Just in case you missed it, “strong and stable leadership” repeated ad nauseam is the campaign mantra of the Tory party for the incoming General Election. So just before our brains cease to function by the repetition of this empty slogan, let us unpick this mantra: strength in itself is not always good. One could be strong and wrong. Strength could be used by a bully to intimidate, and oppress the weak and vulnerable. As for “stable leadership”, well, the most stable leadership is a dictatorship. Do we want that? We, the electorate, should engage our brains, before we get swept away by these advertising tricks, that are coined to numb our senses, and overwhelm our intellect by shear repetition.
It is now clear how the Tories are going to run their election campaign, empty slogans and rhetoric. Negative campaigning, and the demonisation of a principled sincere leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn. It is a campaign based on fear, telling the voters “stick with us because the alternative is worse”. They don’t want us, the voters, to examine their records of economic incompetence, meanness and cruelty to the vulnerable and the poor.
The lives of the many are now characterised by worry and insecurity in essential aspects – insecurity at work, zero-contract hours, wages not keeping up with the cost of living, debt, and fear of homelessness. That is the reality of the many, particularly our young. Yet the country seems to be paralysed by fear,…