Union Accused Of Intimidation By Leaflet.

It was Francis Maud's turn today to slither around the TV studious and push the party line. While energy companies, payday loan companies and the banks regularly hold the public to ransom, the Tories are outraged by Union tactics at Grangemouth. The Unite Union was, of course, doing what it was supposed to do - protecting its members pay and conditions - but the Tories have accused them of using intimidation. This apparently consisted of union officials handing leaflets to managers and their families. "This is very serious," Francis Maud told the BBC, "and calls for public floggings and life sentences for evil union members who seen to think that they have a right to put their side of the argument. It's despicable and we are contemplating a new offense of "Aggressive Argument". This forms part of our long-term plan to ensure Britain remains a low wage economy and to secure an economic recovery for hard-working millionaires like myself. We believe that unions have a right to exist but feel that they should be part of consensual partnership in which management does as it likes and the unions do as they are bloody well told. I remain confident that, once we return the country to the paradise that was the early 19th century, then everything will be fine. You know, the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate, that sort of thing." We had hoped to speak to Unite union officials but our reporter was warned that we might then fall foul of the "Listening to both sides of the argument" laws which will outlaw any view that contradicts the government and which the Tories hope to make retroactive. "This is part of our legitimate efforts to change history," Maud explain, "together with the recent purge of everything any Tory has said, promised or lied about since the reign of Henry VIII".

Tories Still Modernising Francis Maud Insists.

As the Tory party moves heaven and earth to force the country back into the mid-19th century, encouraging slum landlords, recreating workhouses for the poor and freeing capitalism to be as nasty and brutish as it can be, Francis Maud is insisting that the Tory party is still "modernising" itself. "Any party that ceases to modernise is a party that is going backwards," he told the Guardian today. "Modernisation is not something about realigning the Conservative party's principles," he added, "it is simply about making it current and making it contemporary." All of which begs the question, "Yes, and your point?" Meanwhile Cameron is hoping that a tax break for married couples, 66% of whom won't even qualify for it, will swing the election for him, Ian Duncan Smith is now talking about himself as the new William Beveridge even as he callously throws the poor, vulnerable and sick to the wolves and Michael Gove is hoping to recreate a two-tier education system in which only the children of the wealthy will benefit. If such 19th century thinking is what the Tories consider to be modern then one can only presume that they are still stuck in the 18th. But, if you really want to know what "modern" Toryism is all about then you have to look no further than Eric Pickles. Confronted by one of his own constituents who was abused as a child at the Kendall House care home and wanted to know why he and his party were ignoring the allegations, his reaction was to tell her to "adjust her medication." That is modern Toryism in a nutshell - callous, uncaring, selfish, self-serving and brutishly primitive.