WHO ELSE ARE YOU GOING TO UPSET? NOT THE BANKERS I'LL BET

So far, after falling out over Europe again (yawn), the Tories, such a shoo-in for next year's election, have managed to upset the Incapacity Benefit claimants by worrying them about extremely strict testing and the 50+ because they want them to work longer.

OK, I know there are people on IB who shouldn't be; people on the fiddle, but there are probably a couple of million who are too ill to work but who are worried sick that somehow they won't pass the test of being able to walk 20 steps and get up from sitting down without using arm rests. All so that they can be taken off IB and put on something that pays lower rates. There are no jobs so it's not like they are actually going to be working.

Nice savings Dave. Reminiscent in many ways of the school bully hitting the sick kid in the playground.


Now they've upset the 50+ crowd, the people who are most likely to vote. Oh, they say, people live well into their 90s now. They want to go on working. It’s only fair that they should.

Hello, what world do these Tories live in? They are nearly as out of touch as the Labour lot, hard though that is to believe.

No. They don't want to go on working. Here’s how the situation is Dave. In the old days people had a job for life. As they got older they maybe did a wee bit less than they used to, but they added value to the company with all their experience. They had been “faithful servants of the company” and the company kept faith with them. With very few exceptions these days are long since gone. Jobs are rarely long term, except in the public sector. Many people in their sixties have been made redundant, and no one wants to take them on, so they are on the dole. They desperately look forward to their pension. It, grimly low though it is, means a few more pounds a week.

Many of the working classes are pretty much done by the time they reach 65. They hurt; they have all manner of illnesses. It's all about a lifetime in damp houses often with poor food, too much drink, too much smoke, not enough exercise or too much hard physical backbreaking work, often around chemicals that have affected their health.

In some areas of Glasgow, for example, many are dead by the time pension comes around, but those who aren't are on the dole. No one wants to employ ill people in their 60s. You know, it's not all stockbroker land in these isles of ours, Dave, and some people do live outside the Home Counties of England.

But hey, the IB claiments and the nearly pensioners are an easy target. Probably no one at your conference has these kinds of worries. It will get you a big cheer in the hall and the blue rinses and the colonels, the stockbrokers and the bankers, who aren’t even aware that people like that exist, will be thinking what a good chap that David Cameron is. The bankers in particular have much to be grateful for. Phew!

It reminds me of Mrs Thatcher saying in that condescending way that she had, lips curling into an evil smile "But people WANT to pay for their eye tests".

Bravo Dave.

So, to summarise. It seems that this week you have hit the old and the sick and the poor.... in order to pay for the mess made by the super rich.

Brilliant. Now I remember what the Tories were like and why we wanted rid of them so badly and believed the ridiculous mantra that things could "only get better".