IT is now a little more than two months since the General Election and Parliament has returned to Westminster. The approach the new Government is taking is one of shock and awe. The party of the working man (and woman) has robbed pensioners of their Winter Fuel Allowance, is contemplating removing the single person discount on council tax, and has allowed energy bills to be hiked.
The emperor’s new clothes story is alive and well with the jubilation that met the arrival of the new offshore wind contracts. This current round was successful because the Government has hiked the subsidy and effectively making every bill payer pay even more.
Knife crime and riots have escalated in the summer months, and, while our courts and police need to be commended for the speed with which they have addressed some of the perpetrators, there remains a perception that the law is not being applied equally and without fear or favour.
The planned introduction of VAT on private school fees means we are starting to see the closure of schools, and it makes us the only country in the entire world to tax education. This ideological vindictiveness is motivated by attacking the wealthy, but it is simply and swifty punishing those hard working families who make a choice to invest in their kids. They still pay their taxes but the state does not have to pay to educate their children.
Because of this policy, we will see state school numbers increase, and the existing challenge for kids with special educational needs in the state sector will only be made worse.
We continue to see illegal immigration across the Channel and the dreadful loss of more lives. The deterrent of Rwanda, and indeed the solution to the conundrum of removals for those people from countries we do not have a returns agreement with, has been ditched and this leaves a black hole in immigration policy bigger than the one Rachel Reeves created by handing highly paid train drivers inflation busting pay rises.
That £22bn Rachel and Keir keep banging on about is in large part made up from the pay settlements that they have agreed, and it represents a tiny percentage of overall Government spending.
Removing some of the arms licences, which will stop us supplying certain weapons to Israel, does little to disarm our democratic ally which is fighting against extremist terrorists, but it will damage our standing with our international democratic allies. Perhaps most importantly, this move provides a much needed sop to Labour’s backbenchers, of whom they've already lost seven for having the temerity to vote against the Government on a motion of no legal consequence.
As an MP serving Darlington in the last Parliament, I know what this summer’s political landscape would have made my post bag look like. I do pity the new intake of MPs who will be deluged with emails on each and every one of these topics, but at some point in the next four years and ten months, the excuse trotted out by His Majesty’s Government “because of the last Tory government” will wear very thin.
For many in our community I suspect it has already has.
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