Torys lurge back to the right.

The latest set of policy proposals by the Tory Party, show that, for all the talk, the Tories are still the same old Party, and have not changed. The policy Proposals, written by John Redwood, are very right wing, are a gift to the Labour Party, who are already 10 points in the polls.

The policies proposed include the areas of taxes, regulation and public services, and on the whole it is the same old story of tax cuts or abolition, de-regulation, privatisation, attacking workers rights all in the name of making Britain more "competive" and lurging back to the right to please the right wing and old guard of the Tory Party.

The proposals show that the Tories are all talk, and spin about them changing and being more "compassionate" and "liberal" while they are nothing but hyprocrites, partaking in a cynical attempt to con voters. A case in point can be George Osborne attaking Gordon Brown from not "spreading the Wealth" enough
yet the following day, he turns around and joins John Redwood on the stage as they talk about abolishing inhertance tax and cutting other taxes, which again is something which the Tories again they would not do.

If they Tories were to abolish inhertance tax, and cut the Coproration taxes and all the other cuts they want to do, then how would they pay for it? Abolishing Inhertance Tax would cut a lot of money from the budget, and that would have to come from somewhere, and let's face it, the Tories would cut money from the NHS, education and other aspects of the welfare state, aswell as reducing the money that the already underfunded devovled insitutions get.

However it is not all about tax cuts, they also have decided to de-regulation, mainly meaining reducing workers rights and protection. This means opting out of the social charter, which would leave workers vunerble to expolitation by bad employers, they would repeal reguations on working time, date protection and money laundering, they have suggsted making health and safety regulation more "Proporinate" meaning reducing them so the workers would be less safe in the workplace then they are now, and allowing employers to cut corners in reguards to health and safety measures. John Redwood claimed that "de-regulation were at the heart of the proposals" and a tax cut by another name.

For all the talk of "Vote Blue Go Green" the Tory proposals on transport show that the Conservatives are not as green as they claim, although David Cameron's stunt with the bike with his car behind him has givne it away. They want to privatise the roads to allow more motorways to be built , they cant more privatisation of the railways, the oringal privatisationn of which lead tot he current crisis in our railway sytstem. How does more traffic, fit in with the Tories new "green" agenda? It can't and it doesn't. It yet again reveals the true nature of the Tories and that nature hasn't changed from the Thatcherite heart that is beating in it since the 1980s.

They also propose get rid of "restrictive" building regulations, which again could have an effect on the enviroment, depending which "restrictive" measure is removed, and the use of more private money for universities, which again is a traditional, right wing, Tory-type proposal.

This shows that the Tories are lurging back to the right. It does vindicate those in Plaid Cymru that didn't want to go into coalition with the Tories, and it does show that the Tories are still the nasty party, and that Labour is the party of social justice, compassion, and fairness.

Redwood lets the cat out of the bag

It seems the John Redwood has let the cat out of the bag, in a speech yesterday. His speech stating that "Tories plans to cut red tape would be a tax cut under another name" reveals that David Camerons attempt to change the Conservative Party has failed and they have now, yet again, lurched back to the right to try and appeal to their core supporters. Redwood revealed that cutting "red tape" is not the only plans up their sleeves, but they also want to "relax" (or scrap) health and safety rules, which means making the work place less safe for the workers, as well as scrap some rules on working hours and data protection (meaning more spam.) This report is not just written by Redwood, a well-known ultra Thatcherite Neo-Con, but also helped by George Osburne, David Cameron's closest friend and Shadow Chancellor.

The Tories still will cut taxes and vital spending in public services once in power, no matter how David Cameron tries to cover it up by his spin on changing the Tories into a caring and compassionate party. They have retreated back to the same old right wing agenda which the people of Britain have rejected many times bfore, and will do again.

