In the name of God… go!

Almost 370 years ago, in 1653, Oliver Cromwell dissolved the Long parliament – a corrupt cabal of wealthy, self-serving villains who, – far from working for the good of the people chose only to further their own interests. The MPs of the time dishonoured the lofty ideals of parliamentary democracy with their greed and their utter contempt for the needs of those whom they were elected to serve.

This is what he said…

“It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; you are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; you are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.

“Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? You have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not bartered your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?

“You sordid prostitutes ,have you not defiled this sacred place, and turned the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? You are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, get yourselves gone! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors.

“In the name of God, go!”

Patel’s murderous plans for asylum-seekers

Priti Patel may well be the most despicable politician of my lifetime. She seems to be motivated only be her own mean-spirited avarice and cruelty. And yet even she has surpassed herself in heartlessness with a new bill intended to guarantee desperate people drown in the channel. She even plans to imprison anyone who rescues them from their fate. How can this travesty of a human being attain the position of Home secretary?

Dismantling democracy

Boris Johnson’s conservative government was elected on a manifesto which included fair warning that they intended to ‘overhaul’ our parliamentary processes and dismantle the checks and balances that have maintained the balance between Parliament, Government and the judiciary for generations. The motivation seems to have been the fact that the courts prevented Boris (and his predecessor, Teresa May) from introducing illegal or unacceptably sectarian measures. MPs exercised their democratic right to scrutinise and ratify (or not) Parliamentary bills that would have been profitable for a few wealthy tories but disastrous for the majority of citizens. This is why Boris Johnston wants to remove legal scrutiny from his machinations.

It’s unfortunate that so many Brits either didn’t bother to read the manifesto or brushed over that page without really noticing just what it meant. Here I’ll link to various posts outlining just how they’re going about that process and why it’s such a problem for anyone interested in fair and democratic representation of the people. But first let’s hear what two parliamentary candidates had to say about the issue at my local hustings. The labour candidate, Sue Hayman counselled caution and spoke of the importance of scrutiny whereas the conservative candidate, Mark Jenkinson clearly had a different view.

Boris Johnston wants to assume power like a dictator and simply do whatever he wants without reference to parliament or law and without having to listen to anyone who may have cause for concern. And Tory MPs apparently want to help him do it. That’s not democracy.

There’s good reason why we have those checks and balances. They prevent a plethora of evils from police states to human rights abuses. They’re not just minor inconveniences to be swept aside by egotistical overgrown children like Johnson. These are our protections and the consequences if we allow this government to tear them down will be dire.

Within a single month of taking their seats in the House of Commons, every single conservative MP voted to remove their own right to scrutinise Brexit legislation. At a stroke they disempowered parliament and in doing so guaranteed that Boris Johnston won’t need to listen to MPs or the electorate in forcing through Brexit – even under the worst of terms.

That’s not all. This unscrupulous regime is attempting to influence culture itself. They’re interfering in academic appointments and attempting to politicise every aspect of British life. From schools to museums, the message is the same. And the historical implications of that are genuinely terrifying.

Then came Covid19 and yet another excuse to disempower parliament. Boris wasted no time in deploying his majority to ban parliament from scrutinising or commenting upon laws he chose to pass in relation to the pandemic – a topic with an alarmingly wide reach as we shall see. The combination of powers relating to Coronavirus and to Brexit make Johnston dictator in all but name. The government even ignored its own scientific advisory group, SAGE, choosing instead to scapegoat the expert panelists under the distorting auspices of Dominic Cummings, eugenicist and far right sectarian who seems to be pulling Johnston’s strings like some Machiavellian puppet master straight out of renaissance Italy.

It may be that Cummings’ divisive views were the impetus behind the obvious racism inherent in the domestic abuse bill recently passed by this disgraceful tory government.

As if that’s not bad enough. The tories have also voted to remove any and all protections from our NHS. They have completely ignored their oft-repeated manifesto promise to protect the National Health Service from foreign (in particular American) private health investors. This government has quite literally paved the way for the health needs of British citizens to be sold down the river, sacrificed at the altar of corporate profit and private greed. This is not democracy!

The British people did not vote for this.

