Is the Tory Party an anachronism which should be disbanded?

First topic message reminder :

“No one ever rode to power on such a husky sledge of blatant untruth as David Cameron – greenest, most family-friendly, kindest to poor and disabled children and no frontline cuts.” (Polly Toynbee)
 
As we all know, Cameron only “rode to power” in 2010 on the backs of the Liberal Democrats. Despite having so many factors in their favour, the Tories couldn’t win the election outright, and their 36% share of the votes cast was their highest score in the last four general elections. The Tories haven’t won an election outright since 1992, when John Major lied his way back into office by promising “tax cuts year on year”, before proceeding to increase taxes more than any previous government in peacetime.
 
Tories have been around for a long time. The word ‘tory’ comes from the Gaelic ‘torai’, meaning ‘outlaw’ or ‘bandit’, so little has changed there. In the 17th century, Tories supported the king against Parliament. Although the Tory William Wilberforce was a leading campaigner against slavery, his party did not support its abolition, and it was left to a Whig government to end that evil practice in 1833, the year in which Wilberforce died. But then the Tories have always been ‘the nasty party’ (though that might be an understatement). 750,000 Irish people died of a potato famine in the 1840s because the Tories said ‘the free market’ would end the famine. (While those Irish people were starving to death, many Anglo-Irish estates continued to export grain and livestock to England.)
 
The Tories have rarely supported any of the reforms – such as education for all, the vote for all, the establishment of the welfare state and the NHS, legalised abortion and homosexuality – which in time came to be generally accepted as hallmarks of a civilised society. Yet until the arrival of Thatcher, the Tories sought not only to protect the rights of the rich and powerful (as they still do), but also to ‘conserve’ the status quo, whereas nowadays their mission is to asset-strip the state in support of their cronies and financial backers.
 
Despite having little or no empathy with the vast majority of the population, the Tories were, until quite recently, accepted as the natural party of government, and they were in power for about three-quarters of the last century. With more money than other parties and a largely supportive press, they operated a brilliant propaganda machine which persuaded or duped enough people into continually voting against their best interests. As Nye Bevan put it: “How can wealth persuade poverty to use its political freedom to keep wealth in power? That's the whole art of Tory politics.”
 
However, society has changed. Although far too many people are still brainwashed by the BBC into looking up to the medieval institution of hereditary monarchy, deferment to those with grand titles, pots of money and posh accents has declined rapidly since the 1960s. Britain has become multiracial and multicultural, and the most popular national dish isn’t steak and kidney pie or fish and chips but chicken tikka masala. Britain has been in the EU (and its predecessor, the EEC) for forty years, and the development of package holidays and cheap flights has broadened people’s horizons. Enough of us have realised that the world doesn’t end at Dover, and so the flag-waving ‘Little Englander’ mentality is now mainly the preserve of the saddos who support UKIP and the EDL. And of course we no longer have an empire, which used to make such people feel superior to the ‘Johnny Foreigners’ who were subjugated and exploited.
 
The Tories have failed to keep up with these changes, and their party membership reflects as much. At one time they had about 3 million members. When Cameron became their leader in 2005, they had 270,000 members, but now they have only 130,000. (By contrast, membership of the Labour Party has increased by 31,000 since Ed Miliband became leader.) Lord Feldman is the Tory co-chairman in charge of party membership. In 2011, he launched a membership drive which saw a further drop in membership! In the real world, failure on that scale would result in the sack, but Feldman, a close friend of Cameron with an office in Downing Street, remains in his post. Many of those who are still Tory Party members work themselves into a lather over equal marriage, which again shows how out of touch they are; I can’t believe that many of the people who are struggling to keep solvent and feed and clothe their children see such an issue as important.
 
Writing for ‘Conservative Home’, Paul Goodman points out that “Tory members have undergone one significant change in the last 25 years or so.  They are, on the whole, older people.” If the Tory Party can’t attract young people, isn’t it likely to die when its remaining members do? It may be that the Tories realise they are in terminal decline and that this may be their last ever time in power. That would explain the breakneck speed with which they are dismantling what’s left of the state following all the Thatcher and Major privatisations, which were dubbed by former Tory PM Harold Macmillan as “selling off the family silver”. Tory MP Douglas Carswell is certainly in no doubt that the Tories are in serious trouble:
 
“For a generation, the Conservative Party has been fighting a long retreat. An endangered species in much of the north of England, we are all but extinct in Scotland. Towns and cities across England that within living memory returned Conservative majorities to the town halls  and MPs to Parliament are now Tory-free. In many constituencies across the country, our local party structure is almost as hollow as our approach to the economy. HMV, the music retailer, went bust. Why? It had a declining market share and costly overheads. The Conservative Party is run a bit like HMV, and if it does not change, it will go the way of HMV.”
 
