Britain is a few weeks away from a snap general election called by Prime Minister Theresa May. Presumably this has been suddenly sprung on a generally unsuspecting public because the ruling Tory junta think they will obtain an even larger parliamentary majority than they have now. Unfortunately they may be right.
So last week I received the campaign leaflet for Alexander Maughan, the young man representing the Tories where I live. The opening quote suggests I should vote for Mr Maughan “For a strong Conservative team working for you”.
Now I know there are some very decent Tories. My parents were Tory supporters all their lives, and they were very decent people. Victims of brainwashing and mainstream media propaganda, like most Tory supporters, they never knew any better. I don’t know Mr Maughan and have no reason to think he is not a pleasant and decent young man. But generally speaking, Conservative teams do not work for me – or 99% of other British people. Conservative teams have only ever worked for one group of people: the super-rich and powerful 1%. Their given reason for doing this, that it will benefit all the rest of us, is well-known to be untrue.
Consider that word “strong” in Mr Maughan’s leaflet, a word the Tories are very fond of. It gets used a lot as though strength is a quality we should admire. Sometimes we should indeed admire it, but not always: it depends how strength is being used. Bullies are often quite strong, but there’s…