I've never voted Tory but this area, for many years, was represented in Westminster by a Tory. In the 1990s all changed and it is now an SNP stronghold. Part of the change was due to the attitude of the tory MP who, when I moved here, behaved like a county laird instead of a representative of the people. Then John Swinney, with his open and amiable personality, came on the scene and local folk realised what they had been missing.
Now, John Swinney has never taken his electorate for granted even when he changed from MP to MSP and Pete Wishart became the MP for the area. Many will continue to vote tory in the forthcoming general election. It's in their blood. An amusing tale exemplifies that. Not so long ago locally we had a problem about trees. A neighbour complained to me about how the trees around her home would be affected by the problem and I suggested she contact John Swinney or Pete Wishart. Quite outraged she said, "I couldn't possibly do that - they're SNP!" Stifling a laugh I tried to persuade her, giving the assurance that they were very human and available to all, but it was a wasted effort. How similar to many, dyed in the wool Labour voters.
I digress. The purpose of this post is to determine what David Cameron's conservative party can offer to the country and myself as a voter. Much as I detest the labour party and the way they have destroyed my pension, deleted the 10p tax bracket, dumbed down education to the lowest common denominator and destroyed an economy which was one of the healthiest in the western world when they came to power, I can't see Mr Cameron's party, on present indicators, changing much.
Certainly I would feel more confident with the Tories handling
the economy but offering
cheap bank shares is not going to benefit pensioners. They don't seem to understand you can't spend what you don't have and they don't seem able to comprehend how little it is that a lot of us don't have to spend.
Education is a devolved issue so whoever is in Westminster does not affect it here except in the allocation of money. If I lived in England I would expect the tories to make strong changes in the way schools are managed and that can only be for the good of our young people. Also I would like to hear what Mr Cameron says about schools returning to traditional curriculums where basic skills are taught and learnt. The system worked. My generation is proof of that and we rebuilt Britain after WW2, in spite of this country being in vast financial debt to the US.
As yet I've heard nothing from the Tories about rescinding some of the vast amount of legislation that labour have introduced and which affects my civil liberties, although Chris Grayling has protested at the
latest labour proposals. These are neither fair or honest and would give great scope for victimization and vilification and the victim would have little redress. The Tories need to assure us they will roll back all nasty, unfair, vindictive and restrictive laws made by labour, which benefit small minority groups and penalise the vast majority of the citizens of this country.
The police are no longer considered trusty community servants but government officials who wish to fine us out of existence. Will the tories attempt to improve the image of our police service? So far they have not made their intentions (if any) known. David Cameron could make a start by getting rid of the ACPO, a private company, and bring the police back under government control as a force for the people and not a partly controlled private army.
David Cameron, for all his bluff and bluster some months ago, will be unable to make changes to the UK's
membership of the EU although I would like to see him give us the referendum he promised. Of course it would have no formal legality, but the results would interest a fair percentage of the population and a strong No vote to the EU would give the UK government a large moral mandate with which to negotiate. In this country, no government is bound by the actions of a previous administration if they do not wish to be. But he won't offer this because he
wants to be in the EU club, regardless of what he says publicly.
Last, yet by no means least, is
our military. Forget about all the 'we value our military' and 'how wonderful they are'. Let's face the reality of our armed forces. They have been starved for years by successive governments, in salaries, equipment and respect. Labour introduced the Strategic Defence Review when they came to power in 1997, made lots of suggestions, then conveniently disposed of it to the back of a drawer. Since then we have fought two major wars and yet it's only now that another Review is coming to fruition. I see very little interest for defence matters from any side of the Commons and that not only annoys me but also shows what little regard our present politicians have for our safety and security. Liam Fox's performance on Newsnight on Monday was as poor as Bob Ainsworth's.
If one looks back over the last sixty years of defence procurement, at the numbers of cancellations of advanced British military equipment, cancelled for 'cost reasons' and then the military left to work with second hand obsolete American 'cast-offs' which end up costing more! In one case the Americans cancelled the production line of the replacement! Neither the Tories or Labour are covered in any glory here and don't forget the Chinooks.
David Cameron would keep Trident. Why he wants to keep something which costs us billions and yet we're unable to use because the US controls it (and us), I'll never understand. A status symbol only and in what circumstance would it be used? Its time is passed. Even the Top Brass consider it an embarrassment.
His party has been quite silent on
climate change since the exposure of corrupted data and if reports are correct, scamming 'scientists'. Does he really believe we can change the climate? We can't even change the weather; if it was possible the military would have done it years ago! So Dave, do we go on throwing money at this will o' the wisp or do we learn from the lesson of King Canute?
To summarise, if I lived in England I would possibly vote tory because there is no alternative. It would be a tactical vote because there are only two choices for those south of the border and David Cameron appears to be publicly more personable than Gordon Brown. I know, that's a very weak reason, but then the leaders involved are both lacking in policies of any depth.
Scotland is the only country in Europe which has oil and yet we pay the highest charges for
fuel. We produce more electricity than we can use so we export it to England. Yet here is Scotland we pay, in some cases, nearly 50% more than English consumers using our export. I don't mind sharing our wealth with the rest of the UK as long as we are part of it, but surely anomalies like this should be addressed if they want Scottish votes.
All things considered the conservatives can offer me little or nothing. They've had 13 years to reorganise, regenerate, modernise, call it what you will. Many in my peer group say he's spent far too much time cuddling up to minority groups when he should have been discussing, with everyone, his plans for a cohesive society.
David Cameron was thought to be the saviour of the conservative party when first elected. Now, even the blue rinse ladies are calling him weak and ineffective. As one of my readers said recently, "Trouble with the tories is that they are like a minestrone soup, smells all right, but when you get into it it's just flavoured water with a few pieces of floating veg." An appropriate description which would also suit the labour party, (not sure about the smell though!)
So is the only reason for voting Conservative to get rid of Labour? Surely there is more to it than that, even if it is a good start!
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