For Northamptonshire

I look, from a distance, at my old county and my old employer and I wonder how the Conservative voters of Northamptonshire can look anyone in the eye and tell people that the Tory's are a financial safe pair of hands, or are better with the economy?

I think you've been conned. Obviously not all of you, but a large swathe of the population - possibly driven by the desire to have more money - bought this Tory spun bullshit in 1992, despite the country heading towards economic disaster and, even recently, I have heard from people I love and/or like that they voted Tory for the sake of their children/family/economic stability and I'm wondering how that's worked out for them. Could Labour have done worse?

I've noticed that the press has failed to prevent national coverage of the Northants County Council debacle and I hope that people look at that story and try to marry the fact that NCC has a massive Tory control, along with NBC (the Borough Council) they have managed to sell off just about every one of Northamptonshire's crown jewels to keep council tax low to ensure that the greedy people of the county vote for them.

I want those Tory voters to look at the lack of services across the county and the looming threat to the ones that remain and ask if they think their money was well spent? Do they really think a Labour or Hung council would have been worse? And if they do, why? What evidence have you got that a band of chimps and a dancing frog couldn't run NCC better, because the money all you Northants people pay has been mismanaged almost continually since the Coalition government gave NCC carte blanche to obliterate your public services and still run out of money...

Seriously, at the next council elections - is it May? - if you get a Tory knocking on your door, even if you voted Tory, you need to ask them what evidence they can give you that they are better equipped at running the budget given the evidence at hand. You could also ask them why anyone should believe the Tories are better with the economy. I'll bet you get an answer that equates to 'We're better than Labour' or 'How bad do you think it would be under Labour'... If you think scaring you with something that might be worse is intellectual politics then you probably don't deserve the vote.

You want to know what the irony here is?

The Leave campaign banged on about Project Fear, yet they took their own government's tactic and turned it into a weapon to bash them and all Remainers. Tories have used project fear since Thatcher; why talk about how you can fix things when you can remind people how bad the other side is. People like negativity; they like being able to blame someone.

I reckon people have heard it too many times. Take whenever there's a problem somewhere in the country's infrastructure; this government are always there to remind us that they've invested/spent/kindly donated record amounts to ensure the improvement of [insert whatever's fucked up here]. Well, if they spend the same as the previous government with an inflationary rise, of bloody course it's going to be more; doesn't mean its enough though does it?

If we're so rich, why do we need so much austerity, job insecurity and councils running out of money. If we - as a country - are so rich, who's getting all this money and why haven't you seen any of it? You also need to ask yourself; why do you have to pay for their fuck ups?