Disconnected: Tory Rhetoric and Political Reality

Jesus, it's in danger of turning into a chronicle of my dullsville life around here.  On the basis of the last couple of posts it can only be a matter of time before I start telling you what I had for lunch and how many times a day I fart.  So, let's stop the rot and talk about something other than me.  Like this week's Tory Party conference, for instance.  Yeah, I know, it makes my stomach turn as well, but I'm afraid we can't just ignore it.  If nothing else, it presented a highly confused set of messages.  On the one hand we had Theresa May screeching about the evils of those bloody immigrants, whilst, on the other David Cameron seemed to be trying to convince us that he's some kind of socialist.  Apparently this is all part of some grand strategy on the part of the Tories to seize the 'centre ground' from Labour by appealing to their traditional working class voters, whilst ensuring that they don't alienate the traditional extreme right voters who prop up the Tory vote.  Hence the bit of immigrant bashing to try and stop them from deserting to UKIP.  In between all this we've had the usual parade of senior Tory bastards (including supposedly 'caring' Cameron) denouncing Jeremy Corbyn as 'anti-British' and implying he's a traitor.

But the disconnect between the rhetoric and the reality never seems to have been greater.  Can there be any greater irony than a Prime Minister who has presided over unprecedented cuts in welfare spending and a significant decline in living standards for the average citizen, telling us that he's going to launch an 'all out assault' on poverty?  Surely people really aren't so stupid that they can't grasp that relieving poverty in the UK would cost billions of pounds worth of government spending, yet, paradoxically, the Chancellor's economic policy envisages further cuts in public spending?  Clearly Cameron and his cronies think so.  Likewise the Home Secretary and her tough talk on immigration.  It's all very well saying that there are too many immigrants entering the UK and that they are undermining British values (whatever those are), when the reality is that, over the past few years you have failed miserably to lower net migration levels, despite all your promises to do so.  It's the same with all the anti-Corbyn  nonsense - he's a threat to security and anti-British says the party which has slashed defence spending to the bone, making tens of thousands of servicemen and women redundant in the process, and who are happy to sell nuclear power stations and the HS2 rail project to the Chinese.  Like I said, a total disconnect between Tory rhetoric and political reality.