How are you feeling?

Hopefully enough people feel sufficiently engaged about the state of the nation to vote and ensure the nation sees a properly democratic outcome to the upcoming general election. That means voting!

You won’t be surprised to hear that we have an opinion. As Independent district councillors for this ward of Uttlesford we are acutely aware of the damage locally and nationally resulting from government policy over the past 14 years. Neither of us are standing in the election but we are angry, very angry!

Here are 18 reasons why:

• the Conservative Party has taken a proud but faltering country and driven it into the ground.

• ’austerity’ was not inevitable. It was deliberately imposed and continued by every Conservative administration since 2010.

• ideology and dogma has encouraged the meltdown of social cohesion by exposing everything to market forces.

•Brexit has been a shambles. Whether you supported it or not, the dishonesty and incompetent implementation are unforgivable.

• Tory ministers ignored one scandal after another until forced to react: Sewage in rivers and coastal waters; the Post Office scandal; infected blood products. The list goes on. 

• cabinet ministers bypassed normal channels and ignored long standing NHS suppliers in order to award PPE contracts to their chums. 

• taxes are at their highest since WW2 whilst public services are failing.

• Westminster politics no longer represents the wishes and needs of the people.

• ministers have demonised sections of the population for political ends. Performative cruelty has no place in a civilised society.

• the Conservatives have persisted in using the term “affordable housing” knowing it is a lie. Housing policy is a shambles.

• young people have been failed terribly by this government. Generational inequality has never been so bad.

• household energy prices are much higher than need be. Wholesale gas prices are now below their 2021 level. So why are we paying so much? Like the water industry the energy regulator is rubbish.

• since the Conservatives came to power the use of food banks has increased by nearly 100 fold.

• local govt has been undermined and defunded to breaking point, deliberately destabilised so that essential services can be outsourced (in effect, privatised). Outsourcing has a poor record, especially value for money.

• the nation’s defences have been hollowed out. Our armed services are devalued and operating with ageing equipment. The youngest Royal Navy Frigate is 24 years old!

• they tell us immigration is too high yet allow record levels of legal entries to the UK. 1.2 million in 2022, repeated in 2023.

• police numbers were cut and experienced officers lost. Decision-making is politicised and some categories of crime are ignored. Do you feel more secure?

• this has been the most dishonest, corrupt and incompetent government in British modern history. An entire generation has been robbed of opportunity. Almost everyone is poorer and paying more for less.

Neil Gregory: “The government has failed in its most basic duties. Much of this is down to plain incompetence and an inability to think through policy options, compounded by muddled adherence to ideology and dogma.”

Richard Pavitt: “The party and the people who caused this decline are not the ones to fix it.”