Tories

i have never voted tory.

I have quite a few political arguments with him, but he tends to win them because he simply has more knowledge to call on than I do. I'm a Liberal Democrat supporter, and have never voted tory.

To be honest, if my mate did get into parliament, it'd be good to know that there was someone driven and capable working for at least one constituency.

Tories believe: it is best to understand a little less and condemn a little more

Tories believe: might is right and internationalism is a fundamentally a charade

Tories believe: the only way in which 1950s Britain could be bettered is an increased GDP

The push of recent history and popular feeling is on their side, so I wouldn't condemn someone who casually voted for them. That said, if I ever have doubts about whether any of the parties I have voted for are any better, I just need to watch the Conservative Party conference to feel politicised again. But it's not for me.

There were other factors as well, but the Toryism was the last straw.

Nick, that's a pointless thing to say. You're just having a pop.

IMO most of the actual Tory Party membership are basically apolitical (i.e. wealthy and elderly enough not to actually care) and see it as a means of finding new bridge partners.

I'd still rather call Daily Mail readers cunts than I would Tories, though there's obviously a lot of crossover.

There's also an argument that as Tories tend to be older and, well, dumber, theire demographic is more out of step with the interweb demographics. It's certainly out of kilter with the Ilx demographic I'd say. The general vibe of Ilx is left of centre, is cool about being gay and doesn't get all hung up when people talk about fucking and tends not to dig racists etc. This is not what floats the boat of your Tory who has wondered onto the web.

A final argument is that Tories are generally happy with the world as it is. Actually, about 10 years earlier would be just so, but you get the point. They don't particularly wish to have their horizons expanded; just their prejudices confirmed. The interweb does not appeal as they don't wish to debate, mingle and learn about the rest of da world. Though I suspect a lot of them might be copious pron users.

The sound of people putting crosses on their ballot papers against Tories = the sound of inevitabitlity, Mr Anderson.

The 'local income tax' idea (Lib Dem-vaunted) is roughly a good one, but practicalities shoot it down. I.e. you would simply not get enough revenue from poor areas from a local income tax. You could not have a local income tax without moving revenues from rich areas to poor areas, which possibly makes a mockery of the word 'local' and the sense that it was a true local tax.

And no, I have never voted Tory and cannot say it's likely I ever will, unless say, I was faced with the unlikely choice of only a BNP and a Conservative candidate standing in a constituency! I would have some sympathy with One Nation Toryism (of the sort espoused by JZ's aunt?), that avoided any of the bigotry and Free Markets Are Everything ethos, but I still doubt I would vote for it. The Tory Party's record in Govt. in the last 25 years and the sounds it has made out of Govt. are *far* from One Nation small-c conservatism. They are ideological Right-wingers; anti-so-many-things. There is little positive appeal for people to vote for them; their 'patriotism' has been co-opted by Blair, and the sensible, moderate economic policies are now thoroughly Gordon Brown's terrain. It's a long time since MacMillan and Heath, who lest we forget in 1959 (49.5%) and 1970 (around 46% IIRC) gained significantly higher % of the vote than did Thatcher or Major from 1979-92. Their majorities could actually claim to represent One Nation in some sense; they held many northern, Welsh and Scottish seats. How many now...? Can't be more than twenty can it?

I think there is a larger % of bigots in the Tory membership than in many other demographical groups in this country; yet, of course, it's not necessarily dominant. Remember John Townend (now retired I believe) and Ann Winterton for example, who have made unbelievably outdated racist remarks in recent years. And those were/are in Parliament!
I think there's a more mild prejudice in most Tory members, who may otherwise be very decent people, against specific buzzwords and targets; 'political correctness' per se, Europe, trade unions (though surely many have sensible attitudes here?), for example. Europe is the key example; 60% voted for the non-entity IDS over the obvious choice for leader Ken Clarke, solely due to the Europe Question... they are a xenophobic membership at least, if not a racist one.

thing is, a lot of young 'uns hate the tories cuz it's the standard line to hate them, like saying you'd like to shoot the queen or whatever. you should hate them because you've actually read up on some of the shit they've pulled.

