The anti modernisers in the Tory Party seem to have been furiously building a straw man over the past few days, seemingly with the sole purpose of advancing their own agenda for a narrow Toryism that would be doomed to perpetual opposition.
A few people seem to have got themselves into a flap about a potential merger that is clearly not going to happen and built a straw man about this mythical ‘spectre’ in order to pose as the defenders of ‘true Conservatism’ (as I have posted before I’m not convinced that these people understand Conservatism at all.)
The straw man building reached its peak when Roger Helmer posted a piece on Conservative Home yesterday building himself up into a frenzy of righteous indignation about a potential merger, declaring that, “I will not be a member of such a mongrel party.” Let’s put aside some of the offensive language in Helmer’s article for a second – although I’m not sure that phrases such as “mongrel” or “limp-wristed approach” should have any place in modern politics.
Maybe Mr Helmer should consider for a moment that the modern day Tory Party is itself not a ‘pure’ creation – how different would it be, for example, had the Liberal Unionists not crossed the floor over Home Rule in 1886? Maybe he should consider that he is penning his angry piece about a merger that no senior figure in either Party has suggested and is highly unlikely to happen. Could it be that figures on the anti modernisation wing of the Party are using the spectre of the merger straw man to advance their own sectional interests? Or am I being over cynical?
Tim Montgomerie made his contribution to the debate this morning in a piece in the Daily Mail. He concluded that:
So the battle to save the Conservative Party has begun. It’s a battle about whether we will ever get the kind of government that most people in Britain want.
It’s a battle between Liberal Conservatism and mainstream Conservatism. Between a generation of Tories eager to accommodate fashionable opinion and 2010’s historic intake of MPs who cut their ideological teeth under Margaret Thatcher.
Time will soon come when David Cameron must choose one side of this argument.
In three paragraphs, the thinking of those opposed to the Cameron project and Conservative modernisation is placed into stark context. First, “the battle to save the Conservative Party” is no such thing. It is, seemingly, a battle to distract the party from the harsh realities and difficult choices of Government (and governing in a coalition) and place it in an oppositional mode, inward looking and obsessed by its own (rather than the publics’) interests. Surely we should be focusing our efforts on supporting the Government, which we all campaigned for and worked hard to get elected, rather than using the language of ‘battles’, and sniping about imaginary merger threats and the dilution of “true Conservatism.”
Second, advocates of mainstream Conservatism seem to think that the sum of polling figures about public views over individual policies areas add up to an election winning whole. That is, of course, simplistic and wrong. It ignores complex issues about why people vote in the way that they do and how they make their decisions. It also, of course, ignores the results of the 2001 and 2005 elections – they made very clear then what sort of Government they did not want.
Third, there is the reference to the “MPs who cut their ideological teeth under Margaret Thatcher.” It is twenty years since Margaret Thatcher was removed as Prime Minister. This illustrates the confusion between Thatcherism and Conservatism (they are very different things) and the threat of a traditionally non dogmatic party becoming wedded to dogma. The answers of thirty years ago cannot be the answers for 2011. The country has moved on since then and the Conservative Party has to move on with the rest of the country. It can not afford to be seen as stuck in the past or marching out of step with the British people.
In all likelihood, there will be no merger between the two parties. Nobody has genuinely raised the idea, other than those wanting to use the concept as a straw man to advance a narrow agenda. Discussion about an electoral pact is not the same as discussion about a merger and commentators must be careful about confusing the two ideas. One only involves a temporary arrangement; the other involves a permanent fusion. While there are people arguing for an electoral pact, nobody is arguing for a merger.
We should be getting on with providing good, radical Government to the people of Britain so that we can stand at the next election as a Conservative Party which has led a transformative administration that deserves another five years in power. The alternative – endless doctrinaire debates about whether the Government is ‘Conservative enough’ – would be letting the country and the party down.
Related posts:
@renekinzett @nikdarlington New P10 blog might interest – The Anti Modernisers and The ‘Merger Straw Man’ http://tinyurl.com/2w29uhj
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Helmer is the living embodiment as to how the Tories were able to be labelled historically as the “stupid party”. Am very disappointed with more knee-jerk stuff from Tim Montgomerie, too…he should aspire to higher levels of commentary, but then the Daily Mail don’t pay fees for analysis!
RT @graemearcher: This article by @DJSkelton is worth reading (sorry @TimMontgomerie, I think you’re wrong): http://tinyurl.com/2w29uhj
David, I often read your blog and find it very enjoyable. But you really have cariactured the Political Correct Brigade when you came out with; “I’m not sure that phrases such as “mongrel” … should have any place in modern politics.”
