Watch the home secretary declare war on ‘hope’ in the Freudian slip of the year

Sajid Javid


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Home secretary Sajid Javid has declared war on “hope” in what may be the Freudian slip of the year. During his keynote speech at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, Javid said:

We will fight fear with optimism, prejudice with tolerance. We will fight hope…

He quickly corrected himself, though, saying:

hate… fight against hate, with hope.

Many people suggested that Javid had unintentionally let the cat out the bag:

The Tory record of fighting hope

Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has said that austerity – as pushed by the Tories since 2010 – is actually class war against poor people:

The problem is that austerity is being used as a narrative to conduct class war.

To be talking about reducing the state further when effectively what you are doing is reducing taxes like inheritance tax and at the same time you are cutting benefits – that is class war.

Indeed, the Conservative government has drastically cut support services that ordinary people rely on. And it’s ongoing. By 2020, for example, local authorities will have endured funding cuts of 60%.

Conference goes south

On the plus side for Javid, there weren’t too many people in the audience to hear the gaffe:

That’s the home secretary, only one of the top political jobs in the country.

Perhaps foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt can make up for it:

Maybe not.

And it was a similar story for work and pensions secretary Esther McVey:

Oh dear. It’s unusual for premium seating to look so undesirable.

But Conservative Party chairman Brandon Lewis may have outdone them all:

By contrast, the queue to see Jeremy Corbyn speak at grassroots conference The World Transformed went on for ages:

The World Transformed went ahead the week before in Liverpool, alongside the official Labour Party conference. And while such events were packed, the Conservative Party looks like it’s on death row.

Well, at least they are finally coming clean about wanting to crush hope. And just at a time when, judging by the enthusiasm for Jeremy Corbyn’s platform, hope is back.

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Featured image via The Telegraph/ YouTube

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