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

To be honest it is the just about comfortably-off people who align themselves with the Tory Party so that they can feel 'accepted' by the rich ( who actually despise them) who annoy me most.

They buy cars and other items which are, in reality, too expensive for them, just so that the really well-heeled at the Golf Club ( where fees are , in truth, just a bit of a squeeze) will smile benignly at them as they sip those G&Ts which take the last of the cash which they can muster that month.

What fools, as they talk about their substantial 'Stock Market investments' ( actually funded by that £1000 that Auntie Bessie left them in her Will) just loud enough for bystanders to hear !

I would go on, but I have dinner at the Lodge tonight, don't you know... 

I'm the same bobby, with my 2005 Citroen Xsara Picasso - I am sure all my friends are more than impressed.

But one thing always puzzles me : why do my kids each have newer cars than me...?       

With that privileged upbringing, bobby, no wonder you are a secret Tory voter...!   

A fairly typical story, bobby, as there have always been British families proud to be described as working class. What were sometimes described as "salt of the earth" people triumphed through two world wars and earned respect.

Which is what makes the viciousness of IDS and his adherents so unacceptable by regarding all underprivileged people as filth.

As a family we had very little until Dad at last obtained a job which his vast technical knowledge warranted. He had come from a family which had been quite well-off until his father ( a Merchant Seaman) simply disappeared in New York - leaving his mother having to set up a seaside boarding house to keep her two boys of primary school age ( in the 1930s).

I gather that there was a tendency to regard themselves as Conservatives, although my mother later introduced Liberal sympathies to the family group ( despite voting Tory, as Liberals had no hope of power where we lived). Dad voted Conservative all his life - mainly because he hated the Trade Unions and their Labour roots- and Mum never had a good word for socialist causes, which was strange given that her father had been a modest railway worker in Manchester, where she grew up in a 'Coronation Street'.

No wonder I can't find a true allegiance to any political group...!

Isn't it strange how the work ethic is held sacrosanct in our Society, but fewer and fewer people want to be described as "working-class".

It takes all kinds to make this world go round PH, I have always classed myself as working class and have always been proud of where I come from Newcastle Upon Tyne as far back as 1837 (did the family tree) most of the men either worked in the shipyards of the NE or down the pits.   I remember my paternal grandfather trying to explain to me at the age of 4 or 5  the difference between the EFFING Tories and the Labour party, because of my age the next time my grandfather gave me 3p (thurpence) to go to the shop for sweets I was expecting to see someone with two heads behind the counter, but as I grew up I never forgot my grandfathers words and too this day I can recall all that he told me.
 
My only regret is it took me until May 2010 to join the Labour party although I had always voted Labour because of what my paternal grandfather had said to me all those years ago.

Next time you hear Grant Shapps claim that the Tories are "the party of the working class", think of the thrifty Baroness Rawlings struggling to make ends meet. This really is a 'must read':-
 
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tory-peer-urges-people-save-3654238#.

Now that is out of touch

It scares me that there can be such a poor understanding in some quarters of the terms 'poverty' and 'economising'.

The fault-lines of John Major's Tory government in the first half of the 1990s have been carried-over. Given a ministerial car and driver, they start to believe they can get away with anything.

I think the same applies to nearly anyone in a steady job at more than minimum wage - total disconnect from how life might be for others less fortunate - and a lack of caring that staggers me - they not only don't know - they don't think the bad experiences of others need concern them

Well said young bobby

boatlady wrote:.... - total disconnect from how life might be for others less fortunate - and a lack of caring that staggers me - they not only don't know - they don't think the bad experiences of others need concern them

All true, but contributory factors include compassion fatigue from so much bad news, "charity begins at home", a general sensation of helplessness at the sheer evil displayed in some quarters, and the certain knowledge that half the money we pay in taxes is wasted by the current administration (whatever colour that happens to be).

Sorry got to disagree with you  on this one OW, the really only two nasty right wing nasty parties are the Tories and Ukip.  I will not say that the Labour party has got it right every time but would rather have a Labour gov't than the BACKSTUDS we have at the moment, the electorate are quite willing to tell the Fib-Dems what we think of them (EU & local elections 22nd May and the by-election in Newark) but still Cleggy and his MPs keep clinging on to their ministerial cars and power, even though they know come May 2015 their party will be ANNIHILATED by the voting public.

