Tories Not on the Side of Working People

We keep hearing from leading Conservatives that ‘even in tough times’, they are on the side of ‘people who work hard and want to get on in life’. Well, they had a good chance to put that into practice recently with regards to a meagre 1% pay-rise for nurses and midwives. This was an opportunity for the party ‘for hardworking people’ to, literally, put its money where its mouth is and reward hardworking nurses and midwives by giving them more money for the excellent job they do. Instead, they refused to contemplate even a 1% rise – at the same time as handing themselves an increase of 11% – claiming that it was unaffordable despite the NHS Pay Review Body stating otherwise.  When the strike took place, the government condemned the industrial action. 

Cameron’s idea of rewarding hardworking people appears to be offering an unrealistic, unfunded and ill-thought out set of tax cuts which in reality would cause a reduction of funds available to the exchequer, resulting in redundancy for thousands of people. This would affect not only public sector workers - including the nurses and midwives on strike on October 13 - but also private sector services commissioned by the government through the public sector, rendering ‘hardworking people’ suddenly unemployed. Surely it would be better to maintain taxation levels and fund a genuine increase in peoples’ wages, no matter how small, to keep the nation working. Indeed, Edwina Currie showed the Tories’ true colours when she branded striking midwives as ‘disgraceful’. The attitude of the Conservative Party regarding this issue is proof, if it were ever needed, that they are not, and cannot be, the ‘party for hardworking people’; they never have been and they never will be. 

The Politics of Class Warfare

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I don’t think I was the only person dismayed at David Cameron’s speech at the Conservative Party conference. He announced that his party doesn’t do ‘the politics of class warfare’ yet this government is waging class war on overdrive. It certainly feels like Total War to those on the receiving end of their attacks.

Take the alleged ‘deficit reduction’, for example. Apparently, we don’t have enough money for the NHS, Social Security, Public Services and Public Sector Wages so benefits have been slashed, wages have been frozen and the health and public services have either declined, been axed or been sold off, not to mention the rise in VAT. Yet there seemed to be enough money to hand the wealthy a 5% tax cut. To me, that doesn’t add up. If, as is the premise put forward by Cameron and Osborne, that there is an enormous structural deficit which we need to pay down, why are we handing out tax cuts? If you include the blatant diminishing of workers’ rights and the ATOS Work Capability fiasco under this government, working and vulnerable people are under attack from a government of the wealthy for the wealthy by the wealthy – even Nick Clegg and Vince Cable have complained that the Tories are ‘beating up the poor with relish’ while not expecting the wealthy to pay towards deficit reduction.

Voters have a stark choice on May 7, a party hell-bent on power for the wealthy and dehumanisation of the poor, who are also intent on consigning the NHS to the history books, or a party who will work to improve rights and living standards for those at the bottom, whilst ensuring the NHS remains a service that puts patients before profit.  When Conservatives attack the Left over the politics of class warfare, they don’t have a leg to stand on as it is they who have declared class war in the first place. Let’s put an end to this Tory war on the poor.