More evidence of this comes from Redwoods interview on Newsnight, were he claims that the Tories would privatised Britain's inferstructure even more then it already has been, as he has further elbrorated on in today's Telegraph

The Tories wanting to expand motorways, airports, scrapping planning reguations and all the rest of it, goes against the Tories new "green" imagine, which has time and time again proven to be nothing by a false and cynical attempt by Cameron to con people into voting for the Tories for the enviroment, while all the time they don't really care about it, other then using it as a PR stunt. This document shows the kind of policies that the Tories would persue and the negitive effects they would have on the enviroment.

If the kind of policies that Redwood has propose are typical of the "new" Tory party, then Labour has nothing to worry about, because this is the kind of right wing manifesto that put many people off the Tories in the past, and will do again. Conservatives cannot change their spots, and these kind of statements from John Redwood, supported by Cameron prove that the Tories have returned back to their old right wing agenda. The review Redwood was working on will be published this Friday, and if it is anything like Redwood claims it is, then it will be a gift for Labour.

(Wow, talked about Redwood without even mentioning the embarassing incident with the Welsh national anthem when he was Welsh Sectertary in the 1980s, or the fact that he gave a lot of money back from Wales to Westminister despite it being needed....)

Tories are still anti-single parents

The latest Tory Policy proposals (not an actually policy as that would mean Cameron actually having to make a descion)shows that the Tories are still anti-single parent.
The policy proposals are full of the anti-signle parent policies of the failed Tory past, dressed up in different clothes, but however will still not help the poorest, and this is coupled with more Thatcherite attempts to destory the welfare state.

The Tory policy proposal has a number of things in it including a £20 tax break from married couples, which not only discriminates against single parent families (who are already some of the poorest in Britain), but also could force people to either enter into, or stay in an unloving relationship, because they are better off married in such a relationship then not, and I don't think that a child growing up in an enviroment wherre there parents don't really love each other, and do not want to stay together will be a good enviroment for that child to grow up in. It could well happen, since the tax "incentive" is there for them to do so.

Another policy which is even worse, is the Tory policy proposal of them forcing single parents to return to work, 16 hours a week when their child reaches 5, and 30 hours a week once their child is 11. Not only does this discriminate against single parent families, many of who struggle in already difficult circumstances to raise their children right, and do what is best for their child, however forcing them to go to work will make this job 10 times more difficult, not that the Tories care about single parents, nor the children from single parent backgrounds.

This policy will also have another side effect too, if the single parent is at work when the child is 11, and cannot be their for them once they come home from school, the child will be bored, and at home alone, this could very well risk the child becoming anti-social, and it will be the fault of a Tory government led by David Cameron, if that happends, not of the parent, who would be forced to work by this policy proposal. During the teenage years a child would be very vunerble, and this policy would make them more so. Then their are other issues of child welfare which this backward policy proposal by the Tories ignores.

Children are in single parent families of no fault of their own, and the Tories should not punish them because of this, a single parent family could be a result of mutual ending by the couple, because of a death of one of the partners, escaping an abusive relationships, and other possiblities, none of which can be blamed on the child, and many of which cannot be blamed on the parents either, yet the Tories would cause this kind of family to again suffer if the Tories were to return to power. These two policies show that the Tories do not care about families living in poverty, do not care about the worse off children in our society, and this policy will definitly not lift them out of poverty, and will certainly not "mend the break society" as David Cameron claims it would.

A more sinster aspect to this, is the privatisation of aspects of the welfare state, ontracting out "welfare to work" schemes, which would not benifit anyone on such schemes, but would make it cheaper for the government to do such schemes. However, the welfare state is there to help people who need it, and doing it cheapily to save money is not helping anyone but the government. This is a throwback to Thatcherism, and a move which would help the corrosion of the welfare state started by Thatcher, which must be stopped at all costs, if we had a real leader of the Labour Party, that had a backbone.

The Tories haven't changed, if this is the sort of policies they are coming up with. They are still a party for the rich, and of out of date victorian values.