Excellent post by @DJSkelton on the Modernising of the Conservative Party http://tinyurl.com/2w29uhj
RT @OxfordSpring: Excellent post by @DJSkelton on the Modernising of the Conservative Party http://tinyurl.com/2w29uhj <- Must read
Phrases like “mongrel Party” and “limp-wristed” are to all sensible people quite offensive and more telling of the user’s general social outlook. When Cameron said that offensive phrases were not “politically incorrect” but purely and simply “offensive” he was right.
Phrases like “mongrel Party”, “limp-wristed” etc are to all sensible people quite offensive and more telling of the user’s general social outlook. When Cameron said that offensive phrases were not “politically incorrect” but purely and simply “offensive” he was right.
Which of those in the ConservativeHome “Mainstream Conservative” camp favours a “narrow Toryism”? Tim Montgomerie and others have argued for an “and” Conservatism that is *broader* than the Cameroon offer, one that campaigns for social justice, environmental awareness, *and* low public spending and tight immigration.
What ConservativeHome favours is a *broader* Conservative offering, *not* a narrower one.
“The anti modernisers in the Tory Party seem to have been furiously building a straw man over the past few days, seemingly with the sole purpose of advancing their own agenda for a narrow Toryism that would be doomed to perpetual opposition.”
Which anti-moderniser has called for a narrow Toryism? What did he actually say? How do you know that the anti-modernisers would be doomed to perpetual opposition? The only evidence that we possess is the election losses of 1997, 2001, 2005, and 2010. All of these elections were fought on a modernising agenda. Even Iain Duncan Smith had a modernising agenda! You put the claim that anti-modernisers have an agenda of narrow Toryism, I would say that this is a straw man argument, because no anti-moderniser wants an agenda of ‘narrow’ Toryism. What anti-modernisers want is an approach that solves people’s problems.
“Could it be that figures on the anti modernisation wing of the Party are using the spectre of the merger straw man to advance their own sectional interests?”
What are these sectional interests? Winning the next election might be one. What are the others?
“Second, advocates of mainstream Conservatism seem to think that the sum of polling figures about public views over individual policies areas add up to an election winning whole.”
The modernisers have no right to talk about winning elections because they have failed every time since 1997.
“It also, of course, ignores the results of the 2001 and 2005 elections – they made very clear then what sort of Government they did not want.”
Right, they didn’t want a limp-wristed mongrel of a party to govern them. Do you believe the myth that those elections were fought by right wingers and that the public rejected right wing beliefs? Who were the puppet masters pulling the strings of the leaders during this time? Who were the people writing the policies, speeches, and press releases? Who were the thinkers that decided how things went? It was David Cameron, George Osborne, Oliver Letwin, Francis Maude, etc. Let’s not forget the SDP members: Daniel Finkelstein, Rick Nye, Greg Clark, etc. Though the Tory Party went from leader to leader, the backroom liberals and SDP people (the constants of election failure) kept their jobs. That’s fishy.
“”Third, there is the reference to the “MPs who cut their ideological teeth under Margaret Thatcher.” It is twenty years since Margaret Thatcher was removed as Prime Minister.”
True. I believe that Mr Montgomerie was referring to the results of the extensive polling that Conservative Home took of Tory candidates before the previous election. This is candidates’ self-image not an image created by others.
“The answers of thirty years ago cannot be the answers for 2011.”
Why did the Tory party take the SDP’s 30 year old anti-Grammar School policy? Why did Greg Clark suggest that the Tory Party follow the ideas of Polly Toynbee? Because he was in the SDP with her back in the 1980s? Which particular ideas are the anti-modernisers trying to take from 30 years ago? Cameron copies SuperMac, Cameron copies Ted Heath, Cameron copies Shirley Williams, but the answers of thirty years ago cannot… …what kind of logic is that?
“The country has moved on since then and the Conservative Party has to move on with the rest of the country .It can not afford to be seen as stuck in the past or marching out of step with the British people.”
30 year old Tory ideas are bad. 30 year old social democratic ideas are good. Pull the other one.
“In all likelihood, there will be no merger between the two parties.”
The coalition is a reunion for a significant minority of former SDP members who were in the same party 30 years ago.
Tory SDP
The Rt Hon. Dr. Greg Clark MP
Minister of State for Decentralisation
The Rt Hon. Chris Grayling MP
Minister of State for Employment
The Rt Hon. Andrew Lansley CBE MP
Secretary of State for Health
The Rt Hon. David Mundell MP
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland
The Rt Hon. Stephen O’Brien MP
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for International Development.
The Rt Hon. Rob Wilson MP
PPS to Jeremy Hunt MP (meaning he is on the government pay roll)
Libdem SDP
The Rt Hon. Dr Vince Cable MP
Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills
The Rt Hon. Chris Huhne MP
Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change
The Rt Hon. The Lord McNally PC
Minister of State for Justice (also Deputy Leader of the Lords)
Paul Burstow MP
Minister of State for Care Services
Please explain how this came about? Could this coalition have been a natural consequence of John Major taking in SDP members from his favourite think tank, the social market foundation 20 years ago? Now John Major wants the coalition to continue past the next election.
