Is a phone contract a luxury? Owning a smartphone allows you to both 1) look for a job, and 2) use the Universal Credit portal.

Both of those things are absolutely essential if you want to claim UC because well, they made it mandatory to claim online, so...yah.

Tory gonna Tory I guess. I won't lie, I do enjoy watching them shoot themselves in the foot as often as they do.

Whenever I see Tories saying shit like this I think of Maya Angelou's quote:

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. People know themselves much better than you do. That's why it's important to stop expecting them to be something other than who they are.

They are so out of touch it would be comical if it wasn't such a desperate issue.

It's all a part of the culture war angle that the Tories (for some reason) are attaching themselves to. Boris might have been able to rally people behind stupid US-style rhetoric, but Rishi lacks the same charisma, and inheriting a corrupt party in freefall hasn't helped him build any.

When you set MP's in office with zero attachment to conservative values, poor Boris did, you ultimately end up with dozens of utterly fucking useless people that'll rather jump ship or throw stupid opinions around woke, transgender people, and the poor/young moaning too much, than to actually do their job.

Andrew Cooper is seeking to replace the former deputy chief whip Chris Pincher as MP for Tamworth in one of two byelections on Thursday.

Well he's doing a fantastic job. Perhaps he has become confused and thinks he is required to behave in a similar way as well

This is the best summary I could come up with:

A Conservative byelection candidate has defended sharing a Facebook post telling jobless parents who cannot feed their children to “fuck off” if they still pay a £30 phone bill.

He shared a photo of a flowchart on social media that indicated people should only seek help if they were employed and gave up their TV and mobile phone contracts, the Daily Mirror reported.

The post, shared in 2020, asked the question: “Can you feed your kids?” The diagram suggests those who are out of work, pay for “TV Sky/BT/ETC”, or “have a phone contract + £30” should “fuck off” rather than seek help.

Rishi Sunak later refused to condemn Cooper’s comments at prime minister’s questions, saying he was proud of the government’s record on supporting families during the cost of living crisis.

“It shows a complete lack of understanding of the challenges facing families in Tamworth that the Conservative candidate is telling parents who are struggling to make ends meet to ‘fuck off’.”

Tamworth was held by Labour after a huge byelection victory for the party in 1996, but Chris Pincher won the seat for the Conservatives in 2010 and almost doubled his majority to nearly 20,000 at the 2019 general election.

The original article contains 596 words, the summary contains 202 words. Saved 66%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Lost the by-election and then they had to delay the announcement because he got lost in the car park.

The man's a fool.

Oh do one, you ponce