The Tories have created a Minister for Common Sense who wouldn’t know a gate from a barn door
THE important thing about common sense is that it isn’t half as common as people think.
And it certainly has no place in a clapped-out Tory government that has plainly taken leave of its senses.
That’s why it’s so laughable they’ve created a Minister for Common Sense who wouldn’t know a gate from a barn door.
Esther McVey has got everything wrong in every job she’s had, including a report on Universal Credit when she was Work and Pensions Secretary.
“The Mouth of the Mersey”, as some call her, said the scheme should be rolled out faster – the direct opposite of what MPs had recommended.
Her incompetence is typical of Tory ministers, whose folly has made life worse for millions. This is a government guilty of nonsense, not common sense.
They came to office bleating about opportunities for young people – and promptly shut down the Sure Start centres.
They promised better education and sacked thousands of teachers and classroom assistants. If that’s common sense, I’m glad they haven’t put it in the curriculum. They pledged to cut crime, then culled tens of thousands of police. Where’s the sense in that?
Where Labour had neglected the housing crisis, they said they would succeed, building 300,000 homes a year.
They failed, and homelessness is rising back to record levels.
As my mother would have said, they haven’t the sense they were born with. Why else would they think the way to stop migrants arriving in their thousands across the Channel would be to spend £140million on plans to send a few to Africa?
Facing storms across the UK, cheroot-chomping Environment Secretary Therese Coffey blamed rain for coming the wrong way.
Farmers shook their heads in disbelief.
It’s been said “common sense is not a gift, but a punishment, because you have to deal with everyone who doesn’t have it”.
In Yorkshire we have another saying: “Tha can tell a Yorkshireman, but tha can’t tell ’im much.” That’s because we’ve been through too much to have airy-fairy ideas on life: the Wars of the Roses, the Industrial Revolution, two world wars, deindustrialisation and the scourge of Thatcherism.
I agree with Old Amos, the mythical Tyke philosopher, who says there’s no point fretting about a small crisis – there’s bound to be a bigger one.
And just because something’s new, that doesn’t make it better. Rather an old Nokia that works than an all-singing and dancing iPhone that never gets a signal – that’s common sense. So is reliance on experience rather than advice from a man with three university degrees.
I’d sooner take advice on how to get along with people from an old hand in the pub than a first-class honours sociologist who’s never been sacked.
When problems arise, I ask: “If I do this, then what? Or that? Then what? After that, what?” It’s common sense to think it through, not take decisions on the hoof like a politician.
We all have to live with the consequences of Tory know-alls who mistake personal bias for reason. So, Ms McVey arrives armed with petty prejudices against anything that doesn’t fit her narrow-minded agenda.
According to website TheyWorkForYou she has generally voted against same-sex marriage, public control of failing buses, climate change measures and taxing bankers’ bonuses.
And she voted for higher taxes on your favourite tipple and plane fares, higher uni tuition fees and axing financial support for teenagers in training and higher education. Is that her definition of “woke”, the, rightwing insult trotted out to describe anything they don’t like that’s vaguely progressive?
This is nothing new. Woke is just old-fashioned Tory prejudice in favour of the better-off . And Ms McVey’s appointment is simply meant to divert attention from the big issues: civil war in the Tory Party, the cost of living crisis, the failure of Brexit, the NHS crisis, the collapse of council services and, well, virtually every other aspect of public policy.
Faced with storms, Coffey blamed the rain for coming the wrong way
I’d sooner take advice on how to get along from an old hand in the pub