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Wednesday 31 May 2017

Election 2017: My thoughts

I know I haven't written anything in a long time, but I've been so angered and engaged by this election that I felt it was time I got back on the horse.
Right up I'm going to nail my colours to the mast. I'm voting Labour. I know that from my previous posts that will shock and surprise many of you. However, let me give you the reasons why.

First, I like and trust Corbyn. He is a man with integrity and has genuine, traditional Labour values and principles at his heart. He's not a Blair clone, who was little more than a 'red Tory.' If Thatcher can genuinely and honestly describe Blair as 'my greatest achievement in politics' that should tell you all you need to know about 'Teflon Tony' That being said, I don't trust May as far as I could throw her. My reasons for this are as follows:

Regards her promise to clamp down on tax avoidance and the like; I recently discovered that her husband is senior exec of a $1.4 tn investment firm who profit from tax avoiding companies and were heavily highlighted in the Panama Papers scandal. The one where Cameron tried to tell us all it was 'a private matter.' Therefore, how can we trust her to make multi-national companies pay their fair share of tax and clamp down on tax avoidance, when her own husband works for a company that makes money from helping firms avoid paying tax?


Regards her plans for education, I have watched over the last 6 years as school budgets have been cut to ribbons and schools have had to let go of vital support staff and cut down to the bone special need provision. This has meant larger class sizes, less and less resources, fewer qualified staff. Many schools often now have to use HLTA (Higher level teaching assistants) to fill in for proper, fully qualified teachers. It has also meant that the needs of children with learning difficulties are not being met and so they are left to fail without adequate support. It is absolutely disgusting. I myself, lost my own job as a 1-1 tutor even though I got fantastic results and was a huge help to the students I worked with. Simply because of cuts.


Regards her condemnation of extremists and terrorists. How can we trust this woman, who cries for victims of the attack in Manchester, when she is selling £billions worth of bombs and weapons to Saudi Arabia? Those same bombs have been shown to be used in Yemen to bomb and kill innocent women and children.  Furthermore, Saudi sell these weapons on to rebel groups such as ISIS et al who amazingly are wedded to a version of wahhabisim that is promoted and encouraged by Saudi Arabia  In addition, Britain helped to overthrow Ghadafi and de-stabalise Libya in the much lauded 'Arab Spring' and is now supporting and funding Syrian rebels against Assad. These rebels are largely made up of Al Nusra, who, for those who don't know, are strongly affiliated and linked to Al Qaeda. Honestly, you couldn't make this shit up. Not to mention that as Home Secretary, she cut funding to police and other essential emergency service. She was warned a couple of years ago by the police federation that if she cut police numbers we would be vulnerable to attack. She, in turn, accused the police federation of scaremongering and said that the cuts wouldn't change anything. Hmmm, looks like she was proven wrong.


Finally, in terms of the NHS and the increased privatisation. How can we trust a government to fully fund, staff and resource the NHS when a large number of cabinet MPs (the very core of the government) have shares and vested interests in private medical companies, who are being given very lucrative contracts to run services and hospitals around the country? There is a very insightful video doing the rounds  from Youtube all about the Conservatives plans  to implement the proposals of the Naylor Report (I'll provide a link).



When you actually understand what is covered and recommended in that report (which I have checked for myself and everything the guy says in the video is factual and accurate) it is absolutely terrifying and would basically crush the NHS for good. I make no wonder May and her government endorse it. I would urge each and every reader to take the time to watch the 11 minute Youtube video and consider the damage that this report will do to our NHS.



For these reason, I have decided to support Corbyn. I know Labour aren't perfect and what they propose may very well come to nothing.  I'm not stupid or naive enough to think they can provide a magic bullet of solutions. I know they can't, it would be impossible. That being said, I'm will to take a chance on hope as opposed to the hell that will definitely be the reality under a Conservative/May government.

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