NHS should be "Free at the point of us....just as long as you are entitled" saids ex-AM David Davies

Former Conservative AM, David Davies MP for Monmouth (Not the one that stood for leadership of the UK party), who is infamous for his speeches against gypsies (here and here)as well as his outbust against homosexuals being allowe to adopt and education on homosexuality in schools. (here and here)

In his blog, he has recently stated that he thinks that foriegners shouldn't get NHS treatment without having insurance. This clearly bring up all sort of issues.

One of the first is, what if someone fleeing pesicution from another country arrives in Britain and either hasn't gotten or cannot afford insurance? (Or don't have insurance for any other reason) Are they meant to be turned away from having healthcare if they are ill?, just because they are "freeloading" as Monmouth's David Davies MP (the ex-AM one, not the cabinet one) has put it on his blog. If so, then that would be a very immoral and deeply wrong, this is because healthcare should be a human right for everyone, not matter were they come from, no matter how much money they got, no matter what illness or injury they have, nor anything else you can discriminate by, everyone single person should have the right to have good quality healthcare. It is unjust to leave someone to die, or suffer, just because they do not have the money, nor the documents, to show that they are "entitled to it," because that is not important, what is important is that the paitent gets treated for their illness.

Even if they can afford to have healthcare, then surely if it is under and insurance system, then they will only be entitle to the healthcare they can afford. This would mean that if they, while in Britain, suffer an injury, get serious ill or anything else which is outside the insurance they have, then they would be refused treatment and have to suffer. That is of course, if they even have insurance.

Then there is the issue of immigrants that have come to Britain to live, how long would they need to pay taxes before they become eligable for free treatment on the NHS? one week?, one month? a year? 2 years?

Another issue with this, is that this will create more bureaucracy, something which I thought Tories such as David Davies, were against? This would mean that they would have to have people checking that this insurance and verify that it is A-okay, and the key word in his blog I feel is " verifiable health insurance document.."
To verify it, would mean more work and bureacucracy, for both the NHS and the immigrant offices. This of course would mean that funds would have to be diverted from paitents (be them British or not) or immigrants and too chasing up to see if they health insurance document is "verifiable" or not. How does this tie-in with the Tory agenda on bureaucracy? I don't think more paperwork would decrease the "red tape" that the Tories want to remove.

Personally, I am glad that Britain is a compassionate nation that values our free healthcare service, and believes that everyone should have free healthcare no matter who they are, or were they come from. The problem is also not as widespread or as bad as David Davies has made it seem to be, because it is quiet costly and time consuming to book a flight, fly to Britain, get a hospital appointment, get treatment and so on, I don't think that all of that would happen within a day, not in any country. However it does go to show the mentality of some Tories, especally the most right wing ones.

Do we really want this man and his party running the country?

David Cameron, and the so-called "Modern" Conservative Party have, over the last few weeks, have again been proving themselves to be nothing but a party even more obsessed with spin, the polls and focus groups, then New Labour, with Cameron being the most guilty politican of the lot. The recent grammer school row is just one in a long line of flip-flops, U-turns and David Cameron being unable to make a solid decision.

Cameron's most recent flip-flop over muesum charges, the Tories floated ideas by Dave's Old Etonian friend Hugo Swire MP (Culture Spokesman) to abolish free entry to muesum entries (abolished under this Labour government), which was then said to be "under review" before being thrown out. Either that was a pretty quick reivew, or it is yet another example of the inability of Cameron to make any decisions and stick by them.

David Cameron's only belief is getting into Downing Street, he has no agenda, no principle and no ideas beyond spin, and saying what he thinks people wants to hear, instead of trying to be principled, and showing that he does have the ability to make the difficult decisions. Cameron does not have the ability to do that, if he becomes Prime Minister, he would not be able to run the country effectively, since he is a big political jelly fish.

