Is this the end of the Conservative Party?

[Chunketh]

We can dream. They are unflushable though

[debtlessmanc]

Watch some of the speeches on YouTube by Roger Scruton (con philosopher - yes they exist) he explains what conservatism is rather well and it’s not as bad as some seem to think.

his appearance at the Oxford Union is a good example. When asked “why are intellectuals not conservatives” he is very honest “yes the a lot of less cerebral people vote Tory, but you only need to look at what intellectuals got up to in the last century to think they might be right”

[DiggerUK]

Tories have always been good at coming back from the dead. How can a nation possibly survive without a proper nasty party, it's just not cricket.

As a member of the Labour Party, I'm more interested in how we survive  New Labour Zwei..._

[debtlessmanc]

2 minutes ago, DiggerUK said:

Tories have always been good at coming back from the dead. How can a nation possibly survive without a proper nasty party, it's just not cricket.

As a member of the Labour Party, I'm more interested in how we survive  New Labour Zwei..._

Harold Wilson was the most successful and Labour  left wing PM ever. You should channel him.

Edited May 3 by debtlessmanc

[hotblack42]

To paraphrase Vader and Luke:

British establishment: No. I am here to stay.

Socialists: No. No. That’s not true. That’s impossible!

British establishment: Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

Socialists: No! No!

[winkie]

58 minutes ago, debtlessmanc said:

Harold Wilson was the most successful and Labour  left wing PM ever. You should channel him.

He was very good, did so much to support Children and young people, youth clubs, community and schools......

Wikipedia:

Housing was a major policy area under the first Wilson government. During Wilson's time in office from 1964 to 1970, more new houses were built than in the last six years of the previous Conservative government. The proportion of council housing rose from 42% to 50% of the total,^[55] while the number of council homes built increased steadily, from 119,000 in 1964 to 133,000 in 1965 and 142,000 in 1966. Allowing for demolitions, 1.3 million new homes were built between 1965 and 1970,^[51] To encourage homeownership, the government introduced the Option Mortgage Scheme (1968), which made low-income housebuyers eligible for subsidies (equivalent to tax relief on mortgage interest payments).^[56] This scheme had the effect of reducing housing costs for buyers on low incomes^[57] and enabling more people to become owner-occupiers.^[58] In addition, house owners were exempted from capital gains tax. Together with the Option Mortgage Scheme, this measure stimulated the private housing market.^[59] Wilson in a 1967 speech said: ''..the grime and muddle and decay of our Victorian heritage is being replaced. The new city centres with their university precincts, their light, clean and well-spaced civic buildings, will not merely brighten the physical environment of our people, they will change the very quality of urban life in Britain.''^[60]

Significant emphasis was also placed on town planning, with new conservation areas introduced and a new generation of new towns built, notably Milton Keynes. The New Towns Acts of 1965 and 1968 together gave the government the authority (through its ministries) to designate any area of land as a site for a new town.^[61]

Edited May 3 by winkie

[winkie]

2 hours ago, Huggy said:

More Brexits than there were before

All the different alternative May brexits were not Brexit enough.......

[debtlessmanc]

6 minutes ago, winkie said:

He was very good, did so much to support Children and young people, youth clubs, community and schools......

Harold Wilson was a complex person as was mrs thatcher. The latter operated on revealed knowledge. The Belgrano was sunk by her but we now know that GCHQ had cracked the Argentine codes and that they had been ordered to attack the RN the next day. She did the right thing but was tortured on TV about it afterwards: 

[debtlessmanc]

Thatcher was an idealist and spoke that clearly, the left loved her because of that and that she was honest. I never voted Tory, but thatcher was charismatic and  the last U.K. pm to be this, I hated here at the time, but others would have voted for her to doomsday.

[Timm]

3 hours ago, winkie said:

Another Tory benefit.

......can we start a list please, of all the things that are better and improved since they came to power.....

 

As far as I am aware, we haven't started any illegal wars?

(Happy to be educated)

[winkie]

9 minutes ago, Timm said:

As far as I am aware, we haven't started any illegal wars?

(Happy to be educated)

Shouldn't be doing that anyway.......a few other illegal things though, fines and other going ons...

[MerchantNavy]

13 minutes ago, Timm said:

As far as I am aware, we haven't started any illegal wars?

(Happy to be educated)

No but undercover action has been taken.

[RentingForever]

As long as we have a First Past The Post voting system we'll always have a "labour" party (broadly left) and a "conservative" party (broadly right) party. The system itself favours one winner and one opposition, with some smaller other parties.

