Your mask is slipping Mr. Perkins
As aspiring and improving a town my birthplace is, Chesterfield is still sadly a socially deprived area. Of course many of you reading, if not all of you, realise this. It doesn’t define us as a town, it doesn’t even define the general outlook, but I tell you what it does do. It holds human beings down, year in, year out. As recurring as an Autumnal blanket of dead leaves, suffocating any opportunity of growth, the socio economic factors of our town serve to constantly restrict certain individuals lives. Though Thankfully we have a Welfare State to support individuals. An ideological Liberal inception underpinned by Labour. The purpose of which to support all, in time of need. A basic and fundamental human right of any civilised society. Yet in recent years, the Welfare state has come under much scrutiny, at times not only have recipients of the system been demonised, but the purpose has somewhat been diminished by a perfectly spun right wing narrative. Where the harsh realities and social consequences of welfare reform and the wider platform of Austere politics are excused, often ignored, via the right’s intravenous feed into the nations psyche to cut hard and fast. Sequentially the anxieties of change have sided the working poor against those of the non working poor, even the working classes seemingly malign claimants of Welfare, without realisation that they too are culpable of an indiscriminate leaning to swallow the go to mantra of the right. This division amongst fellow humans often regardless of their political persuasion is a politics of fear, driven and expertly engineered in the drawing rooms of the right.
In reality and by his own admission, Cameron has been held back by the Lib Dems in 5years of Coalition politics from governing as a Tory. The reality now is much different. The headline grabbing £12 billion cuts of the Welfare Bill served up by the Tories proves just this. The Tories choose to make their ideological and excessive cuts at a time of giving tax breaks to millionaires. But what of Labour, a party who claim to believe in social justice, where is their voice? More to the point where is the voice of our local MP, Toby Perkins? A man recently returned to Westminster backed by the ideals of nearly 22000 Chesterfield folk. Though at a time to stand up and be counted and represent the people of our town, Perkins remained silent. Worse still, in the aftermath of recrimination, Perkins released a statement explaining his actions. In it, he acknowledged he abstained from voting on the second reading as the Tory government would win. Going on to conclude, how you make your point is how to serve best in opposition. Well I for one, and I suspect the vast majority of folk in Chesterfield believe otherwise. Not bothering to vote, when your defence is, we would have lost anyway, is quite simply breathtaking. Take a moment please if you will, to digest the sentiment of this, because it’s irresponsible and reckless to the core principles of democracy, not to mention the ideals of the 22,000 people he represents .
Yet the truth behind his actions, or rather non action is I believe something quite different. Toby Perkins is a career politician, a man who in the last 5yrs of government has backed every state intervening sound bite uttered by Ed Miliband in the hope of a ministerial position. That wasn’t to be. Despite his stance over the past 5 years, Perkins now finds himself the campaign manager and endorsing Labours most right leaning leadership candidate, Liz Kendall. The man has no conviction, he has allowed himself overnight to be enamoured by Liz Kendall in her quest to become Labour leader as he now believes his party must lurch to the right to become electable. What it proves is, Perkins will say just about anything to further his career. So when you hear or read the words of Perkins, ask yourself this, was it your interests and ideals he was thinking of, because right now our shared ideals have just been washed down the river Rother.
Topic: In response to statement by @tobyperkinsmp re #WelfareBill (Read 1964 times)