With the next general election due in next few months in Britain, it seems that Conservative Party is all set for a big win; or at least that is what is being projected all over the media. And with Sun’s official backing for the Tories last month, wining the election seems almost a certainty for them.
True, after fifteen years of labour with the mess of a totally unwanted, unnecessary and expensive war, a deep economic recession, huge job losses and mounting public debt, anybody in opposition would rather have an easy task in hand.
But what is the difference between the New Labour and the new Tories under David Cameron? One centre-left party and one centre-right party, both has moved a little towards the centre; no wonder they are on the same place.
Do the flabbergasted voters really think that the Tories will be helping towards creating new jobs or getting a strong control over the banking sector? They are already talking about the painful years ahead and of reduced public spending. Where would it hit? The NHS? The unemployment benefits? The Jobseeker’s allowances?
They are not telling exactly where they will impose the cuts. But the simply cutting the “wastage” (as suggested by Gordon Brown) and chucking the benefit thieves out will not help; the figures just do not add up. Where the vast amount of money needed will come from?
They did not oppose the bail out of the banks; they criticised government for allowing the crash to happen, but agreed that once it happened, the only way out is through the huge bail outs of banks by the government. They did not question why the government would subsidise the losses made by the reckless and often corrupt business of a private sector. Many other sectors like car, manufacturing or construction, desperately in need of money did not get any help from the government. What is so special about banking sector, then? It was not a question of protecting common people’s savings, but about consuming worthless ‘toxic assets’ of the banks by the taxpayers.
The Tories still do not categorically say that they will bring legislations to control the banking sector so that it does not happen again in future. They blow the trumpet of free economy and flourishing businesses without any government restrictions in a completely capitalist system. But whenever that system fails due to unsustainable greed, then the not-so-flourishing businesses are free to come under the shelter of government giving them a socialist asylum.
David Cameron is trying his best to give the party a fresh new look; but all his coming to parliament in bi-cycle and shopping in Tesco does not change the fact that his party is for the elites and not for the mass. He vows to nurture the NHS but another MP from his party declares NHS to be the biggest mistake and even takes side with the American Republican Senators rallying against Obama’s health care plans. So which one is the actual face of the Conservative Party? The one Cameron wants to portray… the clean, green, NHS-supporting, Obama-admiring party? Or the one that believes NHS is just a huge wastage of money because “There is no such thing as society” (as said by Margaret Thatcher)?
A very good example of what happens when Tories come into power is the election of Boris Johnson as London Mayor. Only last year the fare for London Underground was increased by 10%; and he is planning to increase it (and that of buses as well this time) again by more than 20% amid this deep recession. Boris will never understand what an increase of 20p on a £1 bus ticket means to an average family; after all, £250,000 a year is just “chickenfeed” for him. How can these Tories run the country efficiently, when they are so much detached from the common public?
Surely is a tough call for the voters. Having said all these things, another term of Labour does not seem to be an option. May be people can consider the Lib-Dems for a change. But the problem is no one takes them seriously. They also do not seem to be doing enough to grab this opportunity; otherwise why don’t they talk of renationalising the railways and making the public transport fares affordable?
So the voters are left to choose not the best party, but the least evil among them.
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