In truth, our democracy has been so damaged in just a few short months that it’s genuinely reasonable to compare UK with a banana republic, a totalitarian state in which dissent is ignored, privacy is a thing of the past, laws threaten the peoples’ right to scrutinise the powers that be and where the majority become poorer whilst the elite cabal increase their own wealth exponentially.

And if you have a Tory MP… you’re not even allowed to ask them a question!

Mark Jenkinson MP represents the people of Workington by ignoring their opinions, insulting them when they raise questions and disempowering himself, their only voice in parliament.

List of links used in chronological order…

https://lefteyeview.com/2019/12/12/workington-hustings-parliament-the-executive-and-judicial-review/

https://lefteyeview.com/2019/12/23/449/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/01/20/the-price-of-liberty/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/01/22/tories-vote-to-disempower-parliament/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/02/08/wot-still-nor-russian-report/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/02/19/conservative-constitutional-con-continues/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/03/01/further-fun-from-the-downing-st-fash/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/04/27/email-to-my-mp-about-sages-scientific-integrity/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/05/29/the-slow-death-of-british-democracy/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/06/09/dominic-cummings-the-plot-thickens/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/07/07/tories-sabotage-their-own-manifesto-promise/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/07/27/are-tory-mps-not-ashamed/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/08/03/nhs-privatisation-by-stealth/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/08/09/uk-compared-with-a-banana-republic/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/08/11/the-government-is-spying-on-you/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/08/23/my-mp-doesnt-care-for-democracy/

My MP doesn’t care for democracy

My Tory MP, Mark Jenkinson demonstrated once again how little regard he has for representative democracy or the constituents he purports to represent. He couldn’t have made his contempt for his constituents involvement in British politics any clearer if he’d tried.

How on Earth did this ignoramous make it into parliament?

Jenky MP: Promises versus reality

Mark Jenkinson MP entered the House of commons as Member of Parliament for Workington on 13th December 2019. He cruised to victory in the 2019 General election, partly because of Brexit and partly on the back of promises and pledges he made. Promises which have been saved for posterity in his election address. Promises which we can refer to when assessing his honesty. Promises which provide a framework to determine just how much he really cares about the circumstances of those people who elected him.

So what were these promises? According to Jenky’s printed election address he was going to…
Support our NHS
Invest in schools
Increase police and support tougher sentencing
Support businesses and jobs
Improve infrastructure
Support town centres

To date Jenky has not voted against the government even once. This seems remarkable enough in itself for anyone who claims to have integrity. The work of this callous government seems so far removed from that of decent, caring human beings that opposition is a duty, not just a choice.

We’ve already noted that Jenky voted against the rights of working people – hardly a positive move on behalf of a working class community like ours.

We know that he voted to abandon unaccompanied refugee children – one of the most callous decisions British politics has seen for decades.

We know that he, along with every other Tory MP, voted to disempower the House of Commons and remove the HoC’s right to scrutinise government proposals. This was the first move in Boris’ increasing journey toward Dictatorship.

Now let’s see what else he’s been up to since he entered Parliament. Use these two links to confirm all that follows…

Public whip

They work for you

On the NHS and Social care

It’s no secret that there is a funding crisis in health and social care, largely as a result of Tory and Liberal Democrat underfunding since 2010. Jenky and his tory mates had the chance to vote to change all that by voting to provide adequate funding – funding that currently goes to the most wealthy in tax cuts. Given Jenky’s commitment to support the NHS you’d have thought he’d be happy to be one of the people supporting this motion. Alas, no. On January 16th he voted to deny both services the basic funding they would need to start to rebuild their efficiency. So much for that promise.

Not only that, on Feb 4th 2020 he voted to scrap government responsibility for targets and monitoring and to prevent further funds being made available to the Health Service. He even voted to let the Health secretary avoid making an annual statement on health funding. That should help hide the Tory party’s appalling under-funding of the NHS from here on in, shouldn’t it?

On police

It was January 29th when Jenky voted to refuse the extra funding necessary to fulfil his pledges about more and better policing. Remember that this is the guy who said the Government’s majority meant they could do everything they want to – and he was right. So why won’t they do what they promised to? Could it be because they didn’t mean it? Could it be that Jenky’s own voting record shows that he doesn’t care about honouring his pledges to his electorate either?

