Tory Austerity: anything but “conservative”

Even Conservative moderates are being alienated by austerity

Voices of discontent against the current Conservative policy of relentless and unnecessary austerity are nothing new. But on Tuesday, one of their own — South Cambridgeshire MP Heidi Allen — made an impassioned speech against yet more cuts to disability benefits.

In what she described as a “warning shot to government”, she rightly contested the excuse that Iain Duncan Smith and the DWP have relied on for years as justification for cutting benefits in all their forms, saying that the half-million people with illnesses such as cancer that will be affected by the cuts discussed are not “financially incentivised” to remain out of work.

“this wave of austerity isn’t slowing down any time soon”

“Anyone who has beaten cancer,” she said in her speech to the Commons, “must surely burst with desire to return to a normal life.” Hotly contested as the statistics are, surely this is one of the least likely groups of benefits claimants to ‘outstay their welcome’.

Sadly, this wave of austerity that is even beginning to alienate people on the centre-right is unlikely to slow down any time soon. Love them or hate them, it must be conceded that the Conservatives have pulled off an incredibly effective campaign in convincing the masses that giving lifelines to the vulnerable and utilising low-rate state loans to invest in infrastructure and business was the cause of the 2008 recession — as opposed to banks’ recklessness encouraged by the same overly free market that the current Conservative government are further deregulating.

“The numbers just don’t add up”

The longstanding way Tories like to come across as the people that are actually sensible with finance as opposed to head-in-the-clouds Labour, not bothering to peek at the state’s bank account while forking out for such frivolities as comprehensive benefits and well-funded state services. But the numbers just don’t add up. The Bank of England recently cut its economic growth forecast, as have the CBI. In an even more egregious move, it has recently come to light that the Treasury have broken independence rules by strongarming the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) to tweak reports in its favour.

The cynic might almost excuse the pain of another recession happening under the current government just to watch them try and blame it on the Labour of an ever-more distant past. Maybe it’s time to slow it with the cuts, just a bit.