THE GENERAL ELECTION OF A LIFE TIME (a personal view)

By: Michaell Lange

London, 06/11/19 –

Despite being the main reason behind the call for this general election, Brexit is far from being the only issue we have to debate and consider before voting. I have listened carefully to most of the debates that are going on in social media, radio and TV. I have listened to all different arguments, the pros and cons of candidates and parties. But, I also have done my own research, and please don’t get me wrong. I have also been influenced by all these powerful massages and scaremongering advertises from all sides, that has flooded our daily life. It’s so stressful!

I’m a professional driver, and I spend my days driving people around London. Day and night. I have seen first hand, how things have gone from bad to worse here. I talk to people, I hear their complaints. I watched all the protests marching through central London. I’ve seen rough sleeping explode in our streets. I drove passed Grenfell Tower the morning after it burned. I cried. I cried for weeks every time I drove passed that blackened building that ended so many innocent lives. I cried reading the messages on the walls around the neighbourhood. I witnessed fire stations closing down, and police officers disappearing from our streets. I’ve seen the growing number of police cordons where young kids have been stabbed to death. I have seen a lot of what has happening around here, and though I still haven’t made up my mind about my vote, one thing is crystal clear to me. I cannot and I will not vote Conservatives!

I can’t vote for a party that failed our institutions such as the NHS, to the brink of collapse. Austerity and Tory incompetence has brought British institutions to it’s knees. The Conservatives totally failed this nation for the past 10 years. The NHS, education, security, foreign affairs, social policies and even the economy, have been badly damaged by this government, and now they want me to believe they won’t do it again if I vote for them? Ludicrous!

I’m speaking from the point of view of someone in good health, and no major issue. I have two jobs. I work hard, 15 hours a day, 6 days a week, and I still struggling to pay my bills, and I’m the lucky one. I’m the lucky one, because our elderly have been abandoned by this government. I’m the lucky one, because my kids don’t have special needs, and I don’t have to use food banks. I’m the lucky one, because I can still pay my rent and I don’t need to live in temporary accommodation. I’m the lucky one today. There is no guarantee for tomorrow!

I’m the lucky one, but I think about all those people, our people, going through extremely hardship and injustice. I have to think about thousands of our children living in poverty and in care today. I have to think about the record numbers of homeless and people sleeping rough in our streets. I have to think about the victims of the Grenfell Tower disaster and how it could have been my family. I have to think about the Wind Rush scandal and all the humiliation and separation our communities had to go through. I have to think about the appalling hostile environment policy, the disastrous universal credit, the dementia tax, the bedroom tax, the record numbers of knife crime. The careless with the victims of the recent flooding in Northern England. I have to think about the teachers, the nurses, the fire fighters, our police officers and paramedics struggling with huge cuts and low pay to such vital services. I have to think about the disable, the people living with cancer and other serious illnesses, because they are us. They are the people affected directly by this disastrous conservative government. I have to think about them before I decide my vote. It is for them, it’s for us, it’s for all of the victims of this nasty conservative party, that I will dedicate my vote for.

Then, there is Boris Johnson. A compulsive liar, who can’t be trusted even by his own wife. He lied to the Queen, he lied to the people of this country. His brother and his sister have left him alongside dozens of Tory MPs, including, Ken Clark and Nicholas Soames, the grand son of Winston Churchill. Boris Johnson has a problem with the truth. We cannot trust him on anything! Boris Johnson has also been called a racist, a Islamophobic and misogynist for calling black people, piccanninies with watermelon smile. He called gay men, tank-topped bum boys, and has compared muslim women to letterboxes and bank robbers. No other leader or politician would get away with it, and Boris should not be an exception.

We will have a chance to stop Boris Johnson being an exception. We must not miss the opportunity to take this Tory government out of number 10. We owe it to all the victims of this government’s 10 years of failed policies and total disregard to this nation. Don’t vote Tory!