Tory MP Claire Perry has been accused of living in “cloud cuckoo land” together with members of the her party’s hierarchy following the revelation of a radical set of new policies claimed to be the “blueprint” for the next general election.
The attack comes from former Marlborough mayor Peggy Dow, who has quit the Lib-Dems to stand as an independent in next May’s Wiltshire Council and Marlborough town council elections.
And it follows an exclusive report in the Sunday Telegraph outlining proposals from the 2020 Group of 70 Tory MPs who were asked by Chancellor George Osborne to highlight new policies for the next election.
“Cabinet ministers such as Michael Gove and Justine Greening, as well as rising stars within the party such as Caire Perry and Matthew Hancock, the Chancellor’s former chief of staff,” reports the newspaper.
And it reveals that the 2020 Groups’s “Agenda for Transformation” includes the abolition of the retirement age, paying lower welfare benefits according to whether people live in high or low cost areas of the country, extending the school day by up to three hours and encouraging more disabled people to work.
It suggests too that students who fail their exams be made to re-sit them during school holidays, the overall aim of the new ideas being the creation of a “more entrepreneurial economy” that “legitimises wealth creation” by a future Tory government in charge on its own.
Councillor Dow, 64, who has claimed before that Mrs Perry doesn’t live in the real world, told Marlborough News Online:
“This is yet another outrageous example of a government totally out of touch, Claire Perry in particular as she goes round her constituency smiling at people and telling them that all is well.”
“That’s despite the fact that the new tax credit system will badly hit those already in work and who are not the scroungers the Tories seem to believe they are. Indeed, with a one per cent increase in benefits the Chancellor proposes, they will now be worse off and in need of the Devizes food bank, which reports that it has reached a crisis in feeding the hungry.”
She added: “Ending the retirement age, making teachers work longer hours after slashing their wages and pensions, cutting benefits according to where you live, putting pressure on the disabled are all typical Tory ideas of attacking those who cannot hit back.”
“What’s more, the complexities involved in implementation, as has been revealed in ending family child allowance while reducing the tax on the rich will prove, yet again, to be self defeating.”
“If David Cameron – and Claire Perry – think people will vote for them next time round, then they are undoubtedly living in cloud cuckoo land.”
Councillor Dow’s outburst is significant as lack of trust in politicians, apart from the banks and utilities, has resulted in people either failing to vote or transferring their allegiance to extremist candidates and parties.
The evidence for this comes from the 15.8 percentage poll in Wiltshire – lower elsewhere – in the November vote for new Police and Crime Commissioners and the rise to 16 per cent of support for UKIP, which is demanding a referendum on Europe.
Locally in Wiltshire, UKIP has announced it will contest all the Wiltshire Council seats at the local elections in May and also field candidates against Mrs Perry and Wiltshire’s other MPs.
Marlborough News Online has sought Mrs Perry’s reply on this and other issues such as same sex marriage but has received no response.
