No more Mrs Duffy, please

Strategy with Sue Marsh

If I see just one more politician trot out poor Mrs Duffy as the font of all wisdom, I may just implode.

Goodness me, you’d think none of them had every met a real person before…..oh wait….

Surely, if they ever canvassed or spent any time in their constituency pubs they would have met a thousand Mr/Mrs Duffys? Are we all Mrs Duffy now? Are politicians so delighted they met a “salt of the earth” type they now have a blueprint for any policy affecting anyone who doesn’t live in Westminster?

She actually said :

“Look, the three main things that I had drummed in when I was a child was education, health service and looking after people who are vulnerable. There are too many people now who aren’t vulnerable but they can claim and people who are vulnerable can’t get claim.”

See that? The Mrs Duffys of this world don’t just think everyone’s a scrounger who should be kicked off benefits. In fact, looking after the vulnerable is in her top three priorities. Funny though, politicians only heard the last bit. You know. The bit they wanted to hear.

She thought education in Rochdale was very good and was happy with linking pensions to earnings. She asked where all the immigrants were “flocking from”.

And that’s it. A manifesto for the next decade. A badge of working class honour that politicians can wear every time they want to look like they once met someone who didn’t come from London. Strewth.

For the record, I think that when she referred to immigration, her concerns were probably for the local job market, hospitals, housing and schools. The Mrs Duffys of this world judge on person not nationality. When she referred to “people who are vulnerable can’t get claim” I imagine she was referring to terrible sick people no longer qualifying for state support, or elderly people who’s pensions were too low or working people unable to make ends meet.

I think we should find Mr Turner, trying to support his family on 30k a year who’s unsure why that never seems to be enough.

Step forward Mrs Granger, single Mum who works but never gets a rest til past 11pm.

Anyone know a Mr Cleal? Dying of cancer, yet mysteriously found “fit for work”

Little Clare who used to love going to the library?

Really Westminster, surely you can do better than one pensioner from Rochdale? The irony is, you’re not even really listening to what she said.