I have been puzzling over something since Friday.
Should I, a person who wants to be kind, who tries to be kind, forgive Theresa May for what she has done whilst in office?
There has been a lot of the following sentiment about in the media....
Why can I not feel sorry for her as a person?
I understand she is sad because she failed in what she set out to do.
I believe that TM was sincere, I believe that she thought she was doing the right things. But why why why did she believe these were the right things?
I have realised that one of my chief puzzlements centres on how she could go to church every week and still pursue the policies she did when so many of those policies are contrary to Christ's teachings.
Why did she believe that it was the right thing to sell arms to Saudi Arabia, thus aiding and abetting their war that has caused, and is still causing, the starvation of millions of people in Yemen?
Why did she think that Universal Credit and all it entailed was a fair and helpful welfare benefit for people in need in the UK? Why did she not reform it? There has been overwhelming unbiased evidence that it is causing hunger and destitution, from the United Nations, from Parliament's own select committees, from charities, from many other bodies. It has caused a huge need for food banks, led to an explosion of rent arrears, inability to pay council tax which lands people in prison. Hungry children turn up at school unable to concentrate and are fed by teachers out of their own pockets, women are shoplifting and selling sex to pay the rent. This is the UK. One of the richest countries in the world.
Why has her government treated ill and disabled people with such callousness? There are numerous stories of people with terminal cancer being judged to be 'fit for work' and their sickness benefits stopped. There are so many more examples of cruel treatment.
Why did she think it was the right thing to create what she herself described as a 'hostile environment' for illegal immigrants, to 'deport first and hear appeals later?'
This hostile environment led to the Windrush scandal - people living and working here for 40 years or more quite legally, being made homeless, jobless, or deported.
This hostile environment - which she created as Home Secretary - has infused the treatment of all immigrants, illegal or not, as well as asylum seekers. The treatment of asylum seekers and refugees by this government has been lacking in all compassion. People who have survived torture are locked up in detention centres for indeterminate lengths of time. Refugee children in Calais who have the right to be in the UK are sleeping rough and being abused by the French police, while this government's uncaring bureaucracy blocks their entry.
The people who survived the Grenfell Tower disaster are still not being heard by this government.
Legal aid cuts mean that ordinary people are denied justice, and more than that, the legal system itself is becoming unfit for purpose.
Youth services, libraries and other local services for ordinary people have been cut or closed down.
People are exploited in unstable underpaid work, in zero hour contracts, in the gig economy, and TM has not cared, despite her claim that she wanted to help ordinary working families. Ordinary working families are dependent on foodbanks in the UK today. Why does TM think that this is OK?
The social fabric of the country is in tatters as a result of years of austerity engineered in such a way that ordinary people have suffered. It did not have to be this way, and yet TM let it continue when she came into power.
I understand she is upset that she has failed in her own eyes. I can empathise. But I cannot feel sorry for her and I cannot forgive her or her government.
5 comments:
Amen.
Thea
Would recommend watching the Owen Jones clip that has gone viral, echoing all of the above sentiments.
The real issue is that her possible replacements have even less humanity than her.
Yes, I have seen Owen Jones.
I am pinning my (admittedly vain) hopes on Rory Stewart who appears to be a man of integrity and stature.
...although I have not heard him say anything yet, and have no idea whether he cares about the effects of the austerity policy.
The only conclusion I can draw about TM is that she's a narcissist... because they generally will only shed tears for themselves, and not for others. I don't feel sorry for her at all - although I do appreciate that she had an impossible task to achieve. But if my theory about her being a narcissist is correct, she'd have believed she could have achieved it because she'd have an inflated view of her own abilities. As for Rory Stewart, he does seem the least worst of the candidates put forward so far - not found anything from him about austerity but he does want to end parking charges in hospitals which seems like a step in the right direction.
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