Comment
An ugly phenomenon has sprung up over the last few days as Tory MPs – no doubt driven by some twisted mind at CCHQ – have been engaging in a clearly-coordinated campaign of selfies posted at Foodbank collection points.
The vomit-inducing photos scream hypocrisy and sociopathy, with grinning Tories proudly holding up emergency supplies that will become all that stands between huge numbers of poor and vulnerable people – including children – and starvation:
For a Tory to talk about people being vulnerable, or ‘finding themselves in need’ like it’s something that just accidentally happens now and then, is nauseating. For Tesco to facilitate this vile propaganda is a huge failure by a business that in most ways has been good on Foobank support.
Former front-bencher Dominic Raab got in on the act, too, tweeting – with equal, contrived obliviousness – about ‘families… struggling at this time of year’ as if it’s merely a seasonal phenomenon and the Tories are not pressing ahead with the roll-out of Universal Credit and other policies that by design leave people without income for weeks or longer:
Trussell Trust and other Foodbank charities have had to go to such lengths because of Tory policies – and demand has skyrocketed as the Tories have pressed ahead with their extension even though they’ve been clearly informed of the damage those policies are causing to the most vulnerable.
And the Trussell Trust has recently attacked the Tories for a complete failure to manage the process of moving people onto Universal Credit, after then-DWP Secretary Esther McVey tried to claim they and other charities supported the DWP’s approach.
The photo phenomenon has caused outrage on social media. Appalled Twitter users have reacted with disbelief at the callousness and shamelessness demonstrated by these ridiculous photo-opportunities:
But it was the Regency Labour account that perhaps summed up best the perversity of the campaign:
There really are no limits to the cruelty, hypocrisy and shamelessness of the Tories.
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My first thought was that these Tory MPs were betraying a spectacular lack of self awareness but after giving it some thought I came to the conclusion that they are so consumed by their own hubris that they simply don’t care.
Must be an election on the way…
Truly reprehensible. The Claire Perry one grinning and laughing is the worse of the bunch.
They lack humanity, their every action is dictated by cynical game-plays to advance their ideology and feed their hubris.
I can’t get too excited about bears crapping in the woods.
I’m more concerned that so many fellow citizens deny either that bears exist – or, if they recognise the animal, that they crap on their surroundings.
Don’t you love Raab? The man’s Thatcher on stilts, I’m almost certain he will claim the cost of his “donation” back. I can imagine the adjectives that must have been running through his mind….slothful, idle, work-shy, plodding, cattle, feckless etc. I preferred the Tories under Cameron and Osborne, they called a “chav” a chav and there was none if this pretence that they cared about the damage they inflicted, because they never saw it as damage…just laziness on the part of the undeserving.
Cameron’s hug-a-hoodie phase was rather short-lived and cynically abandoned as soon as it had served its purpose.
Typical Tory tactic. Create a crisis and then look as if you are behind some kind of false solution. Soon the day of reckoning will be upon them.
wow what a bunch of two faced hippocrites, there policies are the reason for food banks use and what do they do ignore the un, bring on more Duncan smith clones and carry on lying, go into the gutter where you crawled from, my thought on hohoho, will be when I am putting a vote against tory and there bed buddies and getting them sent back where they belong, merry xmas tory roll on next election out you go
This reeks of a PR campaign…
it reeks in general, a strong smell of tory trash
They are getting ready for a snap election. Their bullshit may be obvious to us. It will be lapped up by the MSM etc and the sheeples who still think the Tories are born to govern.
pass the effing vomit bucket !
Lower than vermin yep that sums them up utter vermin
Positively Dickensian in its seasonal hypocrisy … or Positively 4th Street, depending on your preferences:
We could do worse than introduce Bob and Woody to the young I reckon.
Not a clue how we’d do that though unless anyone has a reeeelly loud car stereo.
Verse 1
You’ve got a lotta nerve to say you are my friend
When I was down you just stood there grinnin’
You’ve got a lotta nerve to say you got a helping hand to lend
You just want to be on the side that’s winnin’
Verse4
You see me on the street, you always act surprised
You say “how are you?”, “good luck”, but ya don’t mean it
When you know as well as me, you’d rather see me paralyzed
Why don’t you just come out once and scream it
To think we are unwittingly rubbing shoulders with these rats daily as they scurry among us looking to see who else they can exploit.
half of them deserve prison, Lying on a bus, spending money on riot control vehicles we cannot use and sell for r11k when we needed high riser tenders, smith he definetly deserves life for every suicide attempt, freud same thing, I can think of plenty more but I run out of words when it comes to these lot. should that ever happen don’t worry I help send them present when there in nick plenty of high protein maggot ridden apples- that’s what they deserve oh and chope as well along with that big mouthed idiot from yorkshire
”half of them deserve prison,”
And the other half deserve jail. And that’s me showing a modicum of leniency that those rats would never do for anyone. Personally, if I was told by God him/herself that they’d be guaranteed to die screaming in agony or terror, I’d still feel hard done by.
But this is nothing new. I remember a few years back there was someone or a newspaper (The mirror?) that put together a collage of mp’s at foodbanks. Every single one of the toerag MP’s had grins almost splitting their hideous faces in two. The only one who didn’t was some obscure labour backbencher and he didn’t look too arsed about being there.
That’s not how you spell poison…
that’s to quick
‘Tory Neo-Liberal Barbarians.
Captured by this deology.
The root cause of human suffering.
Taking selfies of their results – grotesque human glee.’
If there was any justice in the World, they would lose everything but being politically ignorant morons they have never really had anything in their petty little lives but perhaps they know no better?
Meanwhile massive Tory state intervention to give 2,000+ tax reliefs for the rich and better off (the legal thieves of capital) and £93b Corporate welfare (upper class welfare state charity) which is the equivalent to £3,500 from every household.
Plus £120b a year in tax avoidance by the rich – perish the thought that they pay their true share for the NHS, Social Care, Mental Health etc.
When out campaigning with Unite Community re universal credit we met a mental health nurse who couldn’t afford to live but felt too proud to use a food back which is a Tory Neo-Liberal scandal!
Just reading my annual Dicken’s Christmas Carol and timely “Humankind is your business.”
Solidarity with the oppressed here and in every country!
Yes I do believe it