If one thing will cost the Tories this election, it is their arrogance

Zorro was pleased to note that Andrew Rawnsley, writing on line for the Guardian yesterday, touch on several issues that I have blogged and Tweeted about over recent times. It all linked into last week’s lavish Conservative Party “black and white ball” fund raiser. You know, the one where East Devon’s incumbent MP, Hugo Swire, with one swipe was able as the auctioneer in chief, to insult the whole Greek nation with a cheap joke.

The piece written by Andrew Rawnsley majored on this fund raiser, but it also linked it to a Conservative trait, that of arrogance. He wrote – “Arrogance is the Tories’ historical psychological deformation as a party. That, it seems to me, is the best explanation for why they behave like this. It is not that they are blind. They are aware that it is not a bright idea to demonstrate so plainly how remote they are from the lives lived by most of the people whose votes they seek”.

How neatly that description fits the attitudes exhibited here in East Devon by our absentee MP and our ruling majority on East Devon District Council.

So, take the time to read Andrew Rawnsley’s piece in full and reflect as you vote on 7 May.

It’s time for change! It’s time for challenge!

A few extracts from Andrew Rawnsley’s article -

“You are a playwright writing a satire on the Tory party’s relationship with money, timed to be staged for the enjoyment of leftish audiences just before the general election. Provisionally entitling your work The Rich List, you think it will make a darkly amusing opening to set the first act at a “black-and-white ball”, the lavish fundraisers that the Tories throw to swell their campaign coffers with cheques from the doshed-up”.

“You set the scene at one of the swankiest hotels off London’s Park Lane. You populate the stage with more bankers, hedge funders, currency speculators, property developers and other representatives of the super-rich than you can hide in a secret Swiss bank account. Getting into your satirical stride, you include among the guest list a pornographer, a man who made his fortune from lap dancers and the boss of a City brokerage that was fined for its involvement in the Libor interest-rate fixing scandal”.

“Having done your research, you know that the centrepiece of the ball is an auction. Dreaming up items to put under the hammer that might best caricature the Tories as a party for the filthy rich, you include a trip on a private jet to the Greek island of Santorini, the use of a luxury 12-bed chalet in Verbier and a pheasant and partridge shoot (maximum kill 500)”.

“Maybe that last one is hamming it up a bit, but this is satire, after all. Tories shooting pheasants is so wonderfully at odds with their rhetoric about us all being in it together that the scene is guaranteed to raise a bitter laugh from the audience”.

The complete version of this article is at -

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/15/tories-black-white-ball-fundraiser-rich-arrogance