THE TORIES REMIND US WHY WE DESPISE THEM SO WITH ATTACK ON CLAIMANTS

For the tens of millions of people in Britain who live just one pay cheque away from the dole ourselves, Tuesday’s vote in the House of Commons to attack the living standards of welfare recipients is a timely reminder of just why we despise the Tories.

Their brutal attack on those who find themselves on state benefits through no fault of their own, shows why they are rightly known as ‘the nasty party’. Although this label barely does justice to the vile contempt tens of millions of us feel for this shower of public schoolboy millionaires who talk about shift work when they have no comprehension as to what it is. Cameron, Osborne, Duncan Smith and the rest of their ilk have the gall to talk about ‘fairness’ when they are mugging the poor, sick and vulnerable.

They are political extremists who suggest those who endure the humiliation and affront of living on just £71 per week are somehow to blame for the economic state of Britain. It is stupid and contemptible but true to form. The Tories are engaged in a class based conspiracy to mask the real culprits behind the worst recession in 80 years by employing the age-old tactic of blaming its victims.

It was not the unemployed who caused the financial crash in 2008. It wasn’t Jobseekers who plunged the UK into economic collapse. It wasn’t those on welfare who were bailed out to the tune of hundreds of billions of pounds of public money. And it wasn’t those who lost their jobs with Woolworth’s, or Comet, or JJB Sports or Jessops who have lumbered the UK with record indebtedness. Despite these indisputable facts the Tories intend to keep blaming them for it.

The fact remains the 2008 crash was a systemic failure. In other words it was the anarchic, vicious, inept so called ‘free market’ which went belly up and is responsible for the recession and national indebtedness. But the Tories will never admit that [nor New Labour]. They are determined to ensure their class suffer no pain despite being the culprits.

Whilst the Tories go on and on about ‘the scroungers who fiddle the benefits system year after year’ the DWP’s official figures show fraudulent claims amount to only 0.7% of the entire budget. But there is 20 times as much that goes unclaimed by people too proud to accept what they are entitled to. Not that those facts will stop the Tories from pedalling their vile lies.

But let them and their Lib Dem accomplices take heed. People will not keep taking this crap. And don’t take my word for it. The Secretary General of the International Red Cross speaking on Radio Scotland this week – not a man nor an organisation known for its militancy – warned that with some 26million people without work across Europe now his organisation is focused on directing aid to those in crisis in this continent above all. Moreover he made a point I am sure Governments across the EU are anticipating, that widespread rioting, like that which engulfed so much of England in the summer of 2011, is now increasingly likely, by people ‘whom governments effectively exclude with these cuts. They see no stake for them in this society and will act accordingly.’

‘Social exclusion’ might well be the milky white and opaque term coined by the yuppie speaking chattering classes, we know it to be poverty and exploitation. With the working class being hammered in Britain and across Europe to pay for a crisis of the ruling classes it is likely that revolt, rebellion and revolutionary circumstances will ensue. If Governments keep attacking the poor they will find it will cost them far, far more than they save from attacking the poor.

Moreover, the Independence debate in Scotland has to recognise the living reality for millions of people and make it clear that continuing with UK membership means worse to come for the rest of this decade.