Monthly Musings: June 2017

An overview of opinions and observations for the month.

EU's Forced Migration Policy

Today the EU Commission made it's first formal move against member states of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic for their failure to comply with the EU Relocation Agreement.

The "relocation agreement" does not sound like much of an "agreement" if 3 countries are disagreeing with it, no?

The bone of contention lies in Article 78 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union that states Member States must accept third-country nationals at the behest of the EU's decision. In the event that a member state of the EU becomes inundated with an unsustainable number of migrants, the other member states must make reasonable and fair efforts to help alleviate the volume of asylum seekers by accepting their forced relocation into their own countries.

The COUNCIL DECISION (EU) 2015/1601 demanded that the three non-complying countries must accept the following numbers of migrants from Italy & Greece respectively:

1. Poland - 3881 (Greece) and 1201 (Italy)
2. Hungary - 988 (Greece) and 306 (Italy)
3. Czech - 1215 (Greece) and 376 (Italy)

The EU will provide financial assistance to the tune of €6000 per immigrant to the member state. This relocation project of forced relocation of third world nationals across Europe is costing the EU €720,000,000.

You'd be forgiven for thinking Germany won WW2 the way they try to rule the entire of Europe through Brussels, continually adding new directives and regulations it's hostage member states have to adhere to. Back when the UK joined the EU in 1973 it was solely sold as a Common Market. Over the last four decades it's slowly evolved into a fascist and controlling super state headed by Brussels.

I consider the recent migrant crisis lends credence to the Kalergi plan for the de-nationalisation all EU member states and the miscegenation of white Europeans out of existence.

Political Suicide of Theresa May

It was 2017 that saw Theresa May's bold over-reach that cost her party the political advantage and undoubtedly jeopardised their Hard Brexit stance in the ensuing lunacy.

"I’m not going to be calling a snap election. I’ve been very clear that I think we need that period of time, that stability to be able to deal with the issues that the country is facing and have that election in 2020." - Theresa May, September 4th 2016.

First off the bat I'd like to open by stating that I voted Labour. I found Jeremy Corbyn's outlook both endearing and genuine - he was a candidate who appeared authentic, transparent and rich in integrity. The Labour manifesto was solid, costed and inspiring for a population of struggling families suffering under the subjugation of backbreaking austerity. At the first perusal my only concern was how beautiful of a pipe dream was painted in the 128 pages; this Utopian idea of redistribution of wealth, reduction in economic disparity and the creation of a world I'd feel content raising my child in.

In contrast the Conservative Manifesto was one dimensional and vacuous; 88 pages of bland directionless rhetoric, suffocated amidst technical jargon and meaningless taglines. Strong and stable. Five giant challenges. The great meritocracy. The only policy that carried weight was the Hard Brexit stance, the rest of the Manifesto was a waste of the time taken to produce it. Delusional proposals included the Snoopers Charter to demolish digital privacy, the scrapping of the European Convention on Human Rights, an aggressive foreign policy, the continued austerity and public sector decimation including slashes to education, social care, emergency services and affordable housing. With a track record littered with so many damaging policies, cuts, austerity and financial pains, the list is so extensive that I cannot even begin to surmise it here. However, fully sourced and documented accounts are available online including a good starting point here.

The campaign undertaken by the Conservatives was embarrassing. It was purely a smear campaign against Jeremy Corbyn with little to no coverage offered in respect of the Manifesto or the policies in which we will be held to ransom for the next term of Government. A very bitter allegation was that Jeremy Corbyn is a terrorist sympathiser, a despicable approach given the recent terrorist attacks in Manchester and London. I questioned the absence of a solid Manifesto, provoking debate, goading Tory voters at every opportunity and was met with blank faces regurgitating propaganda fueled hyperbolic headlines from mainstream media, and of course personal attacks against Jeremy Corbyn. Nobody could debate, but then again, not even Prime Minister May was willing to debate her own position so that should not be surprising.

