I’ve long been a fan of Stephen King and it struck me a while back, that this Tory governmental style is straight out of one of the scare-meister’s novels. Indeed, if you were to riffle through his oeuvre, it’s not difficult to spot the similarity between some of King’s most infamous characters and some of today’s key Conservatives.

For instance, someone who could definitely give The Shining’s Jack Torrance a good run for his money, in the psycho stakes, is Secretary for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith. I can just picture IDS behind his ministerial desk, eyes blazing, as he writes, over and over again, All Work and no play makes Jack an obedient non-welfare-sponging boy All Work and no play makes Jack an obedient non-welfare-sponging boy All Work and no play makes Jack an obedient non-welfare-sponging boy All Work and no play makes Jack an obedient non-welfare-sponging boy.

HEEEREE‘S IDSY!

Or how about that misery, Nicky Morgan? There’s definitely something of the Annie Wilkes about her, don’t you think?. An Equalities Minister, who actually opposed same-sex marriage. That’s tough love, right there. I wonder if she cast her vote, whilst muttering to herself, ”You cockadoodie, dirty birdies!”



And what about good old bumbling Boris Johnson? Always happy to play it for laughs. Yes, he’d make a great Pennywise The Clown. A joker on the face of it, but you just know that all the quips and the hair are merely the mask behind which something much darker lurks. Give him a colourful balloon with the words, ‘We all vote down here’ written on, and.. Agghhh!

But it’s not any one individual so much as the whole, general modus operandi of the Tories, over the last few years that, to my mind, most resembles and recalls one of Stephen King’s most sinister sagas of all. I’m thinking specifically of Needful Things. Published in 1991 and adapted for the big screen two years later, the title refers to the name of a shop that suddenly opens for business, in a small town. The store’s proprietor, Leland Gaunt (whom we must later assume to be some kind of demon in human form) is out to cause mass conflict in the town. Whilst selling the people the items that they most desire, Gaunt, who knows about the long-standing private grudges, arguments, and feuds between the various townspeople, then plays on these insecurities, telling tales, and fuelling tensions, until the whole town eventually deteriorates into madness and violence.

Sound familiar? Cameron has consistently used such divide and rule tactics in order to whip up discord between people, setting neighbour against neighbour, resulting in maelstrom of social insecurity. This has been his trademark. –

‘People on benefits are bleeding the economy dry’, he whispers,”Your hard earned taxpayer’s money is funding their dishonest, lavish lifestyles. They’re laughing at you. And don’t trust the unions, why should they get more money for their workers when you get such low pay? And watch out for the Scottish, they want to control the English, and what about the immigrants and the disabled? They’re all on the make. It’s not fair on you! And look out for those extreme left-wingers who blame the banks for the economic crash. You know you really should blame your unemployed neighbours for that. And, hey, did you know that food banks are used by cheats, because child poverty doesn’t even exist?” Etc etc, and blah blah blah..

So when George Osborne, during his budget speech said, ‘Britain is open for business’, I thought yup, like Needful Things. Where they’ll sell you a pack of lies, dirt cheap..