Opinion – George Osborne’s London Evening Standard labels Theresa May’s manifesto ‘most disastrous in history’ | The Independent – John Gelmini

Conservative Party (UK)

Conservative Party (UK) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Like Dr Alf I worry about the direction of the Conservative Party and at the failure of May to deliver some home truths to an electorate that seems to have had what passes for a brain removed.

It ought to be quite obvious that our public sector is bloated, inefficient and unaffordable and that the worst examples are the civil service, local authorities, the NHS, police and fire services.

Tinkering at the edges does not solve these problems.

The U turns on executive pay represented an own goal showing May to be weak and vacillating and unwilling to confront gross inequality.

I have been reading the Daily Telegraph since the age of 11 and have been Conservative all my life but a 450 to 1 gap between top pay including emoluments and bonuses and average pay is not only unseemly but dangerously destabilising.

There are no exports worth mentioning, no Messianic drive to get the country “match fit ” to perform, no talk of House of Lords Reform, nothing about productivity, nothing about obesity, nothing about foreign aid.

It is as if Mrs May expects the country to go on existing by levitating on a sea of money from Arab potentates, Chinese billionaires seeking a safe haven, Eastern European oligarchs, drug barons, arms dealers and criminals.

Certainly by my rudimentary arithmetic if we go on spending £1.5 trillion more than is coming in each year we will implode financially at some point but the official red book totals which must cause Dr Alf as a Chartered Accountant sleepless nights bear a sense of unreality.

There is what he may remember old fashioned Captain Mainwaring style bank managers describing to their SME clients as “floorboard money”(One of my friends who owns 2 private nursing homes remembers that this was communicated by these bank managers as them getting out of their chairs, holding an imaginary crowbar and using it in a downward motion to lift up the floorboards to reveal monies hidden away from prying eyes and the tax inspector that could then be used to help justify the loan application).

Those days are gone but from Mrs May who talks in code we here about “difficult choices” a phrase which frightens people into voting for Jeremy Corbyn who talks as if there is an endless supply of money and that with higher corporation taxes, business rates, local authorities unchained to do their worst and taxes on the rich everyone else will have a free ride.

Mayism is a short lived experiment because the Brexit negotiations are already doomed as most of our negotiating hand has been frittered away by the three stooges, Fox, Davis and the head “Mugwump”, Boris Johnson.

There is little point in voting for Corbyn because he would bring bankruptcy and the IMF which Margaret Thatcher saved us by interceding personally with the Sultan of Brunei who bailed the country out. Lady Thatcher said at the time “We owe you a debt of gratitude for life” but in this country memories are short and gratitude in very short supply as people seem to follow the Arthur Daily shoddy car dealer mentality of “Let’s be having it now”.

Tim Farron is an unlikely leader or Coalition partner and Corbyn,Abbott and McDonnell seem to inhabit a world where money is manufactured to order.

It is probably a case of vote for May who wins with a modest majority then fire up the Tory grandees in the 1922 Committee who deliver the “walk the plank”message and the knife between the shoulder blades.

Like Dr Alf I have a difficult choice to make but perversely this one seems right to me because George Osborne and the vehicle he has chosen to further his Prime Ministerial ambitions wants to head a new political party and to do that he wants Corbyn to govern by Coalition and make an unholy mess of everything.

John Gelmini

Opinion – Theresa May’s authority slips as she bores Britain with empty answers | Owen Jones | Opinion | The Guardian

Here’s a must-read op-ed article in the Guardian from left-wing writer, Owen Jones. He reports that the odds are still stacked against Labour – but after May’s shaky performance in the hustings, a historic defeat may not be inevitable

Theresa May’s authority slips as she bores Britain with empty answers | Owen Jones | Opinion | The Guardian

It still looks like May is most likely to win but most probably with a small majority. She called the election to boast her political support in parliament and not be dependent on the right of the Conservative Party. Against her own objective, she has failed and it’s just possible that she will fail to form the next government.

May made the campaign presidential and seemed to muzzle many Tory heavy-hitters. It was an arrogant campaign and assumed that Jeremy Corbyn was incredibly weak. But Corbyn has performed well, whilst May has gone from one banana skin to the next.

When May called the election, I commented that it was her race to lose but I never expected her to be a disaster. The campaign based on May’s strong leadership has backed-fired. She’s now that ‘weak and wobbly woman’. Many people who voted for Brexit in the referendum must be now scared for their future, especially with Theresa May as leader.

This leads to an open question:

Does the UK really want and need a weak and wobbly woman leading Brexit negotiations?

Thoughts?