To reiterate the title of the article, and to come full circle to the over-reach of Theresa May, the U-turn decision for a Snap Election was taken purely from a predatory stance that saw a Labour party in disarray and sought to go for the kill. It failed, miserably. Theresa May sacrificed 13 seats on an arrogant gamble, and lost her party the Majority position in Parliament. This weakened the prospect of a Hard Brexit which was the strongest policy of the Tory vision. In the wake of a catastrophic campaign that echoed the failings of Cameron's approach to the 2016 EU Referendum, the Conservative have shot themselves in the foot, seemingly with a RPG.

Sobering reality hit on June 9th, as the reality of a well fought Labour campaign closed the gap between the two parties to a spectacularly minimal 792,228 voters. Conservative edged the Election by 1.2% of the population. In the wake of the results, an outcry called for Theresa May to relinquish her position and resign. She refused stubbornly and instead dug in her heels, further displaying the selfishness of her outlook with her subsequent decision to approach the DUP for an arrangement to prop up their now minority Government.

For context, the DUP was founded by members of the Ulster Resistance, a terrorist paramilitary group who violently clashed with the Irish Republican Army over three decades of civil conflict dubbed The Troubles. During the conflict, 85% of those killed by the Ulster Resistance were civilians. To further muddy the waters, it is important to understand the fragility and instability of the current situation in Northern Ireland, and the rising tensions that threaten to unravel the Good Friday Agreement that underpins the ceasefire and security in Ireland. More of this can be read in another blog post of mine found here. The DUP are adamant they do not want a Hard Brexit, as the reality of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland is an unwelcome prospect; this brings the plausibility of a Hard Brexit under fire considering the Conservatives are relying on the support and confidence of the DUP to help carry their policies through parliament.

Theresa May has continued with her forward march defiantly in spite of her underwhelming election campaign; the Queen's speech has been prepared with more U-turns on policies their Manifesto proposed, making compromises and provisions to their beliefs and aims. It is my opinion that the very claim of "strong and stable" leadership under Theresa May has been directly contradicted by her misjudgments, unnecessary risks, inconsistency and proneness to collapse under pressure and backtrack on her own policies at the first challenge.

Undoubtedly Theresa May has committed political suicide; now we just need to wait patiently for her, and her party to realise it and move forward without her.

More Troubles for Ireland?

Until the 2017 Snap Election, I had never taken the time to look into Irish politics. It had never been relevant. Now with the prospect of a coalition of chaos between the Conservatives and the DUP, I thought it prudent to educate myself accordingly.

The Northern Ireland Assembly is the legislature of Northern Ireland, a democratically elected body of 90 members. The Assembly is one half of two institutions created under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that sought to end the violent Troubles which saw the deaths of more than 3,500 people, 52% of which were civilians. The Good Friday Agreement focuses on the shared power of Northern Ireland, with Ireland.

The Republic of Ireland hate England, and the fact we still retain Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom. I never understood why until now looking into it properly. This is predictably "British" history. After the Protestant Reformation when Henry VIII crowned himself the King of Ireland in 1542, we literally established ourselves as their illegitimate monarch. Then shortly after, James I imposed the Plantation of Ulster in 1609 to assert our dominance over the country and quash rebellion from the Gaelic Irish in the north.

The ROI have fought tooth and nail to reclaim their independence without any English involvement of their country ever since with repeated "Irish Home Rule" Bills in 1886, 1893 and 1914. The reality is that England literally took their land at gunpoint and added it to our Empire; anyone who rebelled against us holding their lands was executed. Northern Ireland wants to remain in the UK however the Gaelic Irish of the Republic of Ireland do not consider the Ulster Unionists as true Irish, and rather borne out of the Plantations of English and Scottish invaders who confiscated their lands. They view the Ulster Unionists as descendants of the oppressive British and dismiss their claims to Northern Ireland.

