Star comment: May doing away with Tory values
In her attempts to be all things to all people, Theresa May is in danger of abandoning the very core supporters of the party she leads.
Given how high she is riding in the polls, it ought to have been an opportunity to stand on Conservative values.
However, she has lurched towards the left to blatantly appeal to Labour voters disillusioned with the party under Jeremy Corbyn.
Much was made of her manifesto pledge to allow the elderly to keep £100,000 of their wealth – including the value of the home – before they have to pay care costs.
But as a consequence, nearly one million pensioners face losing their winter fuel payments to plug the social care bill deficit of £5 billion.
No-one knows what the weather will be like or just how many of those elderly people will now be plunged into vulnerability.
Many long-standing Tory supporters will find this policy totally shameful.
And at the same time it looks incredibly likely that this Conservative Party will renew David Cameron's commitment to spend £14bn of your money on foreign aid.
Let's just look at that again.
The black hole in the national social care crisis is £5bn yet the British will continue to hand over nearly three times that sum to foreign dictators, shady businessmen, and spendthrift organisations.
All too often this spending ends up unaccounted for.
How she thinks this is justified in these austere times is beyond all understanding.
Mrs May once dubbed the Tories as the 'Nasty Party' and seems to be determined to pander to the left in an desperate attempt not to go back to those 'dark times'.
However, she is fighting a losing battle.
To Jeremy Corbyn's teenage trots, the word Tory will always be an insult and tainted in dirt.
She has a golden opportunity in this election to re-establish the party's core values and win a mandate truly reflective of Conservative principles.
Yet Mrs May seems infested with the same lily-livered Conservatism that made David Cameron such an ineffective premier.
Jeremy Corbyn most of the time at least has the courage to stand up for what he believes in even if those beliefs fly in the face of economic reality.
Wouldn't it be nice if Mrs May could actually represent the feelings of traditional Conservatives rather than the watered down version her party has become?
