the retirement age would save £13bn a year, then the figure was quietly dropped to £3bn when people started asking where the mystery £10bn had come from. I’m no maths expert but a £10bn difference seems quite a large mistake in the adding.
Osborne also announced a one year pay freeze in 2011 for the 4 million public sector workers who earn more than £18,000 a year. The mean UK salary is £24,000, presumably they are worried about increasing it too much, lest we all get too well-off. They £18,000 cut of was set to suggest that the Tories wanted to protect those on the “lower” salaries of under £18,000, hugely ironic for anybody familiar with what is currently happening in Leeds, where the Tory/Lib Dem council have prompted a refuse workers strike by trying to cut the workers salaries from £18,000 to £12,000. An example of just how much they really “protect” those on lower incomes when they are in power.
The announcement of such drastic cuts, described as a massive gamble by much of the media, was said to demonstrate just how “honest” the Tories are. They are not honest, these are just the plans they are telling us about, I’m sure they have several nasty surprises ready and waiting to be unleashed if they do gain power. Plus, how can you believe a party that claims it wants to protect those on under £18,000 a year when it’s simultaneously busy attempting to slash the pay of those on £18,000 in another part of the country?
Further Reading:
Today Osborne ducked the key questions, aiming for one-liners and easy headlines instead. Rachel Reeves.
Osborne bets the election on public sector pay. – Andrew Grice.
George Osborne lifts veil on his age of austerity. – Patrick Wintour.
Mr Osborne’s maths… and morals. – Liam Byrne.
“We’re common people, donchaknow?”
The Tories are spending a lot of time and energy lately trying to play down what people see as the “Tory toff” stereotype, meanwhile Boris Johnson bumbles about the country like someone who just stepped out of a P.G Wodehouse novel, so it’s not going too well. The feeling is that class differences could prove to be a great weakness for the Tories at the next election so the Tories are desperate to prove that they aren’t a bit privileged or posh. They must be hoping that most of the country are dreadfully stupid because you’d have to be to fall for it.
Cameron’s class embarrassment started early on in the week when he was asked by Andrew Marr on Sunday if it was true that he and his wife have a combined wealth of £30m (kinda puts that whole £18,000 salary freeze in perspective doesn’t it?). Cameron managed to answer the question without actually answering the question at all, mumbling something irrelevant about changing house prices. He continued by stating his embarrassment about the existence of this delightful photograph:
The general Tory excuse for this seems to be “well we all did rather silly things in our youth”, that’s true. I also did silly things when I was 19, however I never found myself donning a £1,200 tailcoat, posing for a photograph on some steps outside Oxford, with my restaurant-destroying chums and an “I was born unto the ruling classes” expression upon my face. Denying and making excuses does no good. Nobody is going to forget their background or past behaviors.
Some argue that many members of the Labour Party are just as privileged and well-off. True, but I’ve never seen any of them in such a photograph either. The Tories like to ramble on about ‘Broken Britain’ and problems within society, the fact is people like Cameron know absolutely nothing about ordinary people, living in ordinary Britain, the North especially. Perhaps Cameron should take a visit to a real deprived estate or area; look around and talk to people and see what is really going on. I don’t mean a nice, planned out PR visit where we line up some young hoodies to hug and some crack dealers to cuddle, I mean an impromptu visit to the real world. At the moment I get the impression that the Tories get their main information about British society from the tabloids who are constantly demonizing anybody aged 11-19, telling us all teenage boys are drunk knife wielding thugs and all teenage girls are uneducated, pregnant, smokers.
Media “Fizzgate”
Tying in neatly with the toff troubles was the overly hyped “Fizzgate”, reminding us that the media will unashamedly add the word “gate” to anything. The fuss started after the Tories were warned not to be seen openly quaffing champagne, in case the came across as too triumphant, and of course too toff. They obviously couldn’t resist, however, because several high-profile Tories including David Cameron, Alan Duncan and Michael Howard were all snapped glass in hand.
The champagne theme continued behind the scenes as Tories brought a healthy trade to their little conference shopping mall, where bottles of Harvey Nichols champagne proved rather popular. Other treats available at the mall during the ‘age of austerity’ were £60 Tory cuff links, £50 silk shirts and Crombie coats for a bargain at £200 – £400. Not at all wealthy or privileged then…
More champagne news included a Tory party member allegedly stealing a bottle of champagne from the Midland Hotel and the Cambridge University Conservative Association (CUCA) distributing leaflets to members, including information of where to buy the best champagne. Suffice to say, getting a little tired of all the champagne related stories by now but they are still good value.
Further Reading:
Times are Toff for Cambridge University Tories – George Owers.
Conference shops prove Tory hit. – Brian Wheeler.
The perils of privilege: why class remains Cameron’s Achilles’ heel. – Andy McSmith.
The Big Speech – Cameron and the Contradictions
Despite borrowing and slightly altering a few phrases from successful politicians, like Barack Obama and Tony Blair, Cameron’s speech fell short of spectacular and even sense in some places. Many articles have already analysed his speech very well, so I won’t go into it in detail, suffice to say I wasn’t impressed. Cameron quoted false facts and figures, made several contradictions and misunderstandings. If he can’t even grasp some basic economic principles and get his statistics right in a speech then what hope would he have as PM, really?
Further reading on Cameron’s speech:
David Cameron’s speech: Reaction. – Will Straw.
Mr. Cameron, your speech was hypocritical, hollow and dangerous. – Rowenna Davis.
Cameron’s speech: an exercise in false brinkmanship. – Tom Nicholls.
More Bono than King, Cameron’s speech was sex, lies and videotape. – Alex Smith
So just how is Cameron going to give power to the people? – Steve Richards.
Keith Joseph and Ronald Reagan would have been cheering Cameron on. – Paul Richards.
Other issues worth mentioning from the Tory conference are the many blunders Boris Johnson seems to have made this week, as well as Grayling making an idiot of himself over Dannatt, but if I were to go into all the ridiculous things the Tories have said and done this week we could be here a long time…
