It might as well be there in black and white in the Conservative manifesto: “We will play off poor people and foreign people against each other, for political gain to the Conservative Party and the general entertainment of Daily Mail readers.”
Last month we had Graeme Archer, who describes himself as “a bog-standard Conservative activist”, lecture us about how poor Polish workers are paying tax to subsidise all the benefits scroungers. Ping.
Today, the tables have turned, with Iain Duncan Smith pretty much calling for British jobs for British people. Pong.
Isn’t it great to throw a bone and watch the dogs fight over it? You can lean back and put your feet up in the absolute certainty that in their frenzy over benefit-scrounging scum and filthy foreign scum the media won’t notice some key points:
- There are now more than six people receiving job-seeker’s allowance for every Job Centre vacancy. (Up from just over 5 people per vacancy in the time since this government came to power.)
- The government is in the process of cutting 600,000 public sector jobs over the next six years.
- It is also this government which cut the Education Maintenance Allowance, making it more difficult for young people from the poorest backgrounds to continue their education beyond the age of 16 and obtain the skills and qualifications employers need.
- And it was this government which trebled university tuition fees, leaving our children faced with the impossible choice between getting into debt comparable to the cost of a house in some parts of the country to obtain qualifications required by employers, or staying in low-skilled, low-paid jobs for the rest of their lives.
- Oh, and it is also this government which is withdrawing vital support from disabled people so no matter how much they want to work it becomes a physical impossibility.
These are just some highlights of the monumental structural and social problems which are likely to be this government’s legacy to the UK. It is not me, the immigrant, taking your jobs – it’s your government. And it is not the poor, disabled and disadvantaged who deserve your scorn for having tax money spent on them – it is your government for continuing to stick their heads in the sand and refusing to acknowledge that their economic policy is simply not working.
Good post. Thanks.