There’s a new phrase out there that you need to be aware of called “Corbyn-proofing”.
It refers to the super rich secretly moving their wealth offshore to protect it from a government they fear will close the growing chasm between them and the rest of us.
It’s a euphemism for blatant tax avoidance and surely the only reason you need to vote Labour at the next election.
Although, another one was revealed in a headline in yesterday’s Mirror (and, no, there isn’t a rogue “r” in the final word) “McVey latest to join Tory leadership scrum”.
That’s right. Esther McVey, or Slasher McVile as she’s affectionately known in her hometown, has joined a battle of political giants like Andrea Leadsom, Dominic Raab, Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson trying to lift the keys to No10 from Theresa May’s pocket after they’ve cannibalised her corpse on European elections night.
Not so much Game of Thrones as An Idiot’s Guide To Barrel-Scraping.
And Slasher believes she has enough support to win. It’s easy to see why.
The feral lovechild of Thatcher and Tebbit ticks all the Tory boxes. Iain Duncan Smith’s chief attack dog at the Department of Work and Pensions has devoted her Westminster career to demonising and impoverishing the poor and disabled, driving many to early graves.
(Image: Getty Images)
She said the rise of foodbanks was “positive” and that there was “no robust evidence” that linked the soaring take-up of them to welfare cuts.
She repeatedly defended the Bedroom Tax. She claimed that benefit sanctions “help” people find work and used them to remove payments from jobseekers turning down zero hours contracts.
She vowed to take away 300,000 people’s disability benefits because “bodies heal”.
She claimed the poor prioritise phones over food, even though her department made it necessary for them to have a phone or a computer to claim benefits.
She “knowingly” misled Parliament over Universal Credit and this week she paved the way for her leadership bid by claiming the Tories are now the natural home of the working class.
Sure. Just as American high schools are the natural home of the deranged gunman.
The devastating outcome of her work was encapsulated recently, a few miles from where she grew up, with the tale of skeletal 64-year-old Stephen Smith, who, despite having many debilitating illnesses, weighing six stone and barely able to walk, was denied benefits.
Harrowing photos of Stephen’s emaciated body went global after the Liverpool Echo ran his story telling how he’d had to seek free advice from outside the system to challenge the DWP ruling.
It shamed them into agreeing to pay him the £4,000 he was owed. But it was too late. Because Stephen was dead.
Thankfully, a state the Tories must be heading towards if McVey is in with a shout of leading them.
Just rejoice. As her heroine once said.
