If you’ve lived in the UK for at least the last decade, you will have been affected by the actions of the Conservative Party. If you have lived in the UK all your life (in my case a lot longer than I care to divulge) ; you will have been affected by both Conservative and Labour governments. Politics matters to everyone because we both suffer and very occasionally, prosper at the decisions politicians make. They are invariably financial decisions but matters of sovereignty, law and order and matters of social change, are also game changing.
On the 23rd June 2016, the UK voted to leave the European Union. This seismic decision has led to 6 years of increasingly fractious, chaotic government. We have seen four Prime Ministers come and go, two general elections and a breakdown of democracy. The Conservatives have been in power since 2010 but the last 6 years have led them to today. A party in power who have lost the ability to govern. A party so obsessed with its own internal strife that it thinks that’s all there is to concentrate on. The mass resignations prior to Boris Johnson’s demise and financial meltdown caused by the disastrous mini budget of Kwasi Kwarteng a few weeks ago have led us to today. A prime minister who has only managed 45 days in office. A governing party with a healthy parliamentary majority, tearing itself apart during a cost of living crisis. No word of a crippled NHS, of fuel and food poverty, the loss of trade as a result of Brexit. It’s as if these major issues come secondary to the choice of a prime minister. The right of the Conservative Party trying to stamp its ideology on the country. The left and centre of the same party, trying to wrestle back some integrity for the party.
It’s frankly exhausting trying to keep up with the psychodrama that is UK politics at present. And after all this, they now wish to put yet another prime minister in place without asking the voting population to have a say. Not once do they think there may be a moral imperative to go to the country. Not once would they put the country before their own party. Their treatment of the parliamentary and constitutional rules is shameless. I’ve never voted Conservative as you might have guessed. I entered adulthood during the Thatcher years. She destroyed communities, industries and caused misery to millions. I lived through the chaotic brief years of Edward Heaths government, characterised by food shortages and blackouts. I suffered as did many, under the Cameron years of austerity. To think of any Conservative government as being a one nation party is laughable. To regard them as fiscally sound is hilarious. They’ve peddled the lie to the UK electorate that they can be trusted yet have failed to look after their electorate time and time again. They never have had a moral authority, they have never acted with integrity. It’s always been the Labour Party that has had to prove their intentions were good. The Conservatives have never had a moral superiority but people believe they have. The best solution for the UK right now on the 20th October 2022, is to put their internal anguish to one side and call a general election. They have run out of ideas after 12 years in office. It’s time for a change. Let Labour, maybe with the Liberal Democrats have a chance to undo all the chaos and misery heaped on us. They have no right to be in power anymore.
The John Linney 