3.) Sat on their hands whilst refugees have drowned.

This summer has seen a huge number of people fleeing their home countries for a place of safety. The planet is facing its biggest refugee crisis since the second world war, with almost 60,000,000 people displaced from their homes.
      Their desperation has been manifested in the overcrowded boats crossing the Mediterranean, and the increasingly inventive ways that these people have attempted to reach somewhere safe, including one man wedging himself into a car engine.

The whole of Britain has watched this crisis unfold in the press, with particular attention given to the 'Jungle' camp at Calais, where exhausted people who have travelled for thousands of miles face a British government seemingly devoid of compassion or a willingness to help.

The language used by Cameron & his government has been shameful, labelling the people fleeing war as a "swarm", and his entire focus has been on constructing fences and deploying security teams to prevent the refugees from entering the UK.

In a recent interview, Cameron said: "We have taken a number of genuine asylum seekers from Syrian refugee camps."

Well that's helpful Dave, but which number?

 Bearing in mind there are roughly 4 million Syrians who have fled the country, what number has Cameron's government has granted asylum to via its 'Vulnerable Person Relocation programme'?

216.
Just two hundred and sixteen Syrians have been relocated to Britain, a paltry number in the face of such huge disruption.

More have been granted asylum after first reaching the UK, despite the governments best efforts to keep them out, but it begs the question... Why the fuck is our Prime Minister not responding to this crisis with a clear objective of preventing the unnecessary deaths of more innocent people?

The images of that dead Syrian boy washed up on the beach have done so much to turn public opinion in favour of doing more to help the refugees. It's sad that it takes harrowing images to shock the public and much of the media into having a conscience. The Sun, which before has given a platform to Katie Hopkins labelling the refugees as cockroaches, is calling for Cameron to help the very same people.

Cameron has now made some noises about stepping up efforts to house refugees, after a hugely successful petition, but it is unlikely to be anywhere near the numbers we need to play our part in relieving this crisis.

He runs the risk of his legacy being tainted by his failure to act to prevent further tragedy, that along with increasing our debt, pushing hundreds of thousands into foodbanks, withdrawing support for the disabled, & selling off public assets on the cheap to his mates.

2.) Attacked the young.

Why do the Conservatives hate the young?

Today's youth of the UK face the usual challenges of growing up; exam stress, puberty, sourcing booze before being 18 and so on, but there is now have another issue to face: A government that seems to actively despise us.

Since coming to power in 2010, the Conservatives have made it clear that they are not a party of the younger generation. Immediately tuition fees for University were trebled to £9000 per year, a move that has saddled thousands upon thousands of students with debt.

     Whether this is a middle-finger to the 18-24 age bracket who do not tend to vote Conservative, or a reflection of the low voter turnout amongst young people which means that it is not politically costly to hammer us like this, I don't know. What I do know is that the Conservatives have rolled out an unprecedented attack on young people, despite their meaningless rhetoric of "giving people security at every stage of their lives."

• Tuition fees

As mentioned above, University now costs £9000 a year in England. This pains any student who sees how the Scottish, German, Norwegian, Danish and Swedish governments to name a few, provide free University education because they believe an educated society is a better society. Bloody hippies. Instead the Conservatives, along with the 'student-friendly' Liberal Democrats, decided to treble the amount of debt we would put ourselves in for our courses.

• Student Grants

Student grants used to be money given to students from less well-off backgrounds, in order to help pay for accommodation, books etc. that their parents couldn't afford to pay for. This put these students on a level playing field with those whose parents could afford to contribute. Although the means-tested system wasn't perfect, and some people did struggle, the basic principle was correct.

    The Conservatives scrapped grants, and replaced them with a loan. This results in students without the financial help of parents having to take out a larger loan than their peers, and take on the extra debt to get to the same place. Clearly a regressive, unfair policy that hits poorer students.