When Cameron became Tory leader, we were promised an end to the ‘nasty party’ image, but once in power again, the Tories have been more toxic than ever. We have a government conducting a systematic assault upon the sick, the poor and the disabled, slashing welfare budgets and forcing people off benefits. 500,000 of us now use food banks. They make it easier to sack us, make us work longer hours for less pay, force our kids to work for nothing, raise the retirement age whilst cutting our pensions and weaken our health and safety laws. And all just so a handful of people can be immensely rich.
 
Barring a rigged general election in 2015 – and we can’t rule anything out from a party that has tried to gerrymander the constituency boundaries, end automatic voter registration and cut off the finances of the main opposition party – the Tories will be toast. No governing party since 1974 has increased its percentage of the votes cast in the subsequent election (and then it was only because a second election was held after just seven months), and so the likelihood that the Tories will improve on their 36% share last time must be remote. Then the passage of time since the Tories last won an election outright will become even longer. Far-right headbangers have a natural home waiting for them in UKIP, blatant hypocrites can always link up with the Liberal Democrats, and the remaining Tory Party members will soon be having appointments with undertakers. So isn’t it time for this nasty, corrupt assortment of out-of-touch bigots, liars and losers known as the Tory Party to call it a day and disband?
 
Sources used:-
 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/27/ed-balls-prudent-full-throttle-fury
 
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/irish_potato_famine.cfm
 
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/politics/2012/07/how-tory-membership-has-collapsed-under-cameron
 
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thetorydiary/2013/05/by-paul-goodmanfollow-paul-on-twitter-there-are-activists-in-every-party-whose-eyes-arent-entirely-steady-in-their-sockets.html
 
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2287256/Tory-Party-run-like-HMV--way-says-Conservative-MP-Clacton-DOUGLAS-CARSWELL.html

It would be a tad more comforting if I could believe that he actually knew what a monkey looked like...  

You know Bobby Ed or the Labour party can not stop Cameron from making a pigs ear of the UK because of the numbers within the HOC, I had been told something by Scarecrow some time ago and did not believe what he said until I seen it with my own eyes the DUP party votes with the Tories so its not just the Fib-Dems. It seems Seinn Feinn has stopped the bedroom tax been brought into Northern Ireland and the DUP are fuming that they have not beeen allowed to bring in the Tory policies.

Come on Bobby you have the Tories number like the rest of us on this forum, I have seen Ed Miliband and the Labour MPs tell Cameron EXACTLY what he is doing to the people of the UK only for Cameron or IDS to POO POO it and jump on to another subject, if you have been a regular watcher of PMQs you would have seen Cameron NEVER answer one of Eds question or any of the Labour MPs questions.   We all know what a LOW DOWN LYING BASTARD that the Tories are if you remember from the beginning they blamed the Labour party for the MESS the B(W)ANKERS got the people of the UK into so Ed was dealt a hard job, not only having to overcome beating his brother to the leadership of the Labour party but also Labours name was mud even with the Labour voters.

I am glad we have a decent honest person as the leader of my party who will not stoop to Scamerons low levels, but you and I know that the people will EXACT a high price from the LYING Tories where it will hurt them worse the BALLOT BOX

Redflag said: " We all know what a LOW DOWN LYING BASTARD that the Tories are"

That is the problem Red, we don't all know how dishonest they are, only some of us do. I am fortunate and have a telly in my office, and if I didn't I would only have to walk across a lawn and I am in my house, most people though especially those who are working and struggling don't enjoy that luxury, they are too busy working and worrying how to pay their next bill. All many of them get to see is from the Newspapers or the TV, both of witch are heavily biased against Labour, this is why Ed Miliband mustn't squander any opportunity to make as many people aware of Mr Cameron's lies and treachery, he wont even start to get there when he uses all of his six questions on the American Murder issue. Back benchers have only one question to which as you rightly say Mr Cameron will not answer other than with a platitude, whereas Ed Miliband has 6 chances of making his point, the whole thing would be more effective if the back benchers asked more general questions and Ed Miliband hit and kept hitting Mr Cameron at every opportunity.
Labours lead in the Polls have been consistently low, and if Scotland sell us down the swanny, I really can not see any reason why we will not have a second consecutive fascist Government.
Just look at what Mr Cameron and his sycophantic followers have and are doing now, if he where to get another 5 years it would not be past him to make whatever law changes necessary to guarantee a Conservative Government with himself as the despot in charge. So I will never accept that Ed Miliband is even trying to win the next election, because if he is, he has no idea how to do it.