But whereas other countries with more proportional systems have individual small parties that create coalitions *after* elections, we have two main parties where the coalitions of idealogical groups within themselves are sorted out *before* an election. In a more proportional system both main parties would have split into smaller parties (Corbynite, Blairite, Trussite, Johnsonite..) long ago.

Generally the party with the moderates in control wins power.

So yes, we'll always have a Conservative Party, but its flavour changes. I expect the next one to be an absorption of Reform.

Edited May 3 by RentingForever

[Timm]

1 minute ago, RentingForever said:

As long as we have a First Past The Post voting system we'll always have a "labour" (broadly left) and a "conservative" party - it almost always leads to a winner and an opposition. Whereas other countries with more proportional systems have parties that rise and fall in coalitions, we have two main parties with coalitions of idea logical groups within themselves. It's the internal coalitions, and the groups that gain the voice of the party that change over time. 

So yes, we'll always have a Conservative Party, but it's flavour changes. I expect the next one to be an absorption of Reform.

Good post.

It's weird - the Overton window seems to have moved permanently to the right since Thatcher got in.

But the public mood seems to have inched to the left and that inching seems to be accelerating.

[scottbeard]

1 hour ago, Timm said:

It's weird - the Overton window seems to have moved permanently to the right since Thatcher got in.

But the public mood seems to have inched to the left and that inching seems to be accelerating.

That is true to the extent that - trains aside - Labour no longer campaigns to nationalise everything in sight.

But equally, who was printing money and handing out benefits hand over fist during COVID?  The Tories.

I feel if anything that the Overton window has not so much shifted as NARROWED.

No party now would dare be as right wing as Thatcher OR as left wing as Foot/Kinnock.

[Timm]

22 minutes ago, scottbeard said:

That is true to the extent that - trains aside - Labour no longer campaigns to nationalise everything in sight.

But equally, who was printing money and handing out benefits hand over fist during COVID?  The Tories.

To be fair (despite the obvious errors, incompetence, confusion, corruption and THEFT) -

they thought they were / were operating on a war footing.

Maybe that was silly.

22 minutes ago, scottbeard said:

I feel if anything that the Overton window has not so much shifted as NARROWED.

No party now would dare be as right wing as Thatcher OR as left wing as Foot/Kinnock.

Ohh.

That's interesting.

I'm going to have to think about that one.

 

*Cue either A-Steve essay length posts or a confused silence*

 

[scottbeard]

44 minutes ago, scottbeard said:

I feel if anything that the Overton window has not so much shifted as NARROWED.

No party now would dare be as right wing as Thatcher OR as left wing as Foot/Kinnock.

13 minutes ago, Timm said:

That's interesting.

I'm going to have to think about that one.

Interested in your thoughts!

It also explains why there is a greater feeling these days that "they're all the same" and why turnout is low: the narrower the window, the less difference the choice makes.

[Blobsy]

I have a very old bottle of red from donkeys years ago unopened, it was waiting in celebration for when my old band got signed to a major label. Needless to say it never happened lol, I would consider the demise of the Tories a fitting moment to  crack it open it however.

[Chunketh]

Speaking at a press event in Teesside International Airport, Mr Sunak said the results showed at the general election election voters "are going to stick with us".

 

 

HAHAHAHHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.

Final nail in the coffin for this rancid government. Good riddance.

[The Angry Capitalist]

1 hour ago, scottbeard said:

No party now would dare be as right wing as Thatcher OR as left wing as Foot/Kinnock.

And that's a scary thought.

[The Angry Capitalist]

15 minutes ago, Blobsy said:

I have a very old bottle of red from donkeys years ago unopened, it was waiting in celebration for when my old band got signed to a major label. Needless to say it never happened lol, I would consider the demise of the Tories a fitting moment to  crack it open it however.

Save it for when rates go over 10%.

It will taste like heaven.

[Timm]

6 hours ago, winkie said:

......can we start a list please, of all the things that are better and improved since they came to power.....

My second attempt:

This time ignoring the politics and just saying: Has my life got better since May 2010?

--------------

Yes.

I got married in the summer of that year to a wonderful woman that I don't deserve.

Then we bought a proper house* using joint income and my STR* fund.

I never wanted kids, but we had a son who I adore.

Then we bought a much bigger house.

 

*When I sold to rent in 2007, I didn't sell a house. I sold a narrowboat on a residential mooring.

[TheResponsibleHouseBuyer]

8 hours ago, winkie said:

He was very good, did so much to support Children and young people, youth clubs, community and schools......