“Discussion about an electoral pact is not the same as discussion about a merger and commentators must be careful about confusing the two ideas. One only involves a temporary arrangement; the other involves a permanent fusion. ”
Coalition 2010-2015 + Coalition 2015-2020 = ten year coalition. Is a 10 year coalition a temporary arrangement? Honestly? What happens in 2020? Do the two parties then divorce, even though they’ve been working together for 10 years and happen to agree with each other about nearly everything?
“We should be getting on with providing good, radical Government to the people of Britain so that we can stand at the next election as a Conservative Party which has led a transformative administration that deserves another five years in power.”
Cameron lost the election. The modernisers lost the previous elections. They can’t win. Why keep the modernisers who didn’t win this one, lost the last three, and can’t win the next one?
“The alternative – endless doctrinaire debates about whether the Government is ‘Conservative enough’ – would be letting the country and the party down.”
Perhaps the Conservative Party will have finally found its Clause Four moment:- chucking the mongrel modernisers out of the party so that general elections can be won again.
Thank you for the interesting debate. I will leave you with two interesting historical articles which display the character and intent of the modernising wing of the Tory Party during the time of Iain Duncan Smith’s leadership.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1410049/The-week-the-kitten-heel-trod-on-the-polecat.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2783077.stm
Andrew – thanks for your comment. I enjoyed both the articles you wrote on this subject. The debate is a good one.
From my perspective what I don’t like about the debate so far is how some have tried to create a unnecessary division in the party between ‘Liberals’ and ‘Sensibles’. The problem with the term ‘Mainstream Conservatism’ is that it implies that everything else is non-mainstream ergo bad. Labels are divisive and unnecessary. Let’s discuss the future of Conservatism and the Conservative party without destabilising the Coalition or the party.
Thanks David, an excellent article. I’m frankly amazed by the ability of right-wing troublemakers and the media more generally to fabricate a story (in this case the potential electoral merger) and then to run with it until it is directly addressed by the leadership (then making it a story in its own right). You’re quite right to shoot down such deplorable tactics.
In fact, it is the ill-disciplined behaviour of th elikes of Tim Montgomerie and Roger Helmer that has allowed a needless debate to ferment when the pressure should be on Labour. Regardless of whose fault it is, no party has been successful over time without creating some form of contemporary identity (I’d fit at least the 2001 and 2005 Tories into this category, rather than modernisers versus right-wingers) and at the moment it is Labour’s inability to form such an identity that the Government should be focusing on. Indeed, the Government itself has a very distinct identity that fulfils many key conservative principles while acknowledging economic and political necessity.
Good grief things have got themselves in a little bit of a rum pickle. Ive been a nasty Tory for 36 years and I’m not going to change – not because I’m nasty but because the socialists will carry on calling us nasty regardless of how “modern” we get.
However, if that “modernisation” means more of Labour’s New Puritan agenda – nannying lectures, psuedo bans, health fascists on every corner – then they can stick it a long way up where it’s dark.
If “modernisation” means low taxes, a smaller state, an end to the civil illiberatiainsim that we have sufferred from for many years and a recognition that there’s nothing wrong with being gay, black or disabled then I’m all for it.
What I don’t recognise is the faux offence at Roger Helmer – his piece wasn’t offesive, just politically incorrect. For that it should be bloody celebrated not condemned.
This article once again questions why reactionary members of the Conservative right consider ‘mainstream Conservatism’ to be their preserve, why it is they who consider themselves keepers of the true faith like some conclave of beligerent bishops in the wake of Vatican II. Again stating the obvious, there is a real need for political parties to evolve; potentially to “mongrelise” if we choose to ape Helmer’s puerile language. The inflexibility of scaremongers towards the right of the Party continue to risk isolating the Conservatives as a whole from the electorate and stand to scupper efforts to align further with voters across the UK.
Tim Montgomerie fans the flames nicely in the Daily Mail with his do or die prophecy. Is his faith in the democratic process such that ‘most people’ would be incapable of reforming politics should policies fail to be in tune with the populace?
Nick@1.13pm,
Labels for different parts of a party are inevitable reflections of differences of view. And differences of view are both inevitable and healthy in any broad political party, since any such party is a coalition. The term “mainstream” reflects the reality that it is simply not true, as “modernisers” like to imply that there is a debate between the broad majority of the Conservative party (them) and “The Right” (a small lunatic fringe). The true debate is between the vast majority of the party (the mainstream) and a small ruling left-of-the-party contingent that has broadly been in charge since the mid 1990s. The mainstream Conservative Party has not had a chance to argue its case for nearly 20 years, and is losing patience with being caricatured as a bunch of right-wing lunatics.
