A day after the Conservatives try to pitch right-wards with their new poster — LET’S CUT BENEFITS FOR THOSE WHO REFUSE WORK — some interesting statistics have emerged from the Government. With the unemployment figures out, the Tories are apparently excited by the reduction in unemployment by 43,000 between December and February to 2.5 million.
They are not making quite as much noise about the fact that the number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance fell by 32,900 in March to 1.54 million — “a much sharper fall than expected” according to the BBC.
It would be unfair to say that the lunatics have taken over the asylum at Tory HQ, but with the tone of the poster — and the “bollocks” briefings about ‘the big society’, someone, somewhere, has been empowered, and it appears that Cameron is allowing a right-ward shift in his rhetoric and tactics. As I was “saying” on Twitter last night, those who urge this are doing their party a disservice, as the reality is that if Cameron loses it will be not because he chanhed his party too much, but not enough.
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