Last week we began our list of top ten Tory lies, looking at the most prominent and damaging lies of the Conservative Party over the last decade. So with no delay, let’s jump right back in!
“Enemies Of The People”
Similar to our last entry last week, “Lefty Lawyers”, the ‘enemies of the people’ label is one which the government egregiously abuses in their attempts to divide and conquer and cause rifts in British society. Often levied against protestors and strikers fighting for better conditions or legal professionals who fight or rule in legal cases against the government – this statement is meant to deflect blame from the government and force us to fight one another.
“Government Shouldn’t Fix All Your Problems”
This is an indulgent bit of gaslighting the average Tory MP enjoys engaging in every now and again, as though people in the UK have opulent and luxurious lifestyles and are petitioning the government to help with petty issues. This could not be less true, as with millions in poverty and hundreds of thousands of people living on the streets, it is obvious that the government isn’t even fixing the most basic issues in our society, and in fact is often worsening them instead.
“The Hard/Far/Extreme Left”
A favourite not just of the Tory government but also their supporters in the media. The usage of the designations “far/hard left” has become so visibly disingenuous and openly dishonest it’s exhausting that it still gets propagated. No established actor in UK politics is ‘hard left’ by any objective measure. This lie is designed to make ordinary people believe that right wing politics are centrist, and anything vaguely left of Blair is an extreme Communist revolution.
“Privatisation Is The Answer”
Another favourite since the Thatcher and Reagan eras in the UK and US. Progressively further right-wing governments have realised that all they need to do is intentionally defund public services, carve them up into inefficient and costly structures, and then convince the public that this is the inherent inefficiency of the public sector. Now you sell them off to private actors for a profit with no resistance.
“Big Government Is The Problem”
As above, the notion that big government is somehow the issue is funny coming from the people in government. How many times do people need to vote for a party that has vested interests in seeing itself fail before they realised that small government parties will intentionally ensure that public infrastructure fails to support their ideological agenda?
This concludes our list of top ten Tory lies! Some are common right-wing lies told by prominent right wingers across the Western world, while others are quite specific to Britain. If you want to help shine a light on the lies of the Conservative Party, check out our anti-Tory t-shirts!