Sir, – If Newton Emerson is concerned about "Tory-bashing", he should start with the Conservative leadership, who have been demeaning themselves with mutual calumnies over Brexit ("Tory-hating is the last bastion of Anglophobia", Opinion & Analysis, April 14th).
As a trade union leader who has not been averse to this popular sport, I was amused to see the former cheerleader for claimant humiliations and welfare cuts Iain Duncan Smith denounce George Osborne for “the way they were placed within a budget that benefits higher earning taxpayers”. Well said!
Tory-bashing is not some strange pathology afflicting Northern-Irelanders constructing some “acceptable face of Anglophobia”. The same emotions are shared by millions across Scotland, Wales, the north of England and most of London – the two-thirds of voters who rejected the Conservatives in the general election, especially the voters in the 15 out of 16 constituencies in Northern Ireland where the Tory candidates who ran lost their deposits.
I cannot speak for any political party in Northern Ireland, but I have never had any difficulty being critical of any Irish millionaire, if merited by their words or deeds. So spare me the quest for victim status for a class of people dedicated to diminishing the lives of the people I represent, by removing their rights, freezing their pay, purging their jobs and eviscerating their benefits.
According to calculations based on figures contained in last month’s UK budget, the cumulative impact on Stormont’s budgets of a decade of Tory austerity from 2010 to 2021 will be a real-terms cut of 13 per cent in current expenditure and an eye-watering 27 per cent in capital spend, in the world’s fifth-largest economy.
Then bear in mind that devolution has protected Northern Ireland from some of the staggering cuts and vindictive legislation introduced by the Tories in Westminster, not least the trade union Bill. But there will be no escape for Northern Ireland from the catastrophe of Brexit, if a majority of Tory MPs and voters get their way.
I don't indulge in ad hominem attacks. There really is nothing personal in my Tory-bashing, nor that of millions of decent people across the UK.
The bashing that ought to concern Newton Emerson is that carried out by the Tories on the poor and other groups of the wrong sort of people. I cannot improve upon the view expressed by Iain Duncan Smith, who admitted that “it looks like we see benefits as a pot of money to cut because they don’t vote for us”. – Yours, etc,
PETER BUNTING,
Assistant General Secretary,
Irish Congress
of Trade Unions,
Carlin House,
Belfast.