Tuesday, January 22, 2013

David Cameron, You Have No Mandate For What You Are Doing

By Grahame Morris MP

As I listened to the Prime Minister, David Cameron, giving his New Year message, back at home in Easington I began to wonder what planet he is now on. Having recently had the opportunity to take my boys to see the Hobbit at the cinema during the Christmas break I thought perhaps he inhabits ‘Middle Earth’ with all of the elves and the hobbits, because that is how desperately out of touch he is. David Cameron claims that ‘Britain is on track’, and he says that his is a Government ‘in a hurry’, because we have ‘to compete with China, India and Indonesia’.

Unfortunately for the Prime Minister’s ambition to continue in office for the next decade, over 43 per cent of people believe that their finances will be worse this coming year. I suspect the numbers in East Durham are even higher. The same poll for The Observer newspaper reveals that over half of the over 55 age group have the same view – but then they have lived through previous Tory recession years. This year, as Britain teeters on the edge of a triple dip recession, the Prime Minister urges a race to the bottom; a competition for the worst wages and conditions with the sweat shop economies of the developing World.

We are told that David Cameron has to sound a note of optimism in his New Year message. Personally, I think he would have been wiser not to deliver one at all. As he delivered his speech, the leaders of three great northern cities, Newcastle, Sheffield and Liverpool warned bleakly of an impending break down in social order, as their local authorities faced cuts of some 30% and more vital services will inevitably be cut. Our own Durham County Council being one of the hardest hit in terms of loss of government grant.

In the 1980s the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher destroyed our mining industry and much of our manufacturing industry. Areas such as ours were hit the worst, and now under another Conservative Prime Minister, albeit one who is propped up by the Liberal Democrats, they are bent on cutting, closing and privatising our public services with devastating implications for jobs.

My New Year message to David Cameron is simple; you have no mandate for what you are doing and we need a General Election.

What’s more, we need it now.

Twitter: @GrahameMorris | Website: Grahame Morris MP

Labour Left