The sight of palpably relieved Tories strutting around and making themselves look important in the wake of the Manchester Arena atrocity was sickening, and enraging.
The Tories were on the ropes and bleeding heavily over their utterly depraved and almost universally hated Dementia Tax proposals. Labour had just soared up the polls (especially in Wales) and Theresa May had floundered and sneered her way through an excruciating press conference and an incredibly evasive and dishonest car crash interview with Andrew Neil ...
Then the Manchester Arena atrocity happened, election campaigning was suspended and the Tories spent the day strutting around in front of the cameras and making out that they're the ones keeping us safe, when they're actually the ones who let it happen on their watch.
Here are some indisputable facts:
- The Tories have imposed the deepest and longest cuts in per capita police numbers in history. There are fewer police per head of population since 1974!
- Between 2010 and 2015 the Tories cut over 20,000 army personnel, over 8,500 from the RAF, and 5,500 from the Royal Navy. At the time the BBC wrote a congratulatory article praising the Tories for achieving these brutal cuts three years early!
- Despite promising not to cut the army back to anything less than 82,000 in their 2015 manifesto, the Tory cuts have continued and they have slashed it down to 79,000.
- The Tories have slashed 10,000 firefighters jobs, closed 39 fire stations, cut the fire service budget by 30%, and plan to impose even more cuts if they win again.
- The Tories have closed dozens of NHS Accident and Emergency units, and they're drawing up secret plans to close a load more, but they won't tell us where until after the election.
- Despite being repeatedly warned about the growing danger of cyber attacks, the Tories left the NHS wide open to the ransomware attack. Several NHS trusts are so broke under the Tory cuts that they were spending absolutely nothing on cyber security measures!
- Between 2010 and 2012 the Tories cut 10% of UK Border Force jobs. They've repeatedly slashed funding to the UK border force at a time of rising demand (airport arrivals are increasing by 2% a year). A 2015 report found that 16.5 million people are going through UK airports without proper checks.
But then when the inevitable attacks happen (the Westminster attack, the ransomware attack on the NHS and the Manchester Arena atrocity) the Tories love to strut about, look important, and pretend that they're the ones who are keeping us safe, not the ones who let these attacks happen.
It's astounding that so many people allow themselves to be hoodwinked by this deceptive Tory posturing.
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