Tories Follow

Last week the Daily Mail splashed the headline "Our NHS, Not the World Health Service" across its front page. It was the latest attempt by the Tories and the right wing press to whip up a panic over refugees.

"Small pox and scarlet fever have unquestionably been introduced by aliens within the past few months on a large scale." You could easily think I’m quoting Tory leader Michael Howard.

The launch of Labour’s election pledge card has shown just how low the party has sunk in its craven tail-ending of Tory and tabloid racism. The card was originally set to carry five pledges—as in 1997 and 2001. These would broadly cover education, health, the economy, crime and the family—also in line with previous elections. But at the last minute, a sixth pledge was added—"Your country’s borders protected." Labour has promised "ID cards and strict controls that work to combat asylum abuse and illegal immigration".

There was an item on the news at the weekend where a reporter went out on the streets and read out quotes from Labour on immigration. The reporter asked people, "Which political party said this?" Every single person thought it was the Tories. This is Labour’s strategy on every single issue — welfare, trade unions, war. They’re in the business of winning elections by out-Torying the Tories. But this whole argument on immigration is based on a lie. Every economic study shows that immigrants put far more into the economy in taxes and labour than they take in benefits.

Labour governments have capitulated to immigrant-bashing before. On each occasion the result was spiralling racism. In the 1964 general election, the Tories ran a vicious and nakedly racist campaign in the Labour seat of Smethwick.

FIFTEEN YEARS ago ambulance workers were in national dispute with Thatcher’s Tory government over low pay. It was an enormously popular dispute with opinion polls showing 80 percent of the public backing the ambulance workers.

IDENTITY CARDS were abolished in this country because the then Tory government, led by Winston Churchill, described them as "draconian" and an "extreme measure".

A ONE-DAY strike across most of the public sector in Greece last week signalled a serious confrontation with the Tory government of Costas Karamanlis, which is barely six months old.

I AM bloody angry with the British government. After the 1991 Gulf War a Tory MP said that the country owed British soldiers a debt of honour.

AUSTRALIA’S Tory prime minister, John Howard, is one of George W Bush’s staunchest backers.

Paul was a brilliant socialist writer, a speaker more able than any other to make people see what was wrong with capitalism, a tireless campaigner against injustice, and an investigative journalist whose revelations caused the resignation of a Tory cabinet minister and exposed the corruption of businessmen, big and small.

THE LABOUR Party, the party of government for the past seven years, received its lowest share of the vote since the First World War in the 10 June elections. The Tory party, the oldest and most successful conservative party in any parliamentary democracy, suffered an effective split in its voting base as the UK Independence Party (UKIP) took many of its natural supporters.