I’ve been offline for a few days, due to my daughter visiting, and one of the first things I saw when going back online, was a post by the Skwawbox, highlighting the spate of tweets being sent by Tory MPs , touting food banks – here’s the link:
From what I could see from reading the various tweets, they all seem to have been basically following a single script, and including photos of themselves smilingly donating to food banks across the UK.
Here’s just one example:
. . . and here’s a couple of responses to it:
The Skwawkbox used the word ‘gaslighting’ in his leader and, as I didn’t know what it meant, I looked it up:
‘to manipulate (someone) by psychological means into doubting their own sanity.’
Reading this, I genuinely feel that the Skwawkbox is right, and that the Tories have always had such a great contempt for the workers of Britain, that they really are intent on manipulating people into thinking something that isn’t real!
Looking at the other tweets I found online, I felt sick to my stomach that these exceedingly rich Tory MPs, who are supposed to represent the people in their wards, have the shameless gall – or the sheer hubris – to cynically mock all the many thousands of people their policies have managed to reduce to a state of homelessness, penury and, in many cases, begging – to the point that it is only those self-same foodbanks that are keeping so very many people, and especially families with children, from starving!
Since they came to power, Tory ideology has consistently been one that is deliberately destroying every single part of the Welfare State that is possible – in fact, every single part of it that has been so bitterly fought for by the working classes, and some of the more enlightened richer people of the times – and all that made our lives actually worth living!
Included in this, is our much beloved – and very much needed – NHS – something that, without it I, for one, wouldn’t be alive right now!
But as well as making it as hard as possible for anyone unable to work, whether because of illnesses / disablilities, or because of the sheer lack of any kind of sustaining work – which has, in many cases, been caused by the decline of manufacturing industries both here in the UK, and elsewhere in the world – the Tory answer to this lack of work, is to force as many people as possible into zero-hour contracts, or into the virtual slavery being forced on them, if they are unemployed, and having to claim unemployment benefits, to work for so-called ‘charities’, full time, and for nothing but the basic unemployment support provided – and, if anyone refuses, the Tories have consistently used a harsh Sanctioning regime,introduced by Tony Blair’s New Labour (who may as well have been called Mini-Tory) to force them into line, by taking away larger and larger amounts of the little money being paid to support them – in some cases, to the point where people have commited suicide, because of it!
But, whatever the job they might have, if it is zero hours, or any other of the myriad ways in which the Tories have explored the exploitation of the working classes, these ’employees’ are given as little of that work as possible, and paid as little as possible, in order to airbrush unemployment figures for the Tories – and having so many people doing short hours of work, will still get that work done, but it means that those forced to do it then have to claim Working Tax Credits to survive at all!
This means that the employers are then able to salt away all the profits made – while paying the least amount of Corporation Tax in generations – while the ordinary working British public is left footing the bill, by having to pay more tax, to cover the Tax Credits being recieved because of the low wages! In fact, proportionately, the lower earners are now paying the highest taxes since records began!
To make matters worse, the Tories then introduced the most calculatingly cruel welfare reform ever thought of – yes, you guessed it – the universally despised Universal Credit!
This welfare reform, despite people thinking that it has just been badly thought out, and needs pausing to fix it, is actually the most calculatingly cruel, cunningly thought out reform to ever be introduced.
It was neither put together badly, nor is it mistakingly being kept going, either!
Universal Credit has been the most cold-blooded, cruelly deliberate reform ever thought up! It was put together in such a way as to make it the hardest Benefit to ever have to claim and, due to the exceedingly long waiting period before any money is actually paid out to a claimant, for everyone who has to claim it, it has made life as miserable as possible while doing so.
In a time where there are still hundreds of thousands of people who still have no access to the internet – whether through lack of knowledge, or lack of funds – it is designed so that a claimant can only make that claim online – and this is just the first stumbling block!
UC has been put together in such a way as to make anyone claiming it as confused as possible, especially as to their knowledge of what is expected of them and, when they do finally make a claim, nor is it easily seen what responsibilities the government has, in order to help any claimants.
It is so badly put together that even the employees of Job Centers, who are supposed to help people make this claim, are all just as confused as the claimants, where understanding the rules of UC are concerned – to the point where each jobcenter seems to be making up their own rules for it!
It has also been deliberately created to cut the Welfare Bill – to the point of utter uselessness – and, despite the many deaths already caused by it’s cruel practices, the Tories refuse to listen to anyone who complains – another deliberate slap in the face of those people they are supposed to represent!
But, before it’s introduction, the Tories had got to the point where they may have been voted out of government and so, to deliberately divert attention, and to forward other plans they have for the UK (such as the UK becoming a Tax Haven for the super-rich), they brought up the issue of Brexit!
Once again, the Tories lied through their teeth, making up story after story as to why it would be better to leave the EU – and hiding the fact that it is only the Laws, enshrined in the EU, that have been protecting the workers of our country from even more of the kind of exploitation that other workers, elsewhere in the world, have to put up with!
Without that protection, our country is going to be open to every abuse possible – from chlorinated chicken from the USA, to a private healthcare system that only the rich will be able to afford – in other words, we’ll be stepping straight back into the world of the 1920’s and 1930’s, before the recommendations of a Welfare State was introduced by the Liberal MP, Sir William Beverage, and where his blueprint was then brought into fruition, in 1945, by Lloyd George’s Labour Government!
As it is, we recently had a UN inspector travel all over the UK and, in his report, he was shocked at the devastation caused by the Tories’ so-called ‘reforms’, and he claims that the Tories have deliberately gone about increasing poverty in the UK – which is a believable claim, given that, as anyone can work out with a little thought, with great poverty, comes desperation – and people will work for a pittance when they are desperate!
Another side-effect that perfectly suits the Tories, is the fact that the working classes have also been divided, and conquered, because of that fight for survival! 😦
This is something the Tories will welcome with open arms – and with their usual false assurances of help!
Just another thought:
While MPs have had a 17.7% pay rise since austerity started in 2010:
Use of Trussle Trust foodbanks alone has risen from 41,000 to 1.2 million!
The number of rough sleepers has increased by 134%!
The number of #homeless children has risen by 73%!
. . . . . and these are just the surface results!
The Trussel Trust has almost become a national institution where food banks are concerned, and it has spread quickly across the UK, due to the desperate needs of those suffering under unnecessary Tory Austerity but, when the Tories decided to change things yet again, into the Universal Credit that is making everything even more worse for us all – and that includes far too many working families – are the Trussel Trust up there fighting for us all?
I doubt that very much! 😦
Think on this when a chance comes to replace the Tories in government, please?
The Night Owl 
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