Mr. Clegg appears confident that he can be the kingmaker at the next election, Redflag. It will be interesting to see whether the voters support his theory.

I agree OW I tend to think overly confident, I just wonder if the people in Hallam Sheffield (that is the same seat as 2010) will believe him this time round after his LIES on Tution Fees. 

Tory sleaze goes on, and on, and on!

http://news.sky.com/story/1286099/mp-tweets-id-punch-journalist-in-throat

The Thatcher gov't was just the same scandal after scandal kept coming out, I think the bookies ended up having books on who would be the next Tory MP to have a scandal surround him/her. Neil Hamilton was just one of the many I am sure you will remember most of them OW.

Carswell has just made a Labour victory more likely

Extracts from an article by Matthew d'Ancona:-

"Though I do not sign up to his vision of Britain outside the EU becoming a Singapore of the West, Carswell was the most persuasive standard-bearer for ‘Brexit’ in the Conservative Party. I assumed that, if the Tories prevailed in May, he would be one of the truly formidable Conservative voices in the ‘Out’ campaign as the nation prepared for the 2017 referendum. Instead, by adding his political heft to UKIP, he has helped Ed Miliband, who will often be the beneficiary of Farage’s party taking votes from the Tories in marginal seats. What possible comfort can Carswell derive from making a Labour victory more likely?

His contention that all the main parties are the same, though fashionable, is also daft. 'Different clique, same sofa' is a good T-shirt slogan. But that’s all. Worst of all, he appears to have completely misunderstood the party he is joining. Carswell’s insistence that UKIP is the surest force for 'change' in British politics is utterly baffling. UKIP is a reactionary breakaway movement and a vessel for fury at Cameron Conservatism that has achieved notoriety and electoral success in contests where PR is used. But it has no answer to the contemporary except to fight it – a very different approach to that adopted by Carswell in his book ‘The End of Politics’ and other writings.

Carswell loves the pixellation of democracy, its raucous noise. But he wants everyone to agree with him too. That insoluble dilemma has led him into terrible company. He smiles like a man who is waving. But – sad to say – he is drowning in riptides of his own creation."

For the whole article:-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/11064331/Carswell-has-just-made-a-Labour-victory-more-likely.html

For a review of Carswell’s book:-
https://cuttingedge2.forumotion.co.uk/t675-the-end-of-politics-and-the-birth-of-idemocracy-by-douglas-carswell

What next for 'Kamikaze Carswell' after the romance of revolt wears off?

Extracts from an article by Michael White:-

"I once dubbed him ‘Kamikaze Carswell’ and now you can see why. At first glance the politics of this are win-win for Farage. Carswell's attention-seeking gesture triggers a by-election and, as a popular, hard-working and principled local MP, he will probably win it over the protests of UKIP's incumbent candidate, Roger Lord. Yet a few months ago Carswell himself told the hawkish editor of ‘The Spectator’, Fraser Nelson, that he was giving up rebellion to support Cameron as the election looms……

It's worth noting on Lord's behalf that under Farage's tight leadership, UKIP's chaotic inner-party democracy has given way to greater central direction. It is the kind of behaviour that Carswell, the localiser and the champion of direct democracy, will probably deplore when he gets around to it. Carswell is admirably virtuous in many ways, though not his expenses. They were less self-denying than I assumed when he became the MP to lead the very public charge for Michael Martin's resignation as Commons Speaker.

It will be said that Carswell’s defection will help Ed Miliband become PM and deny little-Englander Tory voters and UKIP defectors their hopes of the In/Out Brexit referendum that Cameron promises for 2017. Wouldn't it be a bold stroke by Cameron to invite wannabe candidate Boris Johnson to become the Tories’ by-election standard-bearer in Clacton? Win or lose, Dave solves a problem. But what a gamble! How popular would ‘Boris Island’ – the mayor's fantasy airport in the Thames estuary – be in Clacton and genteel Frinton?"

For the whole article:-
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/aug/29/douglas-carswell-ukip-michael-white

Carswell loves the pixellation of democracy, its raucous noise. But he wants everyone to agree with him too. That insoluble dilemma has led him into terrible company. He smiles like a man who is waving. But – sad to say – he is drowning in riptides of his own creation.

I tend to put it in more prosaic fashion : Carswell is a prat...