This is why the Republicans became established as the IRA and sought to turf the Ulster Unionists out of their lands. Their logic, "get out of our country or we'll force you out". This is why there pervades an inherit tension between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, and resultantly the Sinn Fein party (Republicans) and the DUP (Unionists). The Good Friday Agreement was meant to be England taking a back seat, not getting involved and letting ROI and NI democratically rule Ulster. This was seen as the only way to broker a ceasefire - basically by ceding some control of Northern Ireland to the Republicans.

The Troubles were a three decade period of civil conflict between Ireland (Republican's such as the IRA) and Northern Ireland (Loyalist's such as the Ulster Resistance). The IRA wished for Northern Ireland to leave the UK and join a united Ireland; the Ulster Resistance wished for Northern Ireland to remain part of the UK. The Ulster Resistance caused more civilian deaths than the IRA; 85% of those they killed were civilians; the Ulster Resistance was founded by a collection of people who went on to be prominent DUP politicians.

The Good Friday Agreement included a ceasefire between Ireland and Northern Ireland, and introduced a democratic, diplomatic process that would help maintain stability. The DUP were the only major political group in Northern Ireland who opposed the Good Friday Agreement. Under the Good Friday Agreement, England acts as a mediator between Ireland and Northern Ireland to keep the peace.

The Sinn Fein party are the second largest Northern Ireland party, and also have representation in Ireland. They are Republicans, whereas the DUP are Loyalists making it a tense affair between the parties given the IRA/Ulster history during the Troubles. Sinn Fein refuse to actually take their seats at parliament as they do not consider the Northern Ireland Assembly a legitmate Government.

Sinn Fein have also refused to share power with DUP due to accusations that the DUP were responsible for the misspending of £500,000,000 of public money in the RHI scandal. The last Assembly collapsed in March 2017 after their latest snap election that saw the DUP take 28 seats, and the Sinn Fein party take 27. This means at present Northern Ireland do not have a Government, and the Republicans have a very firm foothold in Northern Ireland.

Concerns are mounting about the Tories giving DUP power in Westminster, as this will raise the ire of Sinn Fein and could potentially undo all of the progress made under the Good Friday Agreement. The view is that England cannot act as an impartial mediator between the Republican party Sinn Fein and the Loyalist party DUP when they have a vested interest in one side for their own purposes.

At present there are very justified concerns of a potential breakdown of the ceasefire in Ireland, and a resurgence of IRA and Ulster bombings in the near future as a result of the Tories aligning themselves with the DUP.

There is a rational logic to why the UK welcoming the DUP into a position of power would serve to further frustrate the Republicans. It is like we stole their country, refused to leave part of it, and agreed begrudgingly to allow them to influence how it's governed. To the Republic of Ireland, a close partnership with the Tories in Westminster will seem like the DUP can leverage preferential treatment at Stormont, the headquarters of the Northern Irish Assembly. This is not a strong and stable decision by our Government.

Tory Failure Deep Dive

When I read the Labour manifesto, it was presented with bullet points and statements about what they will do to change the country. When I read the Tory manifesto, I saw a lot of big words, but no actual explanations about how they're going to change things for the better. More like a reassuring "Trust us, we'll fix it. How? Don't worry about that, just vote for us and have faith." I keep seeing Tory voters that are more intent on destroying the image of the Labour party than providing a strong discussion of their own policies. So in the name of reciprocity, let's take a good look at the Tories.

