Hello. I want to be direct and say you have a job to do. You have to do your bit for the country and vote.
Here are some reasons why it WILL affect your life.
Right now, many of you can be excused for thinking it doesn’t really matter as politicians will carry on being politicians and everything will stay the same. Billy Bragg said he thought exactly that when he was 18 in 1979 and didn’t vote because he didn’t think it would change anything.
So I am talking to you: someone with a home, a family and a good job. I reckon you may think the Tories are the safest bet? The most predictable. The steadiest and more experienced government? I understand that. However, Theresa May has got to be the most dishonest, manipulative PM we have had. And David Cameron probably only won the Tory leadership contest as he had the most donations and could get around quickest to see voters because of all the plane and helicopter rides he had to help him win.
Labour’s previous manifesto pledged to end the UK’s reliance on cheap foreign labour.
Employment
Wages have gone down since 2009, as shown here by the Office of National Statistics. So I hope you carry on loving your job as a variety of factors, including the “below the table” thing the UK have always done, which is advertise overseas for cheap labour, letting people come to the UK to work and making use of all our public services, which “under the table” pay does not require a contribution towards. You cannot blame the workers. Blame the government for putting their large corporate friends’ interests and the resulting company bulk votes before people’s lives. People are allowed in, and under the Conservatives, always have been from the 1940s to be house servants through to fruit pickers and construction labourers now, to take jobs, work for low wages, bringing down the minimum wage but the government are putting more pressure on all the public services that they are cutting funding for.
Owning a property may be a British obsession and something people in other countries aspire to but rents are so reasonable elsewhere that it isn’t as necessary as in the UK where rents are high.
Housing
Yes, the Tories have turned to the left, as Judith Evans wrote on 22 May 2017 in the Financial Times. This just means those middle class, home owning, mortgage borrowing people who have worked so hard to get the jobs that mean they can afford the juicy house prices in their area are of no consequence to the party that they voted in. You cannot trust the Tories. They will blog with the wind of the mood of the country.
Your Inheritance and Family
Do you have a parent or grandparent? As life expectancy has increased and the Tories have cut funding to nursing the elderly and nursing homes are so expensive, the homecare industry is on the brink of collapse, writes Gill Plimmer in the Financial Times on 20 March 2017. It is not a pretty future for your old age with the Tories. They have forgotten who fought the wars and paid taxes and National Insurance for many years. They let irresponsible bosses effect your pensions. They now want equity from your parents or grandparents’ homes so they can pay for the healthcare they were promised when they were your age and the Tories are also fiddling with the pensions your elders have worked so hard for and paid into all their working lives. There goes your inheritance. Also, the Tory manifesto has provided for you to take an unpaid year off your job to care for your elderly relatives yourself. Who is going to pay your bills?
Pensions
Not only have the conservatives allowed unscrupulous bosses do what they want, pay what they want, feel the arrogance knowing there is a huge dole queue gagging for any job, discriminate all they want (don’t forget Theresa May wants to wipe the ECHR aside as makes her Snoopers Charter illegal), they are also moving the goal posts where pensions are concerned, so you will not get what you thought you had.
Student debt
Have you had to go to university as there were no jobs unless you had a degree? Did you spend most of the time developing academic skills that will never be needed in the workplace to satisfy the egos of your tutors who think your education is all about them? Well, the government never thought how the student debts were going to be repaid, did they? So now they are just selling them off. Or students are declaring themsevles bankrupt in case they ever do earn enough to have to pay back £67 a month for the rest of their lives.
Instead of festivals being about, love and free, political activism, peace and unity, they are now about how much money can be made out of students who think they will never have to pay back their debt, making festivals increasing for office workers and British people who like to drink so much that the music doesn’t really matter. That has repercussions on our music and entertainment industry as artists need public response to know if people get anything from their self-expression (even though everyone is getting so self-absorbed these days). Anyway, what does it matter as the government are starting to sell off student debts as bonds to specialist investors (reminder of the 2008 credit crunch) and if you are earning enough to pay back your debt and you are injured, are grieving a parent, caring for an elderly person or some other reason you can’t make your loan payments on time, the government will prosecute you.
Children
What do the Tories care about your children? Do you remember getting hungry during double maths on a Tuesday morning or after games? The Tories do not do “impact reports” so don’t expect them to worry about the psychological or physical effects of a full day at school for the average child of an underpaid worker keeping this country going, without lunch as the Tories want their money back to spend on subsidising their own food and drink in Westminster when they choose to even rock up to work, probably because it is in their self-interest. So future generations will carry the scars of malnutrition at school, while private school kids get crap food anyway. No wonder that “School Meals” restaurant in London failed. Let’s not even get started on inclusive education.
Privacy and Security
Since 2012, Theresa May has been working on her Investigatory Powers (Technical Capabilities) Act, from when she was home secretary. Now, as PM, she has got this through its final consultation and it does seem one expert has a good word to say about it. The smartphone market has moved from Nokia and Blackberry with 70% of the market in 2009 to Apple, Microsoft and Google selling 99% of phones today. Whatsapp demands to record audio when you make a call over the app and has withdrawn from Blackberry 10, it’s first Android handset released as recently as 2013. Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, Skype and Twitter have all withdrawn their apps for older phones, working ahead even of planned obsolescence. We have now had 3 attacks this year: Westminster, the NHS Cyber attack and Manchester. Many people killed including children. Meanwhile Theresa May doesn’t listen to anyone at all and pursues her unrealistic burden on the security services to keep watch on 6,500 Brits at a time and store all our data for a year rather than let the police focus on finding and stopping terrorist activity. Next, the government will use the IP Act to do what they have asked civilians to do and spy on people for benefit fraud, housing benefit, Bedroom Tax etc.
Dairy of A Nonny Moose 