• Housing

The Conservatives are overseeing a housing market that has the odds stacked against young people in so many ways:

Right to buy was a policy first introduced by Thatcher, and carried on by Cameron's government. The original intention was to increase home ownership, but the reality of this mass sell off of government housing was to concentrate power in the hands of private landlords. 40% of the housing sold off has ended up being rented out, with the son of Thatcher's housing minister owning over 40 ex-council houses. 

      Decades after this policy begun, the rate of home ownership has collapsed, and there are now 11,000,000 people privately renting. A policy that is a failure on its own terms, currently being pushed with a renewed vigour by Cameron. 

     It has pushed house prices up, pricing young people out the housing market by making it extremely difficult to get a foot on the property ladder. 

Housing benefit has been taken away from 18-21 year olds, meaning that the money used to help with extortionate rents has been taken away. In a country where rents have increased by 12% in the last year, taking away this assistance is cruel. It will result in more young people having to stay at home with parents, and if this is not an option they'll be on the streets. With 52% of homeless people being under the age of 25, this is just another step in the wrong direction.

The government has refused to implement any form of Rent Controls, despite the alarming levels of rent affecting millions of people, from students to single parents. Scotland, Germany, France and the Netherlands all utilise some form of rent control to stop rip off rents, but our government is much happier to sit back and repeat the dogma that we cannot interfere with the market. 

• No 'Living Wage'

In the Summer budget, the chancellor purported to introduce a living wage to the UK. Although it is important to remember that his changes to tax credits actually ripped a hole in the bottom of the pay packets he was topping up, and the new living wage will not be enough for workers to live on.

    Osborne quickly slammed the door shut on the young whilst unveiling this policy, and the new minimum wage only applies to those above the age of 25. I can't quite see the logic that results in a 24 year old, working, paying for rent, bills, food etc. needing less money than a similar 25 year old, & it just results in it being another policy that forgets the young. 

• Failure to act on Climate Change

Faced with the rather pressing issue of our planet rapidly heating up, the young could be forgiven for wanting the government to maybe do something to protect the planet that we will inherit. Instead, they have scrapped subsidies for renewable energy, given a fast track for Fracking, and given up on plans for all houses to be Carbon-Neutral. I've written about the governments failure on climate change in more detail here.

It's safe to say that Tory Britain is not a Britain that has the best interests of the young at heart.

1.) Taken us backwards on Climate change

When Cameron first came to power in 2010, he promised that his government would be the "greenest government ever." What a load of bullshit.

Following the election in may, Cameron appointed Amber Rudd to the position of Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. This is somebody who can 'understand' the conspiracy that the voices calling for action on climate change are doing so as part of an 'anti-growth, anti capitalist' plot. It was also revealed by Private Eye that her brother Roland's Lobbying company represents a construction firm with a potential £100 million contract for the construction of a Nuclear power plant, the decision on its construction rests with Amber.

So far, not looking like the ideal Secretary for Energy and Climate Change, but what has been done since the Conservative majority in may?

• An end for onshore wind subsidies:

Rudd scrapped the subsidies for wind farms a year earlier than planned claiming it was time for the industry to stand "on it's own two feet." Katja Hall of the Confederation of British Industry slammed this as "a blow to the industry" and "damaging" to Britain's reputation. 

     

• A fast track for Fracking:

Fracking is a controversial issue in the UK. This method of extracting shale gas is heavily pushed by the Conservatives, despite the uncertainties and risks involved. Even if we ignore these, the claim that this Government is committed to reducing our carbon emissions is destroyed by their eagerness to start burning this fossil fuel on a much larger scale.

    Local authorities have faced a lot of opposition to opening up their land to fracking, and now the Conservatives plan to reduce the time they have to consider applications.On top of this, there are plans for fracking applications to be decided by government ministers, rather than the local authorities in the affected areas. 

    Finally, the decision was made for fracking to now be permitted in Sites of Special Scientific Interest, despite a pledge not to. In total, 1000 square miles have been opened up to fracking including much of North Yorkshire, the North west and the East Midlands.