The Tory party committed electoral fraud in 2015. They've already paid the maximum fine the Electoral Commission could levy against them for election cheating, and 30 Tories are facing the prospect of criminal prosecution for financially doping their way to victory: https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/i-am-a/journalist/electoral-commission-media-centre/news-releases-donations/conservative-party-fined-70,000-following-investigation-into-election-campaign-expenses 

Under Tory rule British workers have suffered the longest sustained decline in the real value of their wages since records began. The fall is so bad that it's the joint worst wage collapse in the developed world with Greece: http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/the-tory-war-on-british-workers-wages.html 

In 2010 the Tories promised to eliminate the deficit by 2015. In 2017 they're still nowhere near eliminating it, and they've openly admitted that they won't be doing it any time before 2021. Over 11 years to do what they promised to do in under 5, and more new public debt created in the process than every single Labour government in history combined: http://budgetresponsibility.org.uk/overview-of-the-november-2016-economic-and-fiscal-outlook/ 

After such spectacularly missed targets and George Osborne's departure from Westminster politics it's amazing that millions still believe in his austerity con, but Theresa May is still parroting the same kind of economically illiterate justifications for a blatantly unjustifiable economic agenda. The evidence is now absolutely clear that austerity only succeeded in transferring wealth from the majority to the super rich minority at the expense of the real economy: http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/are-people-finally-waking-up-to-fact.html 

Between 2010 and 2015 the Tories slashed £20 billion off the NHS budget. Their current spending plans involve a further £22 billion in funding cuts between 2015 and 2020. Slashing the NHS budget, closing dozens of hospitals and other NHS facilities; reducing services; and laying off tens of thousands of staff would be bad enough in it's own right, but at a time of rapidly increasing demand on NHS services it's a recipe for disaster: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/oct/17/nhs-cuts-impact-on-patients-revealed

One of Theresa May's first acts as Prime Minister was to scrap NHS bursaries, which caused an astonishing 10,000 decline in applications for nursing courses. Add into the mix the fact that NHS staff from EU countries are quitting the NHS in record numbers and there's a massive NHS recruitment crisis on the cards: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/mar/18/nhs-eu-nurses-quit-record-numbers

The amount of appalling schemes and degrading assessment regimes disabled people have to go through under this Tory government is absolutely shocking: http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/the-systematic-tory-abuse-of-disabled.html

Since 2010 the number of children growing up in poverty has risen by 400,000. The latest Tory cuts to the child welfare system and in-work benefits are set to plunge another 250,000 kids into lives of poverty: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/theresa-accused-being-denial-over-10038973

Analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies has revealed that under Tory spending plans the worst hit demographic of all will be poor families with children. The trend is absolutely clear. The poorer you are, the harsher the cuts you will be facing, and if you have kids you'll be hit harder than those without: https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/9164

Since 2010 the Tory government has overseen the lowest levels of housebuilding since the 1920s. When Theresa May was Home Secretary she increased demand on the nation's housing stock by overseeing the biggest surges of net migration in UK history. This combination of weak supply, very high demand and collapsing wages has pushed house prices to their most unaffordable level ever: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/04/17/uk-will-never-build-enough-homes-keep-prices/

In 2016 Tory MPs (1/3 of whom are landlords) voted down an opposition amendment to their housing bill that would have required landlords to ensure that rented accommodation is "fit for human habitation": https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jan/12/tories-reject-move-to-ensure-rented-homes-fit-for-human-habitation

As a result of the shambolic Tory privatisation of the railways the UK has the most expensive, most over-crowded and least reliable rail service of any comparable developed European nation. What's more is that the profiteering private companies who operate the services take more in government subsidies than it cost to run the entire system under British Rail: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/feb/06/uk-railway-judged-worse

The Tories are planning the biggest education funding cuts in decades: http://www.schoolcuts.org.uk/#!/

 An awful lot of people don't seem to have even noticed that the Tories have been privatising thousands of state owned schools, property and all, for free, into the hands of private sector pseudo-charities, many of which are owned by major Tory party donors: http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/michael-gove-ideological-vandalism.html

The Tories introduced £9,000 per year tuition fees for university students, meaning English students now face the highest fees in the world for study at public universities. The fees are so high that 2/3 of graduates will never be able to pay off their student debts: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/university-tuition-fees-increase-2020-government-new-legislation_uk_5902f9ebe4b0bb2d086c850c