Bobby at the moment Ed Miliband is up here in Scotland trying to stop Labour voters from voting yes in this nasty referendum Bill that Salmond and the SNP have brought forward, because it will not just be the rest of the UK suffering here in Scotland we will have Cameron mark II, did you know it was Salmond that brought down the Labour gov't of 1979 allowing the UK to have 18 years of a Thatcher Tory gov't.

I do believe that a majority of people know all about what the Tories stand for with a 5p cut in tax for those at the top and zero hour contracts for those at the bottom, not forgetting the sick disabled and vulnerable people of the UK. Most of the people that still work in the public sector NHS police armed forces fire brigade Royal Mail ect will all know because they have suffered at the hands of the Tories why do you think NINE Tory MPs are standing down in 2015 after just coming into Parliament in 2010, I would imagine there constituents would have had a quiet word in there shell like and told them not to depend on there vote to get them back into the HOC.

At the moment I'm afraid that the voting public seem daft enough to vote Cameron back in next year, even with the atrocious things his party have already done.
So unless everybody bucks their ideas up as to where they put that cross next may, or the labour party gets to look like an opposition then folks we are lost.

did you know it was Salmond that brought down the Labour gov't of 1979

Redflag. Callaghan's government was defeated by one vote in March 1979. You could blame that on Gerry Fitt and Frank Maguire for abstaining. You could also blame it on the Liberal and SNP MPs who voted with Thatcher. But you can't blame it on Alex Salmond, as he didn't become a Westminster MP until 1987.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_vote_of_no_confidence_in_the_government_of_James_Callaghan

Basically then Ivan, there were quite a few members we could blame for bringing in Thatcher when she got in in 1979.
Apart from the British voting public, who are at every election so damn fickle.

stuart. There would have had to be an election in 1979 by October anyway – unless Callaghan had thought like a Tory and speculated on how to extend the life of a parliament to more than five years:-

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/sep/03/calls-to-postpone-uk-general-election-scots-independence

Maybe if the election had been delayed for a few more months, memories of the much-exaggerated ‘winter of discontent’ might have faded. The Tories have tried to rewrite the history of that time, but the economy was improving, only for inflation to be doubled (at least in part by the increase in VAT from 8% to 15%) and a recession to follow as soon as Thatcher came to power.

The Tories won in 1979 because:-

1. Thatcher offered people in council houses ‘the right to buy’ their homes, a policy which has created many of today’s housing problems:-

https://cuttingedge2.forumotion.co.uk/t750-has-the-right-to-buy-and-lack-of-rent-controls-caused-most-of-the-uks-housing-problems

2. Thatcher used a very effective poster of a dole queue claiming that ‘Labour isn’t working’. Her way of getting the country working again was to increase unemployment from 1.4 million to 3.2 million in just four years.

3. The usual virulent anti-Labour campaign from the right-wing media hyped up the industrial action which had occurred, labelling the UK as ‘the sick man of Europe’. Tory mythology has claimed that Callaghan’s government was “in the pocket of the unions”, which is nonsense; if it had been, he wouldn’t have had a pay restraint policy and there wouldn’t have been industrial action against it! (It’s worth noting that during the 1970s, accidents and certified illnesses accounted for roughly 320 million lost days a year, thirty times more than those caused by industrial disputes.)

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/04/thatcher%E2%80%99s-greatest-legacy-rewriting-seventies

4. The novelty of the first female PM. Not that she ever did anything for the cause of women.

Oh do I remember those "labour isn't working" posters, starting off with the small person/worker and getting bigger the further you went along the long queue.
They were on every wall you came across were they not?
I was a shop steward when Thatcher was in power, and was on strike and marched to downing street against her, lots of people in the hospital that I worked donated money towards our wages that we were not getting, as they were not striking themselves, which we thought was good of them or buying off their conscience which do you think?

stuart. I remember going on strike and being laughed at by a fellow worker who said: “I’ll stay at work and get paid. When your action achieves a pay rise, just remember that I’ll be getting it as well.” I think ‘scab’ is the word for people such as him, and he certainly wouldn’t have donated any of his wages to the strikers. I suspect that in some parts of the country he would have had his throat ripped out for such provocative talk, and that incident made me understand why there was quite a lot of support for the 'closed shop' in those days.

As to your experience, the people you mention were at least better than him. Who can tell what motivates people and whether they were just salving their consciences? I do think that forty years ago there was a much greater sense of community and solidarity, but much of that has been replaced by the selfishness and greed which Thatcher saw as a virtue.

I can wholeheartedly agree with what you have said there Ivan, it also depended on which part of the country you lived too, but as I said how many were just buying their consciences off?

Oh do I remember those "labour isn't working" posters

At least they can be updated.....  


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BpzZpjpIAAAtUSa.jpg

Yes they can Ivan, but surely he should be sat at a restaurant table with his wife,? with wine on the table too? and waiter at hand?
The obnoxious swine.

