Tory advert is all rosy

The Conservative candidate is back in the news again this week, even if it is his own half-page advert and his own letter. I have written recently that he complained to me last year that he could not get into the newspapers. Well it is easy if you have the money. All you have to do is buy the advert. The wonderful thing about blogs is that they don’t cost anything any you are the editor. So today I will deal with his advert. I am writing this on Thursday and the advert was in yesterday’s Morecambe Visitor

As a very brief summary it mentions raising state pensions, not selling private homes in order to pay for residential care, freezing council tax (I presume that they will do this from Westminster thus taking what little power is left from the county and city councils), putting more police on the beat, raising inheritance tax thresholds, not cutting pensions or pension credit, preserving winter fuel allowance, keeping free bus passes for pensioners and boosting Sure Start.

Everything included in the advert costs money including the advert itself, and it says nothing about how they are going to pay for these changes. Elsewhere the Tories have said that they can save £12 billion on top of the £15 billion saving already named by the Government. To put this in perspective we need to find around £700 billion.

Tory adverts may be full of promises and look painless, and they are guaranteed to get in the paper. Let’s hope the voters get to see balanced arguments.

Change the world