My name is Harry. I was born working class, son of an engineer and draftswoman, with two older brothers in a nice house in a nice town in the North. I was raised in the 1990s. Mum was sick and dad became her carer. Times weren't always easy for us but somehow we managed to pull through and not one of us ever went hungry. I learned the value of a hard days work and I saw first hand how important it is to graft hard and take responsibility for your own actions.
You would think from this upbringing that I'd be more inclined to the Labour Party and indeed for a long time I did identify with them, as a Blairite, but over time and with the help of wonderful people in my local association in Sunderland I came to understand that the real struggle of the working class is not against the tories, but is infact against the working class itself.
Too often the notion of personal responsibility is ignored in favour of the idea that the working class is owed something. That simply because others have more or do better that means they must bear the entire burden for everybody else and lift them to new and greater heights... except to (mis)quote a very wise woman the problem with this is that you eventually run out of other peoples money and this is precisely the state we find ourselves in today as a nation.
The Telegraph last year ran a piece on UK debt interest. The article stated that the interest payments on the UK's national debt were about to hit £1billion a week. This equated to £52billion a year or, as a point of comparison, more than we spend on the entire of the education budget. Growing up my dad always said that if you are earning £100 and spending £101 you have a problem, so why is it not the same for a nation? Why do we insist that nations are special and can spend more money than they have?
Labour talked about reducing spending but they were not commited to running an overall surplus.
The Lib Dems talked about reducing spending but they were not commited to running an overall surplus.
Only the Conservatives were willing to stand up and say that it is wrong to spend at a deficit. Only they saw that small nugget of wisdom that every family in Britain must live with on a day to day basis.
It's why I became a Conservative. Just over a year ago I joined the party and it has been one hell of a year. From the very beginning I was included. I was asked to take a leading role in shaping local policy, in delivering local campaigns and in January I was asked to be a candidate in the local elections and a campaign manager for Sunderland in the General Election. I've met Lords and MPs and Party Officials. I've been on the news and the radio and I proudly stood in a conference hall filled with party members to cheer David Cameron as he gave his first conference speech as leader of a majority government.
At all times I was surrounded by people that took responsibility for their actions. People who were willing to put in the effort and didn't think that anybody owed them anything.
This is why I am a Tory and why I am proud of it.
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