Can Conservatives actually tell truth?

2019, Action for Children launched a landmark report which explored childhood across three generations.

Now, two years on from the first national lockdown, we have revisited this research to understand the worries children face growing up in the shadow of the pandemic amid a growing cost of living crisis.

As children grapple with how they fit into our increasingly complex world – navigating big issues including financial worries, climate change and the pandemic – our research shows that most North West parents (62%) and grandparents (66%) fear childhood is getting worse and over a third (36%) of children agree.

Many children, particularly those from low-income families, worry about their family’s finances. As the UK is set to face the biggest income squeeze in nearly fifty years, these worries look set to get worse.

Meanwhile, mental health is now a much bigger worry for the region’s children with less than a quarter (24%) of children seeing their own mental health as an issue in 2019, compared to 41% in 2022.

We believe there’s a star in every child. When a child is safe and happy, their star shines brightly. However, poverty, abuse and neglect, and poor mental health are robbing too many children of the bright futures they deserve.

We’re asking your readers to help us break down the barriers that stop children shining – before it’s too late. Visit actionforchildren.org.uk/star to find out how you can help.

WHEN the media revealed that there had been illegal parties in Downing Street during lockdown, even on the eve of the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral, Boris Johnson said he was “sickened”.

But we now know that he attended some of the parties himself, and the line from his old school chum Jacob Rees-Mugg and others has changed to claiming that he didn’t know they were parties.

Boris told everyone to stay in their homes during the first lockdown and people were even forbidden to be at the bedside of dying partners.

But when Boris’s chief aide in London drove to Barnard Castle in Yorkshire, accompanied by family members who were displaying Covid symptoms, he claimed he was “testing his eyesight”. And he was allowed to keep working for the Prime Minister.

When it emerged that Boris’s Downing

Street flat had been redecorated with £800 a roll wallpaper, he claimed that he didn’t know the name of the rich Conservative supporter who had paid some of the bill (while our taxes paid the first £30,000), and therefore there was no possibility of the businessman in question receiving favours in return.

But then a WhatsApp message emerged with Boris urging his generous friend to speed up the flow of money, and other messages in which Boris urged one of his ministers to spend taxpayers’ money on a project the businessman favoured.

Then the tax avoidance of Chancellor Rishi

Sunak’s family emerged, with their lavish lifestyle supported by his wife claiming that she was based in India while actually living in 11 Downing Street and sending their children to British schools.

Conservatives popped up in the media claiming that Indian law made it illegal for Mrs Sunak to pay tax in Britain. Yet within hours that was shown to be a complete untruth, and Mrs Sunak agreed to pay tax in Britain after all (though she isn’t promising to pay back the millions she had legally avoided paying in previous years).

What is it about these Conservatives, can they ever tell the truth? In power for a decade, isn’t it they believe there is one rule for them and another rule for the rest of us?

THE issuing of £50 Covid fines to the attendees of the Partygate scandals is an insult to us all and a kick in the teeth for everyone who abided by the rules.

Many people missed visiting loved ones – even those who were dying. Is this all that is going to happen?

The blame lies with all the people who voted or lent Boris their vote to elect this circus of a government.

Sadly, the silence of Keir Starmer is another letdown in this as he should be shouting these faults in Government from the rooftops!