"some of the shit they've pulled"

to put it somewhat bluntly.

After Brown's utterly amazing performance yesterday, we're going to have a Tory government in 2009, huh?

jol in

A friend of mine I really like and his girlfriend both recently told me they're down with Cameron and it was quite a shock. Am still only 50% sure they're serious.

Is this who I think it is? If so oh dear.

I think Cameron has got a big fuck-up in him at some point in the next couple of years that may still have an impact, although Brown has a hell of a lot more.

brown has had about 10 big fuck-ups in three months.

Up until now though they've all been day-to-day fuckups, yesterday was just... WAU.

what happened?

http://politicalbetting.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/front%20pages%20lisbon.JPG

Confusion over the chocolate-covered teacake - a dome of marshmallow on a biscuit swathed in milk chocolate - could cost the British government £3.5m after an EU court adviser said the retailer Marks & Spencer should get a refund of the tax it paid during the decades that tax authorities insisted they were biscuits.

BROWN YOU WILL HANG FOR THIS

day-to-day fuckups

rly? sinking £30bn into northern rock?!

xp ah i only read left-wing websites lol

BUT WHAT HAPPENED TO THE LETTERS THAT MADE HER CRY?

rly? sinking £30bn into northern rock?!

-- That one guy that hit it and quit it, Friday, 14 December 2007 11:58 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

If Brown had just done that in the past six months, Labour would still be ten points ahead of the Tories.

i was unaware of this story too! i guess i was aware of the constitution as a foregone conclusion. darn those right-wingers and their dislike of um ceding sovereignty to unelected and financially incontinent central authorities.

xposts

no queues outside golders green branch of northern rock last saturday WHERE HAVE YOU HIDDEN THEM MR BEAN?

They could have saved face from the election thing, it was losing the CDs that did it. Labour had kept a lead over the Tories for years not through ideology but by going "lol you are useless bunglers" and that's gone up in a puff of smoke.

Also there is possibly nothing worse for a national leader to be called than Mr Bean.

Vince Cable as leader of the Lib Dems would actually make me vote for them, tbh. Especially if he does go on the next series of Strictly Come Dancing

Mr Bean is a quintessentially British yet cross-cultural cariacture beloved across the world.

Just like Gordon Brown.

Mr Bean is a quintessentially British yet cross-cultural cariacture beloved across the world.

Yes but YOU WOULDN'T LET HIM DRIVE THE TRAIN TO BRUSSELLS IN THE MORNING, WOULD YOU?

And it's a ONE WAY TRAIN at that.

he'd figure out some convoluted yet inspired way of making it work

Maybe involving Teddy.

Or Alastair Darling, as he's also known.

John Darwin confirmed as new Chancellor of the Exchequer.

inspector clouseau as new head of the metropolitan police

oh wait

^^^ satire

i'm voting 'where can i emigrate'

-- That one guy that hit it and quit it

number one is probably jeremy clarkson. this is a country of shitheads.

-- That one guy that hit it and quit it

brown has had about 10 big fuck-ups in three months.

-- That one guy that hit it and quit it

What are you still doing here?

don't speak foreign.

America, Australia, New Zealand...

St Helena, Pitcairn, Diego Garcia

also, carbon footprint yo.

kerguelen!

bless you

You forgot the Falklands...

Oh, I hear the Wehrmacht is just pulling into Canterbury.

You've just been pwned, Britain!

They speak french in Kerguelen...

Oh, hang on, I just noticed the Daily Mail didn't even lead with this. 'BIGGEST FUCKUP EVER' talk = nonsense, sorry.

