Tories and campaign abuse

One of the Tories’ little helpers, Telegraph hack Ben Riley-Smith, cobbled together a few half-backed complaints by Tory MPs about abuse they received while campaigning prior to the first of this year’s general elections.  Riley-Smith’s piece is here: Abuse at Tories.  (It’s a ‘Premium’ article requiring payment to see all of it, but the first two paragraphs are visible and they set the gormless tone adequately.  The MPs’ quotes from Riley-Smith’s piece appear in a similar article on the Independent website: Indy on abuse at Tories.)

The complaints are lightweight: Abuse and idle threats on social media, a few angry shouted comments in the street and the odd face-in-face moment.  None of the incidents described are unusual and they are not a new phenomena.  Politicians from all parties have similar encounters.  

The co-ordinated whingeathon from a few backbench Tories is partly motivated by their respective self-promotions but its main purpose is to continue smearing opponents.  This smear tactic is doomed to fail because

• All the smears from the right are transparent in motive and intent
• The examples of ‘abuse’ are flimsy and unremarkable
• Abuse aimed at Tories is often met with observational indifference or even support 

The transparency of the methodologies of the anti-socialists has become obvious – Transparent politicians and media.  We can see right through the pantomime behaviour by the backbench Tories as they whinged about abuse.  

Smug, petulant Tory twitter troll Johnny Mercer MP

One culprit, Johnny Mercer (pictured above), like many fellow Tory backbenchers, has enjoyed winding people up by being deliberately provocative and offensive on twitter and, so, any complaint from him is laughable and treated with the contempt it deserves; another, Sheryl Murray, who had praised the need for foodbanks, chose to confuse parliamentary protocol with twitter terms and conditions when she objected to non-constituents tweeting her regarding her political views and actions;

a third, Nigel Evans, got all flustered because he was called a terrorist and child murderer – presumably a reference to the Tory government’s use of the British military to support Saudi Arabia’s carpet bombing of Yemeni civilians.  Evans declared that the description aimed at him was a “new low in campaigning.”  Perhaps, Evans had momentarily forgotten the constant deluge of libel, smears and abuse hurled at Corbyn, McDonnell and Abbott by the Tories’ friends in the right-wing media during the election campaign, or Evans may have just been play-acting in the usual Tory pantomime infested with fraud, deceit, lies and misdirection.  Byron Davies, who was kicked out on his backside by the voters of Gower in June’s general election, is using his newly acquired spare time as an opportunity to rant incoherently on twitter about “vile” Labour party supporters being rude to Tories.  

Tories concocting another smear

Of course, Tory MPs always treat people with civility and respect do they not?  No, they don’t.  This twitter thread from Evolve Politic’s Matt Turner lists a few examples: Tories with a cob on.

Why abuse a Tory?

Abuse, even short bursts of anger, normally has some logic behind its use.  A reason exists, from the perpetrator’s perspective, to utter or type a vitriolic remark often intentionally rude and unpleasant.  The reason could be valid or not and the step from anger to act could be instantaneous or planned carefully.  Such behaviour is not abnormal; it combines beastly rage with cerebral logic which are both aspects of human psyche.  (Recommended reading; ‘Man, Beast, Zombie’ by Kenan Malik.)

Angry abuse directed at Tories must have some logic behind it.  What could that be?  Let’s have a damn good think about that.

In other news, entirely unrelated to reasons to abuse a Tory, here is a short sample list of what Tories are up to

• Vicious targetted cuts to financial support for people with disabilities leading to destitution, homelessness, illness and death
• Deliberate reduction in quantity and quality of service provided by the NHS as a tool to destroy the NHS and replace with private healthcare
• Replacement of state education system with academies whose purpose is to  provide unearned income to owners of academies with accompanying decline in education standards
• Reduction in quality and quantity of fire service, a factor in the death toll at the Grenfell Tower fire
• Reckless removal of health and safety regulation to increase business and property owner profits, a factor in the death toll at the Grenfell Tower fire
• Removal of workers’ rights re. working hours, minimum hourly pay, holiday entitlements and health and safety issues
• Selective financial assistance to councils that acutely favours Tory councils leading to removal of vital services in non-Tory-controlled areas
• Reduction in corporation tax and other taxes that favours the wealthy
• Acquiescence with multi-billion pound tax-dodging, a practice used by most Tory MPs and their families, and enabled by the prime minister’s husband Philip May
• Military assistance for Saudi Arabia to carpet bomb Yemeni civilians, hospitals and schools
• Military sales to Turkey, a country where opposition politicians, journalists and teachers are being jailed in their thousands
• The recurring theme whereby contracts for public projects are awarded to businesses in which Tory MPs have a financial interest
• Laughter by Tory MPs in the House of Commons whenever opposition MPs describe the lives of people who are suffering under the Tory boot
• Petulance
• Deceit
• Fraud
• Theft
• Corruption
• Relentless lies
• The fact that, by definition, every Tory MP is a fully paid gimp of financial terrorists

Given what the Tories are up to every day, given what the intrinsic priorities are of the Tory party: A method for channelling as much public money (taxes) into the grubby hands of a few tax-dodging international criminals, given the party’s use of division and imbued prejudice to distract people, given the absolute lack of any interest in social responsibility or humanity (except as an electoral con trick) and given the nasty and unpleasant demeanor of every Tory MP then it is astonishing that the millions who are adversely affected by the Tories’ acts are able to maintain their civility and composure.

The Tory whingers and their enablers in the media can sod off.

Advertisement