No Difference Between Labour and Tory?

It's a mantra you often hear. I know, I've said it enough times. And you've got to be honest, there is more than an element of truth to it. On the fundamentals all the manifestos of the three main parties are in hock to the capricious demands of capital. But the differences that exist do impact on the lives of "our people" - the working class, the unemployed, the elderly, the disabled and the dispossessed. I am no fan of the Labour party manifesto or the raft of regressive policies the government has implemented over the last 13 years. But nonetheless there have been attempts to implement social democratic policies within the self-imposed confines of neo-liberalism. The Tories however have no desire to pursue such a course should they form the next government.

Readers unconvinced by this argument who are either going to vote left, green, LibDem or whatever in tight Labour/Conservative marginals should read this vision of an incoming Tory government. In this piece Johann Hari has not peered into his scrying pool to divine the trajectory of a Cameron premiership. Instead he's looked no further than Hammersmith and Fulham council, a hard right local authority systematically dismantling what welfare services remain in pursuit of its small-state dogma. As Hari notes, Cameron and Osborne both cheer this heartless agenda on with enthusiastic abandon.

If you do live in a marginal (list here) the choice is giving Labour one in the eye and voting for some alternative or spoiling your ballot paper; or fixing the nose peg and placing your cross by the only party that will not destroy the welfare state for the sake of lunatic experiments in "libertarian" economics.