{"id":6178,"date":"2015-10-08T15:13:39","date_gmt":"2015-10-08T14:13:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=6178"},"modified":"2015-10-08T15:16:28","modified_gmt":"2015-10-08T14:16:28","slug":"what-lies-beneath","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=6178","title":{"rendered":"What lies beneath?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Prime minister David Cameron has again announced in his Tory Conference speech yesterday (October 7) that his is the party of working people. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s his latest in a number of attempts to stretch the Tory party\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s appeal beyond the confines of a powerful and moneyed elite.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But make no mistake \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the Conservative party has not changed any of its policies or values. Instead, it has widened its tent through a flourish of rhetoric.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Cameron coated his speech with \u00e2\u20ac\u015bcompassionate Conservatism\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 but what, exactly, lies beneath his newfound prostrations to social justice and equality?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

UNITElive investigates.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Decent jobs and homes <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"New<\/a><\/p>\n

Cameron said:<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015b[British people] just want a government that supports the vulnerable\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6Good jobs; a decent home; controlled immigration.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The reality:<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

The government that the British people purportedly want has no resemblance to Cameron\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time as leader.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bSupport for the vulnerable\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 has plummeted as the austerity axe has fallen hard on the welfare budget, with food bank users topping out at an all-time record of 1m last year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In terms of \u00e2\u20ac\u015bgood jobs\u00e2\u20ac\u0165, nearly half of the new jobs created since 2010 are temporary and insecure<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What about \u00e2\u20ac\u015bdecent homes\u00e2\u20ac\u0165? A 2007 report found that 250,000 homes needed to be built each year to contain spiralling housing costs and provide enough \u00e2\u20ac\u015bdecent\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 affordable homes. This target was badly missed every single year<\/a> under the coalition government, with 2012 being the worst year for housebuilding since the Second World War.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As far as \u00e2\u20ac\u015bcontrolling immigration\u00e2\u20ac\u0165, under Cameron\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s watch, immigration has exploded<\/a>, hitting a record of 318,000 last year, just shy of a peak in 2005.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Syria <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Refugee\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Cameron said:<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been helping [Syrians] over the past four years, giving more in aid to that part of the world than any other country except America.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bAnd we have been able to do that because this party made a promise and kept a promise \u00e2\u20ac\u201c to spend 0.7 per cent of our national income on aid.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The reality:<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

Commitment to spending 0.7 per cent of our national income on aid was nearly foiled last year<\/a> when Conservative MPs tried to block the Lib-Dem bill that would enshrine the 0.7 per cent pledge into law.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At the time, Tory foreign secretary Phillip Hammond called the commitment \u00e2\u20ac\u015bbizarre\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TTIP<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"nhs_ttip_american\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Cameron said:<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWho do you think got Europe to open trade talks with America, which would be the biggest trade deal in our history? Us. Britain. We did\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m only interested in two things: Britain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s prosperity and Britain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s influence.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The reality:<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

The trade deal to which Cameron refers, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), will actually hit Britain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s prosperity hard. One independent analysis<\/a> estimates that 600,000 jobs across the EU would be lost as a result of TTIP by 2025.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The UK would see one of the largest reductions in annual incomes for working people, plummeting by \u00e2\u201a\u00ac4,200 (\u00c2\u01413,085) per capita each year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Families <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"family<\/a><\/p>\n

Cameron said:<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll never deal with poverty unless we get to grips with these issues. We made a start in the last five years with our Troubled Families programme. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s already turned around the lives of over 100,000 families.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The reality:<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

Head of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) Johnathan Portes earlier this year condemned<\/a> the way in which the government was calling the Troubled Families programme a success, saying the figures the government released was \u00e2\u20ac\u015bpure, unadulterated fiction\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThey are looking for positive stories about a programme for which it is simply too early to give any sort of verdict,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Portes wrote in NIESR\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s blog. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bSo they are making claims that are not true. Deliberately misleading the public is not public service.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

National \u00e2\u20ac\u0098living\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 wage <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"floor<\/a><\/p>\n

Cameron said:<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bYes, a new National Living Wage. Over \u00c2\u01419 an hour by the end of the decade. An \u00c2\u014180-a-week pay rise for the lowest paid. Work paying for millions of people. So let the message go out: if you work hard, want to get on, want more money at the end of the month, the party for you is right here in this hall.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The reality:<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

In a cheap rebranding of the National Minimum Wage, the so-called National Living Wage is anything but. After the Tories pushed through \u00c2\u01414.4bn in cuts to working tax credits, low-income families will be on average \u00c2\u01411,000 a year worse off. One study<\/a> found that in order to make up for the cuts to tax credits, the National Minimum Wage would have to go up to nearly \u00c2\u014112 an hour immediately for working people to \u00e2\u20ac\u015bhave more money at the end of the month\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Stop and search<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"young<\/a><\/p>\n

Cameron said:<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bOpportunity doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean much to a black person constantly stopped and searched by the police because of the colour of their skin.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The reality:<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

Cameron has been a long-time proponent of stop-and-search. He even went so far in 2008 to dismiss claims<\/a> that stop-and-search lead to bad community relations with police and argued that police were no longer racist.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Supporting scrapping laws that would make stop-and-search more difficult to carry out, Cameron also noted that black and Asian communities would simply have to accept being and stopped and search more often for their own good.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If one thing is clear from the Cameron\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s appropriation of Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s language, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s this \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a galvanised movement of working people ready to challenge austerity is something that the Tories can see on the horizon. And as it gathers momentum, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something that they fear.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prime minister David Cameron has again announced in his Tory Conference speech yesterday (October 7) that his is the party of working people. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s his latest in a number of attempts to stretch the Tory party\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s appeal beyond the confines of a powerful and moneyed elite.   But make no mistake \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the Conservative party […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6184,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[76,415,44],"wps_subtitle":"Tories are still the same old beast","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6178"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6178"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6187,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6178\/revisions\/6187"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}