Wikipedia:

Housing was a major policy area under the first Wilson government. During Wilson's time in office from 1964 to 1970, more new houses were built than in the last six years of the previous Conservative government. The proportion of council housing rose from 42% to 50% of the total,^[55] while the number of council homes built increased steadily, from 119,000 in 1964 to 133,000 in 1965 and 142,000 in 1966. Allowing for demolitions, 1.3 million new homes were built between 1965 and 1970,^[51] To encourage homeownership, the government introduced the Option Mortgage Scheme (1968), which made low-income housebuyers eligible for subsidies (equivalent to tax relief on mortgage interest payments).^[56] This scheme had the effect of reducing housing costs for buyers on low incomes^[57] and enabling more people to become owner-occupiers.^[58] In addition, house owners were exempted from capital gains tax. Together with the Option Mortgage Scheme, this measure stimulated the private housing market.^[59] Wilson in a 1967 speech said: ''..the grime and muddle and decay of our Victorian heritage is being replaced. The new city centres with their university precincts, their light, clean and well-spaced civic buildings, will not merely brighten the physical environment of our people, they will change the very quality of urban life in Britain.''^[60]

Significant emphasis was also placed on town planning, with new conservation areas introduced and a new generation of new towns built, notably Milton Keynes. The New Towns Acts of 1965 and 1968 together gave the government the authority (through its ministries) to designate any area of land as a site for a new town.^[61]

a good time to be alive?

[Bob8]

8 hours ago, Timm said:

To be fair (despite the obvious errors, incompetence, confusion, corruption and THEFT) -

they thought they were / were operating on a war footing.

Maybe that was silly.

Ohh.

That's interesting.

I'm going to have to think about that one.

 

*Cue either A-Steve essay length posts or a confused silence*

 

What was radical left can become conservative in a couple of generations.

Many of the people who voted for Benn in Chesterfield in the 1970s are voting Refrom now, i.e. the reaction to globalism should put up walls around the UK.

What changed is the world, there are now major trading blocks rather than being a possible future trend.

What Thatcher did was perhaps two fold, accept the world was changing (as opposed to Heath or Wilson's view of the electorate), which was sensible. She also layered monetarism on top of that with a dogmatic reliance on supply side economics, which was silly.

We still get the Governmenet intervention, but it is only justified if it helps the very wealthy rather than woring people. That is perhaps more classic conservatism in line with the corn laws.

[onlooker]

11 hours ago, winkie said:

He was very good, did so much to support Children and young people, youth clubs, community and schools......

Wikipedia:

Housing was a major policy area under the first Wilson government. During Wilson's time in office from 1964 to 1970, more new houses were built than in the last six years of the previous Conservative government. The proportion of council housing rose from 42% to 50% of the total,^[55] while the number of council homes built increased steadily, from 119,000 in 1964 to 133,000 in 1965 and 142,000 in 1966. Allowing for demolitions, 1.3 million new homes were built between 1965 and 1970,^[51] To encourage homeownership, the government introduced the Option Mortgage Scheme (1968), which made low-income housebuyers eligible for subsidies (equivalent to tax relief on mortgage interest payments).^[56] This scheme had the effect of reducing housing costs for buyers on low incomes^[57] and enabling more people to become owner-occupiers.^[58] In addition, house owners were exempted from capital gains tax. Together with the Option Mortgage Scheme, this measure stimulated the private housing market.^[59] Wilson in a 1967 speech said: ''..the grime and muddle and decay of our Victorian heritage is being replaced. The new city centres with their university precincts, their light, clean and well-spaced civic buildings, will not merely brighten the physical environment of our people, they will change the very quality of urban life in Britain.''^[60]

Significant emphasis was also placed on town planning, with new conservation areas introduced and a new generation of new towns built, notably Milton Keynes. The New Towns Acts of 1965 and 1968 together gave the government the authority (through its ministries) to designate any area of land as a site for a new town.^[61]

Someone has commented on this as being “a good time to be alive”. I was alive through this. The big difference with today is that the population was stable, so the large scale house building had an impact on improving the quality of life. But many of the problems we see today started then. I went to Milton Keynes in its early construction phases - very large scale shoddy building on a plan designed for the motor car, not public transport.
 

Wilson closed more miles of railway than any other government. The education system was in chaos because he shut most of the grammar schools. He closed more coal mines than Thatcher, but attempts to build new industries by government dictat were largely failures, and industrial relations became terrible, with a disenchanted workforce.

People today would not recognise the Britain of then. The past really is another country.