One-nation Conservatism is a million miles from what we actually haveMany of those public figures who you interviewed for final week’s In Focus special on the Conservative conference were right to be sceptical approximately David Cameron’s claims to be a centrist one-nation Conservative. (“Did David Cameron’s conference speech manage to capture the centre ground?”.)First,since becoming prime minister in May 2010, Cameron has presided (or is currently presiding) over pay freezes for millions of workers; welfare cuts for the unemployed, or disabled and now low-paid workers; the expansion of food banks; the continued payment of obscene salaries and bonuses in Britain’s boardrooms and banks (and thus a widening gulf between the top 1% and the rest); an increase in zero-hours contracts and chronic job insecurity; repeated denigration of the public sector; a tripling of student fees (with further increases in the pipeline); a generation of young people who can no longer afford to become homeowners; further attacks on trade unions and the BBC; the continued hold-over of British industries and public services by foreign firms.
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Source: theguardian.com