Tuesday 7 April 2015

General Election Letter To Local Tory Candidate

As you know the General Election is only a month away now and as I believe the current system is flawed for many, I thought I would send emails to all local candidates to see the response. The first party I have emailed was the Conservative party.

I will copy the letter into a post and I shall update it when/if I receive a reply. If it helps one more person vote then I regard it as a success. If the outcome of the election see's no real notable positive change then I believe it is down to us as one to stand up and let our opinions be known one way or another. Anyway here we go:

Email sent: April 7th 15.36

Dear The Conservative Candidate for West Cardiff,

I am a constituent to the area you propose to be a member of parliament for. It will be my first election as a voter with myself being finally over the age barrier (which I personally believe should be lowered to 16 giving the fact I had many friends in my 6 form last election who were into the general election). I lived in Torridge that time and although I wanted the Conservatives to win I didn’t want the Tory candidate to win due to his pretty appalling attendance rate in Parliament due to his second job (Geoffrey Cox) and therefore for that seat was preferable to the Liberal Democrats, especially with their tuition fee pledge being much liked by my age group. Their tuition pledge which rather than holding onto when you formed coalition with them, was scrapped for one of the most pointless referendums in mankinds history. A pledge which after being broken, had salt put into the wounds with the fees going up to £9000. This put a lot of my better friends into an average of £44k of debt. Is this fair for our future generation? Do the future decide to be punished for the presents faults with the economy? We feel used, your party told us there were no plans, the Lib Dems told us they would scrap them. We end up with £9000 tuition feels for sometimes 10 hours of lectures and tutorials a week If we were going to pay a bigger loan perhaps paying a bigger maintenance loan would have annoyed us left with many people having to scrap money off their parents or out of their savings to even cover their rent in Plymouth or have more than £10 to live on a week. How does this make you feel like the party of the normal people? The people trying to make a way in life? Doesn’t it just feel like a punishment for having ambition? And how are we not going to feel the pinch when we wipe the majority of it off?  However I am finding it difficult to find reasons to vote conservative in this general election.

I have since been to University, in Plymouth where I studied Criminology and Law. Aims included looking into such careers as the police, or doing a Graduate Diploma of Law and begin my training to become a lawyer. However since leaving university I preferred the idea of the first more. However cuts to public spending makes it very difficult to find any way of applying to be a PCSO or a Police Officer never mind get in. Plus the Police and Crime Commissioner is one of the most pointless posts in the world, with it just leaving to public disillusion with how the police are run. This is proven by the low turnout in the election for them and to an extent it politicalises the police which is something that should never happen. We’ve all heard about some of the misdemeanours of South Yorkshire police with the mining strikes with some alleged Government involvement.

Beyond my aim for this career, it is also difficult to get a job. I want full time work, but when I search it isn’t readily available to an entrance level, with mainly part time and zero hours available. I had a zero hours contract at Wetherspoons, however turning up at 10 and finishing at 1 was a waste of time for me with it taking an hour to walk too both ways. So it really only lasted a few weeks when the Autumn rugby was on.

So I have found myself on JSA. And whilst I look for a job that's fine. Better that than nothing, despite the total control they try to get to your life, almost making you feel like a criminal, a scrounger when you go in. Is that fair? I’m active in looking for work! I prefer to apply for a few hours every other day however I am told then it looks like I haven’t applied certain  days but I’ve applied for 20 jobs a week in average the last 6 months? Am I a criminal for that? Is this Big Brother society in the DWP fair? What would you do about this?
Add insult to injury I was put onto a Movement to Work course. Now okay, work experience can be important. I’d much prefer it to be in the sector I have done a degree to go into of course (but those good old spending cuts have ruined my ambition of that for now, seen a decrease in reported crime but a rise in unreported crime with the police lacking the resources and public backing nowadays), but my real problem with this is, when I see your stats about how many people are in work, I count as someone who does work. I don’t get paid for it! Okay I get my Kob Seekers but then if you call that a wage, that’s £2 an hour. If that counts as employed by the Government, they might as well include any form of slave labour! There isn't a real option of a job at the end of the four weeks, but I count as employed which makes me wonder what are the figures of employment when you take away the people that aren’t actually employed? Does your party know? Or do you just have these fake statistics, as that’s what they are the way they currently are formed. So when I see this Tory job miracle I’m left thinking its b*ll*cks.

And finally, if your policies are so damn good, why when I go on facebook, or see a tory campaign poster, or when I see your chancellor (who despite people like myself having the issues I have listed above, wont rule out a tax cut for the wealthy) and leader make an appearance on the news do I just get the perception that your campaign isn’t based on policies, it’s based on slating the leader of the opposition, Ed Miliband? The personal swipes are just bullying and I’ve seen nothing in your leader to say he’s a better leader than Miliband or indeed Clegg. Why do I open a newspapers website, a newspaper that’s openly Tory, and rather than see “look at this amazing policy” do I see “vote us because Miliband is incompetent” or “they might go into coalition with the SNP”. It’s not like your party haven't had a coalition, plus the SNP, Plaid and the Greens would only want a vote by vote alliance. And it’s not like your party’s coalition stuck to all their policies. And can you rule out a coalition with UKIP who want to split us up with Europe who poorer parts of the nation such as Wales and Cornwall need?

After all of this, can you explain to me, why your party deserve my vote?

Thanks,
James.

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