A Revelation and a Request.

I was thinking recently and had a revelation:  Over the past 25 years, what government policies have provided a net benefit to me? I can't think of a point in the past 25 years that I've felt better off or more secure.

I have a request. Have a think yourself. Ask yourself the question: what exactly have successive governments and political parties done for me in the past 25 years?

Because I really, really, can't think of a year where I've actually felt better off thanks to government policies in the past 25 years. In fact the absolute opposite: I have been directly attacked by them.

I'm a car driving, house-renting, working class low-paid worker.

Yes, over the past 25 years there have been moves to reduce the amount of tax I pay by raising the income tax threshold, but conversely, I've had to pay more in Vehicle excise duty, or fuel duty, or had my pension taxed, or had to pay into an entirely new pension pot, which has reduced my net wealth. Those things the Tories used to call stealth taxes when Labour were in power.

Not at any point in the last 25 years has any policy made me richer, or better off. edit: It's actually 30 years, I forgot John Major's Tories and the Fuel Price Escalator.

When Labour came to power they introduced the IR35 tax rules which stopped me working as an independent IT contractor. Blair's buddies in the big corporations wanted to stop us being more agile and filling gaps and costing them profit. So I stopped earning £70,000 a year and all the potential trickle-down that could have had into the local economy when I spent it.

Nope, I instantly lost thousands in earnings. Never to recover.

So, in 2002 after running down my savings I started being a low-paid worker. 

I thought the Tories may have removed the IR35 rules and allowed the independent contracting sector to flourish again, released from red tape. But nope. They carried on with it and the HMRC doubled-down, attacking ever more areas of contracting.

Being a car driver I've had incessant request for more money. Either in VED or in more expensive fuel. The only time fuel prices dropped was during the pandemic, which was irrespective of government policy, it was caused by lack of demand.

With rises in indirect taxation replacing reductions in direct taxation in the form of income tax outstripping the benefits of the reductions I feel as if I'm being exploited by government. 

Add to that legislation that supresses my ability to talk freely, (the Bastard Offence Laws), the government promotion every ethnicity, creed, colour and religion EXCEPT MINE, There's no wonder I feel that those at the top no longer represent me and my ideology, do not offer me any benefit from them being in office.

Being a poor, straight, white, heterosexual male over 60 who works and relies on a car to continue working, there has been no government, no political party expressing support for me for at least 25 years. Instead all I see is oppression from those above.

I even can't say John Major's Tories didn't directly attack me. They introduced the fuel price escalator, a way of artificially raising the price of fuel in order to reduce traffic on the roads. So saying 25 years is generous, it's actually been 30 years of direct attacks by government on my net wealth. Half my life and more than half of my working life. Who would put up with that?

So, over to the main political parties: what exactly are you going to do that will directly benefit me? What are you going to do to earn my vote?

Because if you don't, I'm going to vote for someone else, no matter how bad, how horrible their opinions and actions. I've had enough of your direct attacks. 

I've not even listed the indirect attacks, the ideological ones, the abandonment of the working class by the Labour party, the promotion of every other culture other than British Culture, the rise of government sponsored non-Charities, abandoning social housing provision, the list could literally be endless.

UPDATE: 

I'm deliberately leaving out Thatcher's bonfire of the corporations in the early Eighties that ended up with me being made redundant. Although I suffered initially, her government redeemed themselves by offering paid training courses that allowed me to get into IT and start earning a decent wedge, more than I would have if I had stayed in the job I was in when she came to power in 1979. Overall hers was the last government to provide me personally with a net increase in living standards and not directly attack me.