On rights

On January 8th Jenky voted against maintaining protections for working people post Brexit. This is interesting because during the election campaign he stated categorically that EU standards for working peoples’ rights were merely a minimum (which is true), that UK rights provisions exceed them and there is no plan to reduce that provision of rights for workers. Why then did he vote to detach us from the minimum that we apparently plan to exceed anyway? Could it be that there really is a plan to reduce our rights still further? After all, that would be in keeping with the erosion of rights that has already been the hallmark of Tory policy for a decade.

On January 20th Jenky voted against reversing austerity and against clamping down on tax avoidance. On the same day he voted against measures intended to extend full employment rights to all workers, to end in-work poverty and to introduce a real living wage. It’s almost as though he doesn’t care about working class communities or the ‘Workington man’ who voted for him.

On homelessness

Jenky voted against providing the relatively small amount of money needed to end homelessness, a problem that has grown several-fold under the Tories throughout the last 10 years of ideologically driven austerity.

Two weeks later he had the audacity to ask a question in the house about help for veterans, a group disproportionately affected by the very homelessness that he refused to eradicate.

This is the hypocrisy of Mark Jenkinson MP.

A grim future

Jenky and all the other newly elected Tory MPs who now represent the former ‘Red wall’ constituencies may well have been elected on the back of a Brexit promise but British politics is and always has been about much more than just one, single issue. Similar articles (indeed almost exactly the same article) could be written about them all – so slavishly do they tow the party line.

Together they are destroying the working class communities of Britain.
They are destroying the communities they claim to represent.
They are destroying the livelihoods of the voters who trusted them.

It was bad before but it’s even worse now. Boris’ huge majority in the house means he can get away with anything he wants to – or rather his handler, Dominic Cummings can. There’s nothing we can do about that for the moment though – the die is cast and we’ll just have to hang on and weather the ideological storm – a storm that will make Thatcher’s 1980s look like a walk in the park.

So please remember these betrayals, remember the voting records of hypocrites like Jenky and let’s kick them out in 2024.

Let’s take our democracy back from these hypocritical liars and con artists!

Conservative constitutional con continues

That just might be my most alliterative title ever. Con, con, con, con. But is it accurate?

Well, sadly… yes… it’s absolutely accurate and the Cabinet Meets After Reshuffle In London potential ramifications for our government, our courts, our parliament and our rights are way scarier than many innocent, unsuspecting voters, including Tory voters, have hitherto imagined. But don’t just take my word for it… Read on whilst I lay out my case and then judge for yourselves.

British governance has for many centuries been a balance, a constitutional push and pull process between parliament (the Lords and the commons), the Government (the Prime Minister and the cabinet) and the judiciary (the legal system, especially senior courts like the Lords and more recently the Supreme court).

It has always been clear that…

• The government sets out proposals
• Parliament scrutinises those proposals and makes amendments or even rejects them as it sees fit
• The courts ensure that laws are legal (based upon the laws already laid down by parliament).
• Some issues clearly fall within the court’s remit but most matters are for parliament to decide – not the courts and not the government.

That balance works and generally prevents the government from acting unlawfully or stupidly for populist reasons.

One of the most important duties of the court system is to uphold parliament’s right to scrutiny and to make decisions. To acknowledge when a decision is not theirs to make and pass it back to the appropriate body – Parliament. I assume that even the most ardent Brexiter would have no problem with that statement. Here it is again, for clarity…

Senior judges are expected to protect parliament’s right and opportunity to scrutinise government proposals.

Fair enough?

So what’s all this about the courts overstepping the mark?
Why do we need constitutional reform?
Why do we need people with a proven track record of disregarding the law, human rights and the will of Parliament to change the rules that have maintained our democratic balance for generations?

Suella Braverman attorney general Boris Johnson claims that the courts made political decisions when they twice ruled against the government over Brexit. The newly appointed Attorney General, Suella Braverman, writing in ‘Conservative Home’ opined…

“People we elect must take back control from people we don’t. Who include the judges.”

But let’s look at what she actually meant. In the article she commented upon only two cases, the Supreme Court rulings over Article 50 in 2017 and Parliamentary prorogation in 2019. So let’s be clear…

1. First – the courts ruled that Brexit was a decision for Parliament, not for the PM alone. This is entirely in keeping with the legal duty of ensuring that Parliament gets to scrutinise government.
2. Second – the court ruled that it was unlawful to prevent Parliament from scrutinising the Withdrawal bill by proroguing it without any other, pressing reason and no actual plan. Once again the judgement was intended to uphold Parliament’s right to represent the people who voted it into office.