Lookalike



        Cameron                               Hornby


( with apologies to Private Eye)

Should it not be "well let them eat cake" Phil?

Silly me for having got that wrong...      

Cheer up Phil, what's one mistake in all your posts?

RIP irony - it was good to know you...     

Was it that bad Phil.

stuart torr wrote:At the moment I'm afraid that the voting public seem daft enough to vote Cameron back in next year, even with the atrocious things his party have already done.
So unless everybody bucks their ideas up as to where they put that cross next may, or the labour party gets to look like an opposition then folks we are lost.

Hi Stuart and welcome to Cutting Edge, Cameron is going to have a problem at the 2015 general election because NINE Tory MPs are standing down in 2015 and they only came into the HOC in 2010, any ideas of why they are staning down IMHO the reason could be plenty of there constituents have told them them in NO UNCERTAIN TERMS not to come looking for there votes in 2015 what do you think ??

As for people being fickle and perhaps voting Tory in 2015 there will be so many that will not vote Tory ie NHS staff police armed forces Fire Brigade sick disabled and the unemployed not forgetting those that where forced to take a zero hour contract job or be sanctioned. I think Labour will win the 2015 general election after I get the 18th September over ( I live in Scotland) I am hoping to head down south and help Labour MPs win there seat by stuffing envelopes or out campaigning more than likely doing a bit of both to make sure we get a FAIR GOV'T for all not just the chosen few.

Thanks for that Redflag, and let's hope you are right, as part of the disabled community I know where my cross will be going.

The Tory Party will "disband" Mr Cameron if he allows Scotland to secede from the United Kingdom without having done much to try and stop it.

I doubt it oftenwrong, as he has been the best tory leader since thatcher, if there is such a thing, pewk pewk, vomit.

There is not much that any Tory can do here in Scotland OW because Scots do not vote Tory and we actually hate all Tories and tar them all with the same brush, that is what Salmond has run this campaign on "Look What The Tories are doing to Scotland".

Agreed here Redflag

The Tory Party will continue to thrive for as long as there are aspirational voters who think they might get the odd bag of gold flung in their direction when the Rich ride by.

Hi oftenwrong.
Do you really think that the tory party will get re-elected?
Or do you hope that they will get booted out to let the country improve, for the normal decent people?

Since you ask, Stuart, I think the Tories realised in 2010 that, after thirteen years in the wilderness, the quisling Lib-Dems had provided them with their only chance at government for the foreseeable future.

And haven't they taken advantage of that chance?

My oftenwrong have they taken advantage of it.
Are you seriously telling me though, that you yourself from your heart wish it to continue.?
I believe that if you do, you are in a better position financially than I am or ever will be under any tory power.

Ivan wrote:Callaghan's government was defeated by one vote in March 1979....You can't blame it on Alex Salmond, as he didn't become a Westminster MP until 1987.

IVAN You are splitting hairs Salmond is leader of the SNP it was the SNP along with other BACKSTUDS that gave us 18 years of a Tory gov't, my fear is they done that in 1979 what will he do to the Scots if  they get a yes vote on the 18th Sept. Because he has not and can not answer the questions we need to make an informed decision, as for the currency union that Salmond wants is STUPID it would mean everything financial in Scotland would be in the hands of a foreign country England and with the Tories being in power in Westminister they will SCREW Scotland to the ground.

Plus we would be OUT of the EU until we get back in whenever that would be as the rest of the EU could Veto our application just as France did on quite a few times to the UK, while we are waiting Scottish businesses would be having to pay plenty to sell there goods & services  within the EU.

What we have here in Scotland is Cameron mark II the only thing Salmond has said about tax is to cut Corporation tax by 3p for the big companies, nothing about the working man/women tax breaks plus everything in his white paper all 650 pages none of his plans has been costed, I do not want to jump from the frying pan into the fire.

The dice have been thrown. There is no going back. Three hundred years of "History" are being cast aside.

Welcome to the New World.

Definitely bobby

Bobby & Stuart the only thing that is driving people in Scotland to vote yes in the referendum is it is this Tory led gov't with there aussterity for the working man/women and tax cuts for the Millionaires, even myself it is only one reason to vote yes no more Tory gov'ts but that is not enough for me so I will be voting NO on the 18th September.

Well Redflag you must vote as you wish, this tory led government are rubbish.

stuart torr wrote:Thanks for that Redflag, and let's hope you are right, as part of the disabled community I know where my cross will be going.

If you think about all the people that have suffered under the nasty Tories, police fire brigade NHS sick disabled vulnerable unemployed and the Employed plus all of there family and friends of these people it looks like the only people they will have voting Tory are the ABNORMAL tory voter who would vote tory no matter what they did.

You mean the bloody rich.