 The Tories have seen a huge rise in food bank dependency since 2010. Over a million food parcels were handed out by the Trussell Trust last year, and they're just one of the food bank organisations. New research has shown that areas that have suffered the rollout of the Tories' hopelessly botched Universal Credit scheme have significantly higher rates of food bank dependency than areas where it hasn't been rolled out yet: https://www.trusselltrust.org/news-and-blog/latest-stats/end-year-stats/

 The Hinkley Point C deal is one of the most scandalous affairs in UK political history. The Tories have agreed to bribe the French and Chinese into building us a nuclear power station by promising to use taxpayers' cash to pay them double the market rate for electricity for 35 years, then cover the cleanup cost at the taxpayers' expense too. The reason we have to bribe foreign governments into building our nuclear infrastructure for us is that the Tories privatised the UK's nuclear expertise in the 1990s, and the private company was then allowed to be purchased by the French government: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/sep/15/hinkley-point-c-guide-uk-first-new-nuclear-plant-for-20-years

The Tories have slashed £4.6 billion from the social care budget at a time of rising demand due to the UK's ageing population demographics. This social care funding crisis has coincided with the biggest increase in the death rate since the 1960s, and is putting an immense amount of pressure on already overstretched NHS services and unpaid carers: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/social-care-scandal-tory-cuts-9836261

The Tories have slashed local government budgets so harshly that the leader of David Cameron's own Tory council famously wrote to him to plead for him to stop. What's most disgusting about this assault on local government budgets is that the most savage local government cuts have been focused on the poorest areas, while some leafy Tory councils actually got increases in their budgets: http://www4.shu.ac.uk/research/cresr/sites/shu.ac.uk/files/welfare-reform-2016_1.pdf

The Tories have brought giant outsourcing corporations in to do all kinds of government functions. Huge numbers of these corporate leeches are now having their contracts renewed automatically with no cost-benefit analysis and no competitive tendering process. The Labour Party have proposed a new law to ban outsourcing companies from receiving government contracts if they're based in tax havens. The Tories are quite happy to continue using taxpayers' cash to pay tax-dodging corporate outsourcing companies to do the work the government should be doing itself: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26541375

 Between 2010 and 2015 the Tories slashed 30% off the fire service budget resulting in the loss of 10,000 firefighter jobs and the closure of 39 fire stations. Between 2015 and 2020 they intend to slash another 20%: https://www.fbu.org.uk/news/2016/09/13/fire-service-crisis-10000-firefighter-jobs-axed

In 2015/16 the number of fire deaths increased by 17.4%: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/584351/fire-incident-response-times-1516-hosb0117.pdf

 Between 2010 and 2015 the Tories axed 34,000 police jobs. Between 2015 and 2020 they intend to axe tens of thousands more. The police have managed to juke the statistics by non-recording vast numbers of reported crimes, but the impact of these police cuts can't be hidden off the violent crime statistics, which have increased by 96% between 2012 and 2016: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-39733225

 One of the sickest things about the Tory government is the way they allowed HMRC to draw up sweetheart tax deals with massive corporations like Google, Starbucks and Vodafone. Why should Google get to negotiate a 3% tax deal when ordinary working people have to pay what they actually owe: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/04/google-uk-tax-deal-share-options-scheme

Theresa May's Snoopers' Charter is the most extreme state surveillance law ever introduced in a developed nation. It allows over 20,000 government employees to trawl through the private communication data of innocent people (including loads of non-terrorism related organisations like the Food Standards Agency, the Health and Safety Executive and the Gambling Commission): http://www.whoishostingthis.com/blog/2017/03/10/ipa-numbers/

Theresa May and the Tories love sucking up to dictators and despots like the Islamist tyrants in Saudi Arabia and the Turkish autocrat Recep Erdoğan. The disgraced Liam Fox was even in the Philippines to suck up to the brutal dictator Rodrigo Duterte and talk up our "shared values": https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-5076-Theresa-May-The-dictators-dream#.WTWk9OsrKUl