Remember what we said earlier…

Senior judges are expected to protect parliament’s right and opportunity to scrutinise government proposals.

That’s exactly what the Supreme court did. So no harm done. Except that Boris and his handler, Dominic Cummings were furious. In fact, it is widely known that this whole constitutional review is the result of Cummings intention to…

“Get the judges sorted”

Perhaps that’s why Suella Braverman has become Attorney general in the first place. It’s clear that for all her legal experience (which is considerable) she is quite prepared to rob the Supreme court of its ability to protect Parliament’s rights. It’s equally clear that she dislikes the Human rights act. In fact, in the same article she misrepresents both the actions of the Supreme court and the HRA. It’s almost as though this experienced lawyer doesn’t understand the law – or is deliberately misleading people to justify an unwarranted coup as part of Johnson’s growing infrastructure of dictatorship.

And she, along with Michael Gove is taking a lead role in the whole review.

So, to summarize:

suella braverman 2 The court has upheld parliament’s right to scrutinise and make decisions;
Therefore the government is to remove the court’s powers because;
Boris apparently want to maintain Parliament’s right to scrutinise and make decisions;
Along the way Boris will move a little closer to dictator status and our human rights will be thrown under the bus.

Good, innit?

Tories vote to disempower parliament

Play this 2 minute video to see how Tory MPs actually voted to remove their own right to see, to review, to approve or to amend one of the most important Bills to pass through the House this session.And that’s not all… they’re also setting a very dangerous precedent.

British democracy is being turned into a Boris Johnson dictatorship with Parliament moving closer and closer to an enabling act every day. Barely a month has passed since the General election and already the PM has sidelined MPs and the courts.Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Division number 8 – parliamentary scrutiny
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2020-01-08c.450.1#g451.0

Jenky at the hustings

Tory MPs caught telling the truth

Yes, I know – trawling through Hansard can be a pain. So much of a pain that few people ever bother but I promise you, it’s well worth it if you want to know what’s actually going on. It’s one thing to see how an MP votes but if you want to actually catch them in their hypocrisy then Hansard is the place to go.

On Thursday January 16th, the House of Commons debated a motion tabled by Shadow secretary of state of health, Jon Ashworth. It was a proposed amendment to the new Health and Social care legislation proposed in the Queen’s Speech. The amendment would acknowledge that nothing less than a cumulative 4% increase in NHS funding would suffice to repair the damage caused by long-term Tory underfunding since 2010. Mr. Ashworth began…

“I beg to move an amendment, at the end of the Question to add:

‘but respectfully regrets that the Gracious Speech fails to ensure that the National Health Service and social care will be properly funded;
and calls for the Government to bring forward a plan and additional funding to end the crisis in social care and provide for at least a 4 per cent per year real terms increase in health spending.’. “

Yasmin Qureshi Shadow Minister for Justice reported that…

“When Labour came to power in 1997, there were 1.3 million people on a waiting list—the highest number since the NHS was created in 1948. The Labour Government used targeted and sufficient funding to bring all those figures down, to the point where A&E waiting times were down to four hours and waiting lists were down to 18 weeks. It is regrettable that the Government now want to abolish the A&E waiting time target. Is that simply to spare Ministers’ blushes? Since last October, 320,034 people waited more than four hours at A&E, whereas in 2010 the figure was just 41,231.”

This is, of course a damning indictment of not only the conservative mishandling of the NHS since 2010 but also of the previous tory government that ran it down in much the same manner prior to 1997.

This is why a minimum, consistent 4% increase is so vital. But it’s not only the opposition that are highlighting such damning figures. The tories themselves are unhappy at the state of the NHS too. That’s why Conservative MP. Desmond Swayne’s words near the beginning of the proceedings were so important…

“This motion is about giving the NHS the funding it needs. It is a motion that will test every newly elected Conservative Member of Parliament on their commitment to the NHS.”

And test them it will!

Every single Conservative MP claimed to support the NHS. My own MP, Mark Jenkinson was extremely clear about his intention to support extra funding for health and social care services of a kind that would make a genuine difference to the level of service available to his working class constituents.