• Scrapped the plan for Carbon neutral homes.

Introduced by Gordon Brown in 2006, the idea was to have all homes producing renewable energy such as Solar on site, whilst tightening up energy efficiency standards. Definitely the wrong direction to be going in whilst real progress is being made in this area.

    This government has also scrapped a scheme to help people insulate their homes to avoid energy being wasted.

So all in all, a bleak outlook for those hoping that our Husky-hugging Prime Minister might take the issue of climate change seriously. Still, at least it's one of those issues that we can afford to put on the back burner for a few years... 

Corbyn can stop Britain's march to the right.

The UK could find itself with a Jeremy Corbyn lead Labour party on September the 12th. This turn of events could result in many different outcomes depending on who you listen to, from the permanent enshrinement of a Tory government, to an increase in infighting and the ultimate destruction of them. I doubt both of those, but I think Corbyn could represent a refreshing break away from the trend of the last 4 decades in UK politics.

Starting with the Thatcher's destruction of the post-war consensus, the UK has seen itself on a seemingly unstoppable march to the right. Ideas that were once seen as common sense are now consigned to the political dustbin, and the scale of privatisation that would have once been the secret fetish of more right-wing politicians, is being rolled out by Cameron's government.

 The once publicly owned railways now have trains rolling along them with the logos of private firms slapped on the side, almost taunting the public with the revelation of whose shareholders will receive 90% of the profit from their extortionate fare. The same is happening with our NHS, though more slowly. Creeping privatisation, largely hidden from the public as private firms operate under the NHS logo, is being pushed by this Tory government. How long will it be until Virgin or Circle are brave enough to hoist their logo onto the entrance of a GP practice or Hospital?

All this could be explained by the well repeated mantra that the general public of the UK, or at least England, are inherently right-wing. Foot lost in 83 with a left-wing manifesto, Blair won by moving to the right, Miliband lost because he moved to the left. This reductive analysis seems have sewn it up for a lot of commentators. Ignore the Falklands war, the SDP, the unpopularity of the Major government, or Miliband's failure to convince the public he could be Prime Minister, the public want right-wing policies.

Except for when they don't. 84% of the public want a publicly owned NHS, 68% support nationalisation of the energy companies and 66% want the railways returned to the public hands. Even Conservative voters are split, with 52% backing the nationalisation of both rail and energy.

Here is where Corbyn comes in. He has been consistently referred to in the media as so 'hard left' or 'radical left' that he could never win an election. Based on media descriptions, we'd be forgiven for assuming that this man quotes from Das Kapital when he appears on Sunday Politics. Instead he is massively in tune with popular opinion on the issues above, and enjoys public support for his opposition to spending £100 billion on the renewal of Trident.

If he wins the Labour leadership election, he will spend 5 years holding to account an extreme government. A government that removed £30 a week from the chronically disabled, whilst slashing inheritance tax for the wealthy. A government that scrapped the Independent Living Fund, whilst slashing corporation tax. A government that responds to climate change with an end to renewable subsidies, and a fast track for fracking. 

The 'centre ground' in politics is discussed a lot, and some say that the only path to a Labour victory is to occupy it. By this they mean moving to the right, towards the Tories. The problem with this 'strategy' is that the centre ground is not a fixed place. Whoever wins the argument will drag the centre ground in their direction. The choice Labour has is either to stand up, challenge the Tories and move the centre ground back towards where it should be, or weakly accept that the centre ground is, and always will be, slightly to the left of an extreme Conservative government. Moving closer to the Conservatives, and abstaining on their cuts is not the way to stop them, it will only legitimise them. 

The public could be offered a real choice in 2020, between the regressive Tories, or Corbyn presenting policies that chime with them. If there's one thing that will stop the UK's march to the right, it's a clear alternative; it's Corbyn.