They speak french in Kerguelen...

nah, penguin

Shanty towns in South Africa and the Ukstan sort of countries...

not very well written (and not unsmug) but a mild tonic on a monday morning:

http://evolvepolitics.com/exclusive-evolve-politics-undercover-inside-tory-youth-group-activate-beginning-part-1/
http://evolvepolitics.com/part-2-evolve-politics-undercover-inside-activate-unadulterated-incompetence-day-one/

oh this is rich

Oh boy this should be a good read.

it's an ok read: the subject is more entertaining than how it's handled

too dull; didn't read

i mainly dived in bcz i was seeing ppl* commenting on this unfolding story and saying "ah no! this faked disarray is exactly what they WANT us to think and meanwhile they're getting all that good publicity,c"

*idiots yes

oh it's a good story but the self-aggrandizing at the beginning of the piece was just going on and on

I mentioned this on Friday, but this review from Conservative Home of what went wrong at the election is fascinating

Part 1 sets out the general Tory-caused problems (IE not the absolutely boy): one of which is that the snap election was genuinely a shock to everyone outside of Theresa May's head, and a lot of the mechanisms for an election machine were at best in the shop for some work.

https://www.conservativehome.com/majority_conservatism/2017/09/our-cchq-election-audit-the-rusty-machine-part-one-why-the-operation-that-succeeded-in-2015-failed-in-2017.html

Part 2 is the general problems with the ground campaign, which is nearly all interference from central office.

In some cases CCHQ sent out mailshots without even notifying, still less consulting, the local operation. In Wales, an association officer was surprised to receive an email notifying them of the cost of a recent mailing for their local campaign spending return. On asking to see the leaflet that had been sent out, in order to check what it said should voters mention it on the doorstep, the central Party was only able to provide them with a lorem ipsum template – the half of the leaflet that contained political messaging read only “GENERIC COPY”, and no-one at the centre could find a copy of the text that had been supplied to the printers. The same thing happened elsewhere: “CCHQ sent national leaflets…to targeted people but we weren’t told, which made things very awkward when we knocked on doors and we’re asked about a leaflet that had been received that we’d not seen and didn’t know anything about,” recalls a defeated candidate in a target seat.

https://www.conservativehome.com/majority_conservatism/2017/09/our-cchq-election-audit-the-rusty-machine-part-two-how-and-why-the-ground-campaign-failed.html

Part 3 is future steps - the lack of a youth wing is bemoaned (though they're aware that it's due to the bullying and suicide in RoadTrip2015, they're naturally incapable of drawing the conclusion that this will be a prospect whenever Young Tories gather).

Also mentioned is the idea that boom and bust as regards CCHQ staff is not a great idea - hire everyone for the election then let them go and splash out more money to lure them aware from the jobs they'll have gotten in the meantime. Again there's a limit to how aware they can be of the flaws with this raw capitalism, so there's some harrumphing on how a guaranteed job for life is certainly not the kind of thing they're talking about.

https://www.conservativehome.com/majority_conservatism/2017/09/our-cchq-election-audit-the-rusty-machine-part-three-what-can-be-done-to-fix-it.html

And bonus content is the coverage of the shitstorm that was the centrally-imposed selection procedure.

By early last week, some associations were receiving their shortlists only hours before the selection meeting was due to take place. For the lucky shortlistees, this sometimes involved a mad dash out of work, with a hurried apology, across long distances to speak in the hope of selection, in some cases addressing activists they had never met in a seat they did not know. On 2nd May, Andrew Lewer MEP had just arrived in Brussels when he was informed he was up for selection in Northampton South that night – he immediately jumped onto a train back to London, and went on to win the selection.

http://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2017/05/centralisation-and-chaos-inside-the-rush-to-select-conservative-candidates-in-time-for-the-election.html

It's very process-oriented, the most mention of actual issues is the note that the manifesto "contained a controversial policy for which no preparatory work had been done among voters, and which raised more questions than it answered". Though it makes the point, which I'd forgotten, that this happened just before campaigns were suspended on both sides after the Manchester bombing, leaving the dementia tax to stew in its own juices for longer.

The takeaway is that a lot of bad-for-Tories things happened which can't be repeated or should be avoided next time, but there's some serious damage done to relations with their campaigning base, who enjoy harbouring grudges - a clean sweep would be necessary for that, and if Theresa May stays in place, and if (big if) the polls stay as they are, fears of a bloodbath at the next election wouldn't be unreasonable.

Good stuff there.

the break-down of the well-oiled Tory electoral machine seems to have happened in parallel with the increasing dysfunction of the British state. Coincidence or correlation?