Even if Cameron is sincere about shifting his party towards being a more liberal, caring and compassionate party. There are many on his back benchers and in the front bench that do not believe in it, and with the polls slowly getting worse for the Tories and better for Labour. How long before his party's right wing start speaking out more then they have already done with Grammer schools, or before they influlance his policy decisions even more.

It is also important not to forget that the this is the true face of Conservatism (demands to abolish the NHS), and that there is a serious threat that if the Tories get back into government, that Cameron would be too weak, and would make a total mess of the country, or would be too weak to deal with his troublesome back benchers, and if he is too weak to deal with those, imagine how he would be with dealing with more serious crisises, and making serious political decisions that will effect the future of Britain.

Time to build a progressive alliance, and let the left really win in Wales

The election of Rhodri Morgan as First Minister under a minority Welsh Labour government, is firstly a victory of progressive, left wing socialist politics and shows that, in Wales at least, the European left is very much still alive. In fact 63% voted for progressive centre-left parties in Wales (Welsh Labour, Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats), and they have gotten what they wanted, NO Tories in the cabinent. The fact is Labour, Plaid and the Liberal Democrats have more in common with each other, then they do with the Conservative Party, and people like Darren Miller AM (Tory).

The make-up of the third Assembly and the (hopefully long term) end of the "Rainbow Allaince" has given Wales a unique opportunity to go down a new path, a path were Labour,Plaid and the Liberal Democrats co-operate more closely and work together for a common goal. However this will require a change in attitudes in all the political parties, especally Welsh Labour, who haven't had the same opportunity as Plaid, Tories and Liberals have of co-operation during the past term of government.

Welsh Labour must forgive Ieuan for wanting to jump into bed with the Tory Party, it is understandable that he wanted to be First Minister at any cost, however that does not make Plaid Cymru "weak dafodil Tories" and I do not believe the party are a reactionary right wing party. The Liberal Democrats are another matter, since they swing all over the place.

During this next term, Welsh Labour need to learn and modernise itself to adapt to the Propotional Representation which Wales has, through the minority government it has to learn about co-operation, cabinet coalition and working with other parties for a common goal. The Welsh Labour Party also need to modernise in other ways (however I do NOT mean becoming another Blairite New "Labour" party as that would be disasterous), but that is another matter.

Anyone up for a Threesome?

Well it seems like abysmal Mike German has lost the battle in his pathetic party and has now conceed to the right wing about having a threesome with Ieuan Wyn Jones of Plaid and Nick Bourne of the Tories. This saids alot about the Liberal Democrats, how they are willing to jump from the centre-left with Labour, to the Centre-right with Tories so easily, it shows that they have no principles beyond that of power, that is why the Lib Dems are everywhere saying different things to different people (including one asking me to tatically vote AGAINST Plaid in Ceredigion, and then they turn around and do this, very hyprocritical of them, as usualy) and try to be everything to everyone and nothing to nobody.

In councils the Lib Dems and Tories run, they cut services and cut funding to services, they are more like European Liberal, then European Social Democrats, and if the voters didn't want Welsh Labour, then they certainlly didn't want the Lib Dems, who only had 6 seats, and the lowest amount % of the vote of any political party in the Assembly, yet try and claim the democratic high ground (again a sign of the hyprocracy of the Lib Dems.)

Mike German is not a leader, never has been, he is a follower, he followed Labour into coalition in 2000, when it suited him, and he is following the lead of Ieuan Wyn Jones and Nick Bourne, it is time for the Lib Dems to sack Mike German and get rid of this aimless leader, and get in a person who actually will lead the Lib Dem and not follower the smell of power and the lead of those who will grant him it.

Hopefully Plaid will have more principles and will show themselves to be socialists, aswell as nationalists, and will re-consider the threesome, which would hurt Plaid in the South Wales Valleys, and would show Wales that Plaid has sold their soul and done a deal with the Tory Party, that's legacy is still felt across Wales by many people.