I agree PH but I think Carswell is more like a Dick Head than prat, does anybody on here think that Labour MPs would defect to Ukip ?? I do not think so myself or is this smoke & mirrors from Ukip, as we all know you could not get a fag paper between the tories and Ukip on policies.

does anybody on here think that Labour MPs would defect to Ukip ?

It seems an impossible idea, requiring an incredible volte-face in philosophy. However, it's best to never use the word 'never' in politics, because there's nowt so queer as folk. Does anyone remember this former Labour MP?


http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/11/14/

Mind you, if anyone told me that Redflag had decided to join the Conservative Party, I would really be surprised!!

Now Chris Kelly is to stand down as the Tory MP for Dudley South at next year's general election.....


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bwb1SkqCMAA028E.jpg

As repeatedly forecast, every divisive move of the right-wingers strengthens Labour's chances of forming the next government. The Miliband team hardly needs to do anything but retain its high visibility above the smoke and dust of internecine warfare. But when UKIP forms part of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, a lot of other things may have to change too.

Ivan wrote:Mind you, if anyone told me that Redflag had decided to join the Conservative Party, I would really be surprised!!

Ivan I can assure you I would rather cut off both hands WITHOUT anesthetic than join the Tory or Ukip party, though I do and I have done given my support to the NHA party.

IVAN another query could all those Tory MPs that are standing down or there local Tory association is not renewing the standing Tory MP (there is several that have been dropped). Could this be to allow the chosen few (Clegg Alexander) to seek seats as Tories in the 2015 general election.

" Could this be to allow the chosen few (Clegg Alexander) to seek seats as Tories in the 2015 general election."

It is one thing to be a prostitute, but quite another to wear a t-shirt proclaiming the fact and adding that the wearer is a cheap one, too...  

I can't decide whether the Lib-Dems are more loathed for their association with the Tories, or simply on their own detestability.

I think Bobby by jumping into bed with the Tories sealed there fate of the Prostitute party (L/Ds) After reading Andrew Adonis book "5 Days in May" which showed exactly the Fib-Dems had NO intensions of going into coalition with the Labour party in 2010, although they where talking to the Labour party but had already decided to go into coalition with the Tories.

So what ever comes down on the heads of the Prostitute party at the 2015 general election, as Bobby has said has been brought on by there SPINELESS MPs and those at the top of the Fib-Dems.

I do have concerns about the possibility of a significant UKIP minority in the HOC.

I wonder if, like the Lib-Dems in days of yore, they will be the party with the casting vote on contentious issues - whereas the Lib-Dems use of the casting vote tended to moderate strong right or left wing moves, I fear the UKIP casting vote will tend to force right wing policy and suppress anything in the way of genuine socialism that may come forward.

.....and on the Monday afternoon, Gordon Brown announced his intention to stand down as Labour Party leader, in order to facilitate those discussions with the Liberal Democrats.

As soon as the coalition from hell was formed, it was obvious that the Lib Dems had sold their souls for those office desks and limousines. All the top jobs in the government were filled by Tories - PM, Chancellor, Home Sec, Foreign Sec, Health, Education, Defence. Why didn't the Lib Dems at least insist that Cable, a trained economist, became Chancellor, rather than that towel-folding, Bullingdon Club crackhead Osborne, who knew nothing about economics? They even allowed a sociopath who repeated that chilling phrase "work makes you free" to take charge of Work and Pensions. The Tories weren't in a position to do anything without Lib Dem support.

Within weeks it was clear that the Lib Dems had abandoned their principles, acquiescing to a VAT rise after warning us of a Tory VAT 'bombshell'. Then Lansley announced the top-down re-organisation of the NHS for which nobody had voted, and soon after that the Lib Dems reneged on their pledges (not just promises) on tuition fees, and the rest, as they say, is history. I hope they get their just desserts next May.

And again - to be boring - we have heard precious little from the Leader of the Opposition to highlight the treachery of Clegg and his shameless band, such as might make the voting public turn away from any further thoughts of supporting the turncoats.

It is beyond comprehension that a man with so many targets has done so little to take aim at them. I remain bemused, confused and certain that he does not deserve support on account of his failure to offer any fight or leadership.

It's sitting at home and not venturing out to vote( again!) for me next May...

Softly, Softly, Catchee Monkey

An old English proverb founded by a boy scout, meaning: "Don't flurry; patience gains the day". (Basically meaning be patient.)

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