The Conservatives are the party that:
- Partied whilst we obeyed Covid rules (didn’t party, didn’t visit our grannies, didn’t attend funerals) and fined us for our gatherings. This is, arguably, the most telling offence because it highlights the contempt for the public that underlies everything else they do, or fail to do.
- Gave us Boris Johnson (the PM who made lying sexy), the mess of Brexit, Liz Truss, the HS2 fiasco, and broken Britain;
- Rejects effective climate action – E.g. licenced 24 North Sea oil fields.
- Allows the churning out of sewage into our rivers and onto our beaches.
- For example 11,833 hours of sewage dumping were reported in the River Thame in Oxfordshire in just the last 3 months.Government is allowing Thames Water to increase our bills by more than 60% in the next 5 years to pay for cleaning it up because Thames Water funds went to their shareholders instead.
- See our SEWAGE WATCH blog
- Removed homeless peoples’ tents and made rough sleeping a fineable offence;
- Created the Rwanda Plan, as a deterrent to migrants seeking asylum.
- It is inhumane and highly questionable as a deterrent,
- It is at vast cost to the taxpayer,
- It ignores UK and international law by declaring Rwanda safe whilst banning independent checks or future monitoring,
- Decreed that children’s murals in detention centres should be painted over;
- Attacked and ignored the care and key workers on whom our well-being depends
- Persistently refused to enter negotiations with health workers and doctors.
- Ignores the RAAC crises (ersatz concrete in public buildings, especially hospitals and schools).
- Ignores the huge growth of foodbanks (from approximately 270 in 2012 to 2,800 in 2023 (Trussell
Trust and other sources). But the emergence of school food banks adds a further 4250.
- Has turned its back on the housing crisis
- Post-Truss unaffordable mortgages
- Young people unable buy their own home
- 109,000 families currently in temporary accommodation.
- Refusing to fulfil their 2019 promise to cancel no-fault evictions
- In their latest act of performative cruelty and as part of their ‘get back to work’ drive, the party plans to reduce, and in some cases, remove, benefits from claimants with mental health and disability issues. This includes a plan to shift the role of issuing sick notes from GPs to ‘a different specialist organisation’.
- Is currently gas-lighting its way through a ‘no holds barred’ dirty election campaign. Recent examples of the party spreading disinformation and falsehoods are:
- That the Mayor of London is about to introduce extra driving charges.
- That it was Labour in the House of Lords who obstructed their Rwanda plan;
- That Labour plans to re-introduce freedom of movement;
- The production of a fake video of London as ‘crime world capital’ using footage from the US that they later had to retract.
- The party also has an extremely high incidence of sleaze and misconduct:
A) Sexual misconduct
- Peter Bone (bullying, physical attacks, indecent exposure),
- Mark Menzies – the ‘I’m trapped by bad men’ scandal,
- William Wragg – Grindr Honey Trap scandal,
- Neil Parish – Tractor Porn guy,
- Chris Pincher – the bottom pincher,
- Boris Johnson – for behaviours too numerous to mention but also for attempting to protect Pincher.
B) Financial misconduct
- Allowed associates to profit from government contracts:
- PPE bought via the ‘VIP lane’ was some 80% more expensive
- Half of ‘VIP lane’ companies supplied PPE worth 1 billion pounds that was not fit for purpose.
- Beneficiary Baroness Michelle Mone under National Crime Agency investigation.
- Scott Benton for breach of lobbying rules re gambling company,
- Jamie Wallis – owned ‘sugar daddy’ and other dubious trading sites; he was also convicted of failing to stop and report an accident.
C) Tolerance of racial abuse
- Lee Anderson (racist attacks on Mayor of London);
- Frank Hester scandal – government refused to stop taking Hester’s donations (£15 million to date) despite his saying ‘he hates Diane Abbott because she’s black and she should be shot’
Is this the party we want to govern us for the next five years?
For further information on how to get change, contact oxfordshire@compassonline.org.uk.
Also if you want to lodge a protest vote in the local elections on 2 May, go to this national tactical voting site.
Ed: West England Bylines does not support any particular political party. We do however give space to those who promote progressive and sustainable goals.
We want to hear your views. Please send any comments to editor@westenglandbylines.co.uk
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