Swayne continued…

“The hon. Gentleman will recall that the Government accepted the Dilnot proposals and even put in place certain legislative provisions for them to be implemented in the next financial year.”

The Dilnot proposal recommended placing a maximum cap on the amount that individuals could be asked to contribute to their care in any circumstance, including issues related to old age or chronic illness. The conservative government scrapped their commitment to it in 2017 leading to the famous ‘Dementia tax’ proposal that lost Theresa May so much ground in the election of that year.

“…I never understood why, during the 2017 election campaign, they departed from that position—but what is the Opposition’s position on Dilnot?”

The commitment to Dilnot has still not been reinstated by the Conservative government despite its popularity within the country at large. Speaking for the labour party Jon Ashworth, Secretary of State for Health responded…

“We have long argued for a cap on care costs, but of course the Government, as the right hon. Gentleman says, dropped their support for this policy.”

He went on to remark that…

“This is a motion about the 4.5 million people on waiting lists… This is a motion about the 34,000 people who wait more than two months for cancer treatment. This is a motion about those constituents, such as mine in Leicester, who had their bladder cancer operations cancelled twice. This is a motion about the 79,000 cancelled operations last year, and the 18,000 children’s cancelled operations. This is a motion about the 110,000 children denied mental health care, even though they are in the most desperate of circumstances. This is a motion about the 98,000 patients who waited on trolleys last month—a 65% increase on the previous year—many of them elderly, many of them in their 80s and 90s, languishing for hours and hours on trolleys in hospital corridors… This is a motion about the 1.5 million people, many of them with dementia, denied the social care support they need after years and years of swingeing cuts.”

Mr. Ashworth later remarked…

“The Secretary of State is proposing a Bill that fails to reverse the £850 million of cuts to public health prevention services… He is asking us to approve a Bill that does not reverse the raids on capital budgets or deal with the £6.5 billion backlog of repairs facing our hospitals… He is proposing a Bill that does not give the NHS the 4% uplift annually that many experts say it needs. That is why Labour has tabled an amendment today to give the NHS a 4% uplift, and every Tory MP who believes in the NHS should support it.”

Every Tory MP who believes in the NHS should support it.

But that’s all very well. The opposition is supposed to call out the government on its plans and claims. What did the Conservative MPs have to say about the NHS after 10 years of their own party’s policies? For example, Caroline Johnson, Conservative MP for Sleaford and North Hykeham pointed again to the ‘creative accounting’ of the Prime Minister’s claims about new nursing staff…

“I want to ask him about the 44,000 vacancies that he talked about. Is it not right that when the Health Committee looked at that, it found that 38,000 of those places were actually occupied by nurses who work on the bank?”

Daniel Poulter MP is a Conservative with grave concerns about the impact of market forces on the NHS…

“There is a particular concern among patients and people who work in the NHS about the fragmentation of services, which has been the result of the sometimes market-driven approach to the delivery of healthcare and the encroachment of the private sector on the delivery of traditional NHS services.

“As a clinician, what matters most to me is that we deliver the right services for patients. We need to recognise that the involvement of private sector provision has sometimes led to greater fragmentation and a lack of joined-up care for patients.”

The damage caused by this fragmentation is plain to see thanks to the targets and metrics set up by the last Labour government. And they make very telling reading.
What is the Tories’ answer to the worst A&E performance figures on record? It is to scrap the four-hour A&E target. Abolishing the target will not magic away the problems in A&E. It will not suddenly fix a system that saw 100,000 people waiting on trolleys last December.

Perhaps most bizarrely, Mike Penning is the tory MP from Hemel Hempstead. Despite knowing full well the problems resulting from the last 10 years of tory governance he still intends to vote against the amendment…

“We have got into a situation where the only way we can fight this, believe it or not, is to take the trust to court. There is a lack of accountability—I have called for debates in this House on that for years now. The only way we can fight the fact that the trust has only put in a bid for refurbishment of the Watford site is to take it to court and challenge it under judicial review. I have a fantastic community. We have raised the money. We will go to court. But is it not crazy that here I am praising, and I will be voting for, the Queen’s Speech and against Labour’s amendment, when I am saying that the £400 million being offered by the Government is going to the wrong place?”

Those voters local to me might be interested to know that despite assurances to support our health and care services, Mark Jenkinson MP also voted not to increase funding for the NHS and Social care last week.

