Answers to awkward questions not good news for Cameron

MAY I be permitted to reply to the list of questions posed by Bernard Ingham (Yorkshire Post, October 2) but first let me give full marks to Graeme Bandeira for his very revealing depiction of David Cameron with sagging cheeks and jowls and a deeply furrowed brow – not exactly the picture of a leader with a confident and optimistic outlook.

He is the man who admits to not knowing the price of a loaf of bread.

Now about the answers to Bernard’s questions:

1. After three years of austerity, rising prices and low stagnant wages the idea that the Tories are the most likely to deliver a resurgent economy is quite simply risible.

2. With teachers going on strike and threatening further action it is blindingly obvious that 
Michael Gove’s policies are backfiring in a spectacular fashion – so no plaudits there for the Tories.

3. The NHS has failed to improve under Tory control over the past three years and yet its budgets have been ring-fenced and £3bn wasted on the top-down re-organisation which very nearly closed the children’s specialist heart team in Leeds. Jeremy Hunt had better watch his back.

4. The welfare “reforms” have given us the ill-conceived “bedroom tax” which is both unfair and impractical for a host of reasons which are well aired by the charities trying to look after the disabled. IDS did not smile throughout the PM’s speech 
and maybe he too had better watch his back in any cabinet reshuffle.

5. When it comes to law and order Theresa May has at last managed to deport Abu Qatada but when we witness the lenient sentencing of serious criminals and the early release of others it is patently obvious that Tory influence on the judiciary has been minimal and yet reported murders, muggings and sexual exploitation are an everyday occurrence.

6. As for immigration control, we have only until 2014 before the doors open to untold numbers of Romanians and Bulgarians adding to the influx from Somalia and Nigeria with all the attendant problems caused by housing shortages etc.

7. It is hardly any secret that the UK green energy policy has been a very wasteful use of government subsidies for inland wind farms and yet George Osborne is still stating his full support for HS2 which will be the most extravagant waste in my lifetime and especially when the austerity measures are now forecast to last until 2020.

8. And as for all the prevarication over the EU referendum there is only one person who speaks quite clearly and with conviction about our right to restore British sovereignty and that is none other than Nigel Farage of Ukip who gets my vote at the next election.