The Alternative Election 2019: Conservatives, 'Status Quo'

Boris offers no change, never mind anything transformative. And the promises he does make can't be trusted. Conservative government will most likely continue in the same vein as before - more austerity, more cuts and the cost of it all falling on the most vulnerable.

This is, plain and simple, an argument for voting against the Tories. Why you would be here looking for an endorsement is beyond me. To be clear: you won't find that here. The Conservative and Unionist Party in government has been a disaster.

Austerity has given rise to the return of Dickensian poverty - working poverty and child poverty prominent. Food bank use is through the roof, schools are taking donations and feeding children going hungry. You only need to check out Channel 4 Dispatches to see how the Tories are comfortable with the poorest subsisting.

How do the Tories reply? A meagre 2% or less rise to working age benefits and the carer's allowance. A continuation of welfare policies that will continue to punish the poorest and hurt their wellbeing most.

And all the while our health and social care system is being mismanaged and underfunded, with waiting times now hitting their worst ever level. All the Tories have for an answer is reannouncing old funding as new, funding previously promised and not delivered - that was predicated upon NHS trusts making slashing cuts to their budgets in the first place.

And if the Conservative commitment to austerity, that is destroying the lives of the most vulnerable people, isn't enough to dissuade you from voting for them, maybe the lies are?

Nevermind the well documented fact that Boris lies (or says something racist or sexist) about as often as he opens his mouth. Nevermind that Boris thinks greed and selfishness are good.

Nevermind the Tories' in general governing-by-media approach of announcing and reannouncing the same spending over and again as new to grab headlines. Nevermind the incompetence of the Tories failing to deliver a single one of their pledged new starter homes because they never bothered to take the necessary initial step of passing the bill in Parliament.

Maybe just consider that (in this election, where Boris lied in an interview by saying he's not a liar) the party under his control decided to deceive viewers (that's you, the voting public) of an election debate by renaming their social media account to "factcheckUK" to attack their opponents - in a debate where Boris himself spoke on how little people trust politicians.

The Conservative Manifesto promises no significant change in policy - not that you could trust it, if it did. It's a do nothing manifesto that lets austerity continue indefinitely. The present disaster is lurching towards catastrophe. It's time (long, long overdue) for people to wake up and kick the Tories out.

Boris is already demonstrating how his government will be all tell and no show

Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister - a phrase that used to sound like a joke - made a lot of promises in his first speech from Downing Street. His announcement of £1.8bn has been reported as the first down payment on these pledges.

Here-in lies a key sample of what we can expect from Boris Johnson and his verbose new government. A big promise and an announcement, with all the PR trimmings to follow, which on inspection fails to live up to the terms.

All tell and no show. The Boris way.

It's also been the Tories way through all of their time in government, whether under Cameron or May. Announcing old funding again as new funding, relabelling and reannouncing, fiscal politics played out in the media rather than in the treasury. And all the while, the cuts go on.

In the present case, Boris has offered up a lump of extra cash for the NHS. But it isn't what it seems. In fact, the £1bn 'upfront' is money that the government had already promised to the NHS - in exchange for three years of trusts slashing their budgets - only to then block hospitals from spending it.

The second half is for what is know as capital spending, long term investment to pay now for projects that will be ready years from now. This kind of spending is deeply important, but does little for struggling hospitals in the present - and even that sum isn't coming right away.

What the government cares about are the flurry of headlines that follow these press releases - often printed wholly and uncritically in the media. While the front pages tell people what the Tories want them to hear, the analysis is buried and with it the debunking of the government's claims.

These headlines are the heart of a long term government strategy, all about governing by telling and not showing. It has allowed them to slash and slash again at budgets, and the services they fund, and to deflect criticism on to others - mostly the vulnerable, exposed by the Tories' own austerity politics.

Don't be fooled by the headlines. Don't let the Tories, as John Harris puts it, sow "discord and resentment via austerity" only to reap the rewards of the chaos with a sharp PR strategy. If we're not sharper ourselves, we'll face the consequences of Tory disaster politics while they profit.