As Jeremy Corbyn said in PMQs moments ago, in this General Election the people of the UK face a simple choice: vote for Labour, the party of the many that will benefit the many – or for the Tories and their obsession with enhancing the wealth of the wealthiest at the cost of those who can least afford it.
Theresa May’s election slogan – hardly snappy – is ‘strong and stable leadership in the national interest’. Even a cursory glance at the Tories’ record reveals that, for her, ‘national interest’ means ‘the interest of the 0.1%’.
That same glance also reveals that the notion of Tory ‘strength and stability’ is laughable. From opposition, Labour has inflicted more than thirty u-turns – an exceptional amount – on a Tory government that is spinning so fast it’s ended up chasing its tail.
Even May’s decision to call an election stems from fear – of the effect of prosecutions for election expense fraud in 2015 and of the effect of her Brexit chaos on Tory electoral prospects in a 2020 General Election.
Here are some of the u-turns the Tories have suffered against Corbyn-led Labour:
- Government forced to abandon £6m Saudi Prison Contract (13th Oct 2015)
- Immigration controls on Nurses working in the NHS lifted (16th Oct 2015)
- Government finally scrap plans to extend Sunday Trading hours (10th Nov 2015)
- Tories dramatically abandon £12bn Welfare Cuts including PIP & Tax Credits (25th Nov 2015)
- 25% mooted cut to Police Service budgets scrapped after CSR is published (25th Nov 2015)
- Tories backtrack on Tampon Tax, instead earmarking £15m for women’s charities (28th Nov 2015)
- Plan to make convicts pay £1,250 towards their court case axed after outcry (3rd Dec 2015)
- Tory Plans to remove ‘feminism’ from A-Level syllabuses are scrapped (10th Dec 2015)
- Government reversed decision to keep Bahrain & Egypt off human rights concern list (19th Dec 2015)
- 33% cut to 2,000 Government Interpreters enhanced pay scrapped (15th Jan 2016)
- Planned 1% cut in rent support to OAPs, Veterans & Abuse Victims is withdrawn (27th Jan 2016)
- Planned 9% cut to legal aid fees that would have hurt law firms is scrapped (28th Jan 2016)
- U-Turn on plan to abolish 4 Child Poverty measurements (26th Feb 2016)
- Plan to weaken the Freedom of Information Act halted (1st March 2016)
- Funding for Wildlife Crime Unit restored after public outcry (1st March 2016)
- Abandon their Pension ISA plan (6th March 2016)
- Tory plan to tax solar panels 5% is axed (21st Mar 2016)
- Tories retreat on their plan to hold vote to overturn ban on Foxhunting (6th April 2016)
- Tory plan to relax food safety & ethics standards in poultry halted (7th April 2016)
- Plan to levy 3% Stamp Duty on “Granny Flats” scrapped (14th April 2016)
- Threats to force e-voting on Trade Union strikes & opt-in for Labour funding withdrawn (26th April 2016)
- 13 defeats inflicted on Tory Housing Bill (26th April 2016)
- Government climb-down on plan to impose a new contract on Junior Doctors halted (5th May 2016)
- Forcing *all* schools to become academies (7th May 2016)
- Tory plan to scrap the Human Rights Act in first 100 days abandoned (14th Aug 2016)
- Tories abandon plan to withdraw from European Convention on Human Rights (30th June 2016)
- Plan to make firms list foreign workers in a staff list are withdrawn (9th Oct 2016)
- Theresa May backtracked on her refusal to publish a Brexit White Paper before Article 50 vote (25th Jan 2017)
- Theresa May caves in to demand for MPs to get a vote on final Brexit Deal (7th Feb 2017)
- Plans to tax Self Employed workers including 1.149m living in poverty axed (15th Mar 2017)
In spite of being in opposition – and despite the best attempts of the Tories, media and red Tories to portray him as ineffective, it’s Corbyn and his team who look like the immovable rock while the Tories’ house of cards is collapsing.
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Hey, Steve – check this out, me old mucker. Just what we all need – a new party! https://waitingfortax.com/2017/04/26/spring-the-party/#respond
I think JM simply renamed the ‘dustbin of history’.
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Hiya, can you help me out, I have a friend intent on Joining the Lib Dems, mainly because she is friendly with MP Thangam Debbonaire who is apparently bad mouthing JC, stating he allegedly sacked her and was really rude to another MP or something along those lines.
It appears TD Labour MP for Bristol, has done such a good job of rubbishing her own party, also, according to my friend, stating that there is deep division and that JC is hated, that my friend sees no point in voting for labour because of this…..
Do you have any insight or facts into the allegations relating to TD being sacked from the shadow cabinet by JC? Because I would dearly love to give my friend an alternative view….
Oh dear. All that happened yonks ago when JC first took office and there was the attempted leadership challenge by Angela Eagle et al and ensuing cabinet reshuffle. I seem to remember something about staff going into her office uninvited (even though as no longer in the post the office was no longer hers!) or similar – or maybe that was one of the others having a hissy fit at that time. Personally, as a female, it made be embarrassed for our gender – would like to have told them to get a grip! What on earth is this MP still doing in the labour party?
That was Seema Malhotra, but Ms Debbonaire’s wasn’t much less ‘snowflake’
Ms Debbonaire seems to have trouble making up her mind https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/oct/12/thangam-debbonaire-returns-labours-front-bench
Special snowflake springs to mind – Corbyn and his team were keeping many plates spinning, but she seems not to have felt she was getting enough attention 🙁
Thanks very helpful x
Who on Earth thought Jeremy pulling out of the debates unless May turns up was a good idea?
They’ve had a good election launch so far but once again they’ve gaffed just as they were getting started
🙁
*uber-facepalm*
Why? Last time everybody else turned on Ed, because DC wasn’t there-any reason to suppose it might be different now?
Also, who is Jeremy going to attack unless it’s the Government & as they won’t be there to defend themselves in what is supposed to be a debate, people could draw the wrong conclusions if he goes on the attack against the others.
If he keeps on with his present style of campaigning, which feeds majorly into what you rightly say is a good launch thus far, it could swing things enough, because he has had two 3-month campaigns to fight already, and the PM has no such experience to draw on.
I can remember 1966, when we called a snap election & increased our majority from 5 to 90. Yes it was only a two-party thing then, but Ted Heath was the one who looked wooden & ill-at-ease in public, whilst Harold Wilson did a whistle-stop campaign ‘on the stump’ to dozens of constituencies, so maybe that style of doing things is coming back into fashion & could work again, especially in an era when so many people feel alienated from politics.
Most people won’t get to see him though. He only visits target seats. He’ll never make a visit down to my area where the Labour vote is tiny because they don’t see any point when Iain Liddell-Grainger always wins.
For most people, the debates will be the only thing they see in the whole campaign. Labour cannot get its message across if it is not there to put it forward. It’s an open goal frankly – Jeremy would get to say the Tories are doing X, it’s bad for you because___ and Labour will do Y which is good for you because ___ and Theresa May wouldn’t be there to reply with a lie. It’s the best publicity he could hope for and he’s not taking it. All that will happen is there will be two empty chairs and the other parties will just attack them for not being there.
I love the man and will vote for him again as I expect another leadership challenge after this, but I really despair at him and his team sometimes. I don’t understand how they can be so blind to the realities of electioneering.
That may have been the case with Wilson but TV and personality politics are much more ubiquitous now (the latter IMO because of 20-30 years of Labour being indistinguishable from the Tories) so I don’t think it will work. People are far too shallow and lack the attention span for that these days.
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