Promises are
fabulously cheap at election time. That said and remembering their last
election manifesto, such promises cannot come any more fabulous for their plain
bare faced cheek than those coming from the boys in orange. Their main claim to
the electorate above all other things is VOTE FOR US because we as Liberal
Democrats guarantee to provide balance between future cost cutting attacks on
welfare benefits by hard-nosed Tories and unnecessary expenditure by frivolous
Labour who they accuse of being only too willing to increase benefits all over
the place! As Clegg himself put it, Liberal Democrats would go into Coalition
Government with whoever they thought might need them; be best for the country
that is! And here his wonderful boast that they would give heart to the
Conservatives and be the brains for Ed Miliband!
Oh how
wonderful! How very good of him and his mates, one of whom by the way was
caught by the cameras sitting in a corner and grinning his head off like a
leery Chinaman! With those ever most noble Liberal Democrat values they’d be
the true guide for what is right and best in Government on behalf of the
people. Not too much cutting and not too many giveaways. The Lib-Dems would hold the middle ground and would be our good
shepherd. Kind of biblical when you come to think of it! And this is
precisely how they are portraying themselves!
IS THIS A JOKE
OR SOMETHING? In the coming election the Lib-Dems are likely to lose at least
half of their seats. Their opinion poll ratings are way down below even the
Greens! Few people want them anymore. Clegg and his Party are seen as people
who propped up the Tories and unashamedly voted for huge cuts in Welfare State
benefits. Talk about betraying their promises to students, their current
promise to increase expenditure in education by 3.2 billion is enough to make a
cat laugh. They can promise this and they can promise that but with the Party
likely to get a serious kick up the arse in May they’re hardly likely to be
back in Government and they know it. That said they can make promises till
they’re blue in the face . None of it matters. The best thing they could ever
hope to do is prop up the Europhile wing of the Conservative Party, but with
their ever friendly uncontrolled immigration policies that’s hardly likely to
go down well with the backwoodsmen from the shires.
UKIP on the
other hand are currently under attack from everywhere on the political party
spectrum to which should be added the ever snide Channel 4 Television News and
the BBC with their association of UKIP’s immigration policy with racism. It’s
such an easy allegation to make. So ugly, untruthful and yet so damning because
saying that you think control of Britain’s borders is necessary opens the door
to the politically motivated accusation of being a racist when its actually got
nothing to do with racism. Those who want immigration control for perfectly rational
economic reasons experience this as a smear tactic employed only too often by
those new political fascists. Coming this time from the Left.
UKIP and its
leader firmly believe in immigration control. It’s a central plank in their
Manifesto because of Britain’s membership of the EU. Along with it however are
a raft of economic policies whose costs the Party claims will be funded by the
cancellation of Britain’s payments to Brussels. These include a more generous
tax regime for low paid British workers paid for by abolishing Foreign Aid and
a diminution of money given to Scotland, policies likely to find favor with the
Daily Mail and Express reading lower middle class electorate of Essex and Kent
to whom the Scots are at best a grungy scowling anathema. And whereas the
Party’s policies on the economy are broadly Left there is little to nothing
said about the Trades Union Movement currently sidelines and ignored by all the
main Parties.
UKIP’s Manifesto
commitment to Defence and defence expenditure is clear as is their commitment
to British armed forces services personnel. No cutbacks from current levels and
a promise to build a large new hospital for their exclusive use. No talk though
of salary increases for the armed forces with the Party seeming to take their
fighting services for granted, same as all the others have traditionally done.
Lots of the usual talk about bravery but little as ever about putting bread on
the table for those who risk their lives in stupid places for ultimately stupid
reasons! Shame on you Nigel, your heart wasn’t in the right place on this one.
You could have made a real difference here!
The final point I
wish to make here is this. How many of you have looked into buying an English-Scottish
Foreign Language Dictionary lately? It might be as good an investment as one for
English-Romanian!
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