 Theresa May has a burning contempt for your human rights. She has expressed her determination to tear up the European Convention on Human Rights on many occasions, and join Belarus as the only European nation that doesn't adhere to the human rights legislation that was bestowed on Europe by the British Prime Ministers Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee: http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Convention_ENG.pdf

One of the worst things about the Tory government is the fact that several of their malicious anti-welfare schemes actually cost more to administer in corporate outsourcing fees than they will ever save in reduced benefits payments. The Work Capacity Assessment regime for sick and disabled people and their draconian sanctions system are both examples of socially ruinous schemes that actually cost the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds to operate: https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Benefit-sanctions-Summary.pdf

While UK workers suffered the worst collapse in the value of their wages on record the tiny super rich minority literally doubled their wealth. Take from the poor to give to the rich, that's always been the Tory agenda. The worst thing is that these malicious reverse Robin Hoods even had the gall to tell us "we're all in this together" as they were deliberately rigging society even more in favour of the tiny super-rich minority than it already was: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/apr/26/recession-rich-britains-wealthiest-double-net-worth-since-crisis

Perhaps the most worrying thing of all is the way Theresa May has made the threat of a "no deal" Brexit strop the centrepiece of her diplomatically inept Brexit negotiating strategy. If the EU 27 call her bluff and she ends up walking the UK over a "no deal" Brexit cliff edge the social and economic consequences will be catastrophic. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has estimated that the imposition of WTO tariffs, the flight of businesses, border checks and all the other chaos that would come with a "no deal" flounce would wipe between 6.3% and 9.5% off the national GDP. To put that in perspective the recession that followed the 2007-08 global financial sector insolvency crisis (you know, the one we're still trying to recover from) wiped 4.8% off GDP: http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/brexit02.pdf

😳😲😱 

But wait... there's more! Let's keep going!! Piled on more debt in 4 years than Labour did in 13: https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2013/11/the-tories-have-piled-on-more-debt-than-labour/

A rise in wealth inequality on the horizon: https://www.ft.com/content/4642c8d6-eb95-11e6-ba01-119a44939bb6

Dismantling of disability benefits is a breach of human rights: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/un-report-disability-disabled-rights-violating-austerity-welfare-reform-esa-pip-a7404956.html

Number of homeless children hit an eight year high last year: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/nov/03/child-homelessness-christmas-eight-year-high-shelter-12000-children-temporary-accommodation

Child poverty expected to rise by 50% by 2020: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jun/28/number-uk-children-living-inpoverty-jumps-200000

Living standards fell for all but the richest: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/05/uk-living-standards-fell-for-all-but-the-richest-under-coalition-analysis

UK wages dropped 10% since 2007, the second-biggest hit in Europe: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/uk-wages-drop-10-tuc-greece-recession-financial-crisis-brexit-a7157681.html

As of 2011, British people work the 3rd longest out of everyone in Europe: https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/dec/08/europe-working-hours

16 million people have less than £100 in savings: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37504449

UK productivity growth is the weakest since WW2 https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/apr/01/uk-productivity-growth-is-weakest-since-wwii-says-ons

GDP per capita is lower than it was before 2008: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/may/24/joseph-stiglitz-interview-uk-economy-lost-decade-zero-growth

Deficit was supposed to be eliminated by 2015, now the target is 2020: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/04/21/deficit-figures-an-embarrassment-for-george-osborne-as-he-misses/

For parents in full-time work the rate of poverty has risen to 8%, and the number of people in working-poor in absolute poverty grew by 2 million in the last decade: http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21701216-number-working-poor-growing-blame-high-house-prices-low-productivity-and-too-little

£1 billion inheritance tax cut pledged: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/feb/28/tory-1bn-inheritance-tax-cut-will-worsen-north-south-divide

