WOBBLES AND WORRIES

My confidence in a Conservative victory on 8 June is unshaken, but the election campaigns of all parties have been unimpressive and uninspiring. My disappointment has been particularly intense with the Tories who have been forced to exercise more U-turns then a demented ukulele. Jeremy Corbyn’s stock has been rising, the opinion polls say, but I refuse to believe the electorate will rally to his benighted cause in the actual voting booth, whatever The Guardian and The Independent may maintain. Mind you, nobody gave Trump a snowball’s chance in Hell and look at the US now……!

Theresa seeks a mandate

 The Tories started their campaign with every prospect of an easy path to triumph. I had glossed over their abject U-turn over the Autumn Statement when a rise in NIC for the self-employed was proposed and hurriedly withdrawn– surely there would be no repeat.  But then the ball was dropped again over means-testing winter fuel allowance (although bizarrely exempting the Scots!) while confusion reigned over the level of assets to be kept when older patients required free social care – quickly labelled “the dementia tax”. The Conservatives are right to tackle the problems of benefit levels and contributions from the more prosperous elderly but these are emotive subjects, easily misunderstood and twisted. Spokesmen need to be robust and well-briefed but Theresa May has tried to do too much herself, boasting of her allegedly strong and stable leadership, while her best lieutenants, Boris J, Davis and Hammond have been invisible.

Theresa is not a great campaigner. Her demeanour is stiff and unsmiling. She can make her case at least initially but she is not entirely at ease on economic matters, as Cameron was, and she has a fatal tendency to descend to vacuous mantras like Brexit means Brexit or Strong and Stable. She is not nimble-footed, is readily flustered and has a vicarage-influenced imperative to honour past pledges – this seduced her into promising a free vote on legalising fox-hunting, an old Cameronian (and never-delivered) policy. This was an own-goal; many solidly Tory country people attach importance to fox-hunting but it is electoral poison in the cities and stirs up hatred of class stereo-types. Theresa should have kept mum and can hold her free vote later. I hope she ups her game in the coming days and inspires us warmly to welcome her ministry. I think we can still rely on the mature generation, the 4m 2015 UKippers and Scots discontented with the SNP to deliver a 100-seat majority to the Tories.

Jeremy Corbyn has succeeded in concealing many of his negatives. His extreme socialism, a throw- back to 1946, was evident in his manifesto with nationalisation and high spending rampant. In interviews he has spoken softly rather than ranted and avoided the specifics in a fog of vagueness. But his CND ignorance of defence, his admiration of the IRA, Hamas, Hezbollah have returned to haunt him, his hatred of his own country, the United States and Israel, his basic irresponsibility has shone through. He is the least credible national leader ever to take the electoral stage and deserves to be pulverised at the polls.

An alternative Leader?

The Manchester atrocity has changed the tone of the election; 22 young people murdered by an Anglo-Libyan nobody, Salman Abedi, born and bred in the UK. Radical Islam needs to be rooted out of our country, agitating mosques shut down and its murderous proponents locked up.  No doubt they cannot do everything but the police failed to pick up Abedi and post-event invocations of The Manchester Spirit are empty and futile. Manchester and the country are hurting and draconian action against the terrorists and their support networks is essential, whatever the damage to so-called “community relations”. Theresa can make up for her lost time at the Home Office by pushing through tough, emergency legislation limiting movements to and from rogue countries, silencing terrorist propaganda and even introducing internment without trial.

The jihadi terrorist

Theresa called the election to give her a personal mandate to negotiate Brexit, certain to be an abrasive process until 2019. There is no alternative to Theresa and she deserves every support.

SMD

28.05.17

Text Copyright ©Sidney Donald 2017