James Davies MP is a Conservative. He’s also a doctor. He seems less than confident that the concerns of his profession will be met sympathetically by the Secretary of State for Health.…

“I have outlined not only interesting statistics, but sadly an indication of unnecessary loss of life and of harm to real patients. At the very least, there is a need for UK-wide patient safety mechanisms and rigorous inspection regimes, underpinned by comparable statistical data on performance and outcomes. I urge the Secretary of State seriously to consider that when progressing the initiatives outlined in the Queen’s Speech.”

Barbara Keeley, Shadow Minister for Mental Health and Social Care may have made the most direct appeal, whilst calling out Boris on his lies about a ‘clear plan’ before the General election…

“Proposing a solution to the crisis in care should be the Government’s top priority, as we have heard in many of the speeches this afternoon. However, despite the Prime Minister’s earlier pledge to fix the crisis in social care once and for all, and with a clear plan we have prepared, he now says only that he will do something ‘in this Parliament’. After 10 years of inaction, is that the best the Prime Minister can say, alongside a vague offer of cross-party talks?”

But for me it was the many Conservative voices highlighting the inadequacy of their own government’s funding strategy that resonated the most. If only these people would vote with their consciences. But hey ho – they are Tories, after all!

The bastards still voted not to increase it though!

Government refuses to honour pledge to European citizens.

7/1/2020: Despite reassurances that European citizens living in the UK will be treated fairly the conservative government used its majority to refuse to honour that guarantee. They also ensured that any such citizens will be denied the right of appeal. This from the BBC website…

‘Twas the morning of Christmas

And all through the house

Not a creature was stirring

Not even a mouse.

The members were missing,

Backbenchers and front

Even dear Boris

At Thame in the country (with Carrie his soon to be spouse).

The front benches were empty:

Tories flew off like bats

To their fat Christmas turkeys

The selfish tw rats.

And in towns that were labour

Until Boris lied

Rough sleepers lay shivering

As hungry kids cried.

But the Tories don’t care

About other peoples’ pain

Their only real interest

Is personal gain.

They could have done so much

For kids, mams and dads

But they only care for

The Bullingdon lads:

The lovers of pigs heads;

The trashers of bars;

The fifty quid burners;

And crashers of cars.

Twas the morning of Christmas

And all through the house

Tory MPs ignored

All those poor as a mouse.

#ToryChristmas

Boris being smug now

So Boris is going to table a bill making delay in the face of a no deal Brexit in 2020 illegal. Ask yourself this…

Why on Earth would a PM with a huge overall majority in the house need such a bill? It’s pointless.

Unless of course he’s just being a smug child. The old Etonian continues to show his true colours.

Gutted!

Gutted

Last night at 10pm the exit polls announced their results. Right from the word go, even as the count was only just getting started TV pundits were predicting a landslide majority for the conservative party. And they were right.

The tory party now has a massive overall majority in the British parliament and there’s nothing to stop them doing exactly as they please. And there’s the rub.

No excuses

There are no longer any excuses for Boris and his disreputable gang of bully boys. There’s nobody to blame for their failures or for their cruelties. Whatever they do in the next five years, longer if they implement their ‘enabling act’ (see p.48 of the Tory manifesto) will be entirely down to them.

Well, they made a lot of promises, as tories always do. Election time is the only time when the conservative party starts talking like socialists. As if by magic they suddenly begin en masse to care about the NHS waiting lists they created. They start to worry about people struggling in poverty due to Tory party policies and they claim to want more educational opportunities for our young people who’ve had their prospects decimated by 9 years of Tory rule.

We’ll be watching

So let’s make sure they do what they set out to do. Let’s make sure they keep those promises too. After all, we know they’ll keep the right wing pledges they made to take even more from ordinary people and give it to the super rich. We know they’ll be falling over each other to flog our NHS to the Americans and there’s absolutely no doubt that they’ll further decrease our access to legal redress when our rights are trampled. That’s the trajectory they’ve been on for years.

Let’s hold them to their words about the good stuff too.

Left eye view

Left eye view will keep watching this government and compare its actions to its manifesto and election promises. New laws, changes to taxation and reductions in funding for necessary services will be compared against Boris’ promises to us, the people. Let’s see how sincere this government really is.