Six million workers paid less than the living wage: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-34691404

Shelter: 1 in 5 adults suffer from mental health issues due to housing issues: https://twitter.com/Shelter/status/854782916739706881

In 2013 the Red Cross had to start a campaign for food aid in Britain for the first time since WW2: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-24487146

On average workers families are set to be £1300 worse off this year: https://fullfact.org/economy/average-working-families-and-budget/

By 2022 Conservatives will cut a combined £70 billion in corporation tax, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, and bank levies, yet they claim they need to make savings by not guaranteeing triple-lock pensions: http://press.labour.org.uk/post/158315410419/the-tories-70bn-tax-giveaways-to-the-super-rich

More than 500,000 primary school pupils are taught in classes between 31 and 35 pupils: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/jan/15/primary-schools-oversize-classes-claims-labour

More than 40,000 primary children in classes over 36: https://www.educationbusinessuk.net/news/21042017/jeremy-corbyn-criticises-tories-over-overcrowded-classrooms

More than half of primary school teachers surveyed in a NUT poll said that pupils showed signs of holiday hunger, 39% of teachers said it affected more than a quarter of their pupils, 12% said it affected more than half, and 80% reported that holiday hunger increased over 2 years: https://www.teachers.org.uk/news-events/conference-2017/nut-survey-holiday-hunger

10,000 jobs axed and record fire station closures, fire prevention exercises have reduced by a quarter over 5 years, 13% less time on public safety initiatives - 15% increase in fire-related deaths in 2015/16: http://www.writeyou.co.uk/dangerous_tory_cuts_to_our_fire_rescue_service_need_to_end

20 hospitals declared a black alert in January: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jan/11/nhs-crisis-20-hospitals-declare-black-alert-as-patient-safety-no-longer-assured

The Red Cross declared the NHS was in humanitarian crisis in January: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jan/06/nhs-faces-humanitarian-crisis-rising-demand-british-red-cross

Around 1000 NHS England patients waited more than 12 hours on a trolley this January, compared to just 17 in Jan 2011: http://news.sky.com/story/worst-month-on-record-for-ae-waiting-times-10795364

There's been a 504% increase of patients waiting over four hours since Jan 2011: http://news.sky.com/story/worst-month-on-record-for-ae-waiting-times-10795364

Over 4000 urgent operations were cancelled last year, up 27% in two years: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jan/27/record-number-urgent-operations-cancelled-hospitals-england-2016

Knee and hip operations are "rationed" for only those who can't sleep because of the pain: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/26/hip-operations-much-pain-cant-sleep-new-nhs-rationing-plans/

The rules on how much the NHS could pay agency staff is breached 50,000 times a week because of staff shortages: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-36341285

Applications for nursing degrees are down 23% on September 2016 applications because nursing bursaries have been scrapped: https://www.ucas.com/corporate/news-and-key-documents/news/applicants-uk-higher-education-down-5-uk-students-and-7-eu-students

Half of junior doctors chose not to progress to specialty training last year: http://careers.bmj.com/careers/advice/Half+of+foundation+trainees+now+choose+not+to+progress+straight+to+specialty+training

NHS staff suffering pay cuts: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/nhs-staff-pay-cut-one-per-cent-rise-health-workers-doctors-dentists-nurses-midwives-a7654251.html

Private contracting has doubled from £4 billion to £8 billion since 2010: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-37087304

Still, the Tories continue to cut £22 billion by 2020: http://m.huffpost.com/uk/entry/uk_58322fcae4b09025ba32a16b

Even though the £15 billion in corporation tax cuts the Tories are enacting would be enough to train 10,000 teachers, 10,000 police officers, and 12,000 nurses full time every year for a decade: http://press.labour.org.uk/post/155290716819/tory-cuts-to-corporation-tax-worth-15-billion

😡😡😡 

But hey, at least May isn't an "IRA sympathiser" or a "loony"...!!