DG – to answer your points of yesterday:
Which anti-moderniser has called for a narrow Toryism?
Pretty much all of them in coded and less than coded language. The anti modernisers wish to return to a policy agenda that they feel comfortable with, rather than one that it is in step with the British people.
The modernisers have no right to talk about winning elections because they have failed every time since 1997.
I strongly believe that every election since 1997 (other than 2010), was fought on a right wing, anti modernising policy platform. In 2005, You Gov asked the public where they rated the party leaders, the parties and themselves on a scale of -100 to +100, with -100 being extremely left wing, +100 being extremely right wing and 0 being in the centre. The average member of the public regarded themselves as very much in the centre at -2. Tony Blair was seen as very marginally right of centre at +7. At the same time, the Conservative Party was viewed as way to the right of most voters at +34. That is why we had to modernise and have to modernise further.
Do you believe the myth that those elections were fought by right wingers and that the public rejected right wing beliefs?
Yes – because I read the manifestos and was involved in both campaigns. I refer you again to the polling figures above.
The coalition is a reunion for a significant minority of former SDP members who were in the same party 30 years ago.
This sounds close to a conspiracy theory as far as I am concerned. The SDP were a broad church of a political party (unless you think Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler, Roy Jenkins and David Owen all had the same view) and it is perfectly natural that some of the talented individuals who were part of the SDP whould gravitate to different parts of the political spectrum after the SDP ended. The ‘enabling state’ that the SDP talked about contained some initial germs of the ideas of empowering communities today.
Coalition 2010-2015 + Coalition 2015-2020 = ten year coalition. Is a 10 year coalition a temporary arrangement?
It’s fairly clear that a merger is not going to happen and a pact is highly unlikely. There are many examples of parties forming an electoral pact after one term and going on to fight as independent parties.
Why did the Tory party take the SDP’s 30 year old anti-Grammar School policy? Why did Greg Clark suggest that the Tory Party follow the ideas of Polly Toynbee? Because he was in the SDP with her back in the 1980s? Which particular ideas are the anti-modernisers trying to take from 30 years ago? Cameron copies SuperMac, Cameron copies Ted Heath, Cameron copies Shirley Williams, but the answers of thirty years ago cannot… …what kind of logic is that?
No Tory Government has actively pursued a policy of bringing back grammar schools (other than John Major’s grammar school in every town idea, which just didn’t happen and was never going to). So it is hardly an SDP idea, more an idea that stretched across the political spectrum since Crosland. No idea why Greg Clark did that – but your reasoning again seems a little conspiratorial. Cameron probably regards Super Mac as a great PM, which he undoubtedly was – but it is unclear how he is ‘copying’ Macmillan, Heath and Shirley Williams. It is thoroughly un-Conservative to believe in a fixed dogma. It is the anti-modernisers who are guided by dogma.
Cameron lost the election. The modernisers lost the previous elections.
The 2001 and 2005 elections were not fought on modernising manifestos, as I made clear in my point above. David Cameron came considerably closer to winning the election than any of his right wing predecessors in the previous decade (with the biggest gain in seats since 1931) and, crucially, he is now in Number 10 as PM of a Conservative led Government (something you seem to conveniently forget).
Andrew Lilico – We both agree that differences of views are both inevitable and healthy in any broad political party. I am proud to be in the same party as IDS, Clarke and Tebbit. I also agree that we political geeks tend to specialise even further than just “Conservatism”. The Conservative Party should always be a great combination of all our views.
Where I disagree is in your definition of the true debate. Firstly, I don’t believe that a “small ruling left-of-the-party contingent” is running the party. Secondly, for me the true debate also involves supporters who are not members, Conservative voters, floating voters and also taking an interest in what our opponents say.
Attacking each others labels is not as productive as debating our ideas.
15 & 17 – A fundamental point is that you cannot win an election simply by echoing what party members and supporters believe. They are, by their very nature, going to vote for you anyhow. Elections are won in the moderate centre and they are won by appealing to floating voters who generally belong in that moderate centre.
David Skelton – it simply isn’t true that everyone further from the centre than you is going to vote for you anyway. They have other options, of which the simplest is just staying at home.
The most important way in which one wins elections is *not* by chasing the argument (working out what the public wants you to say and then saying it) but, rather, by *winning* the argument. That can include arguing for things that are unpopular initially by then being vindicated by events.
A key problem with the party is that on a number of important issues – the economy, the EU, to a lesser extent immigration – the Party has, for a number of years, neither sought to win the argument or nor sought to offer what the public wants. The Party preferred not to talk about the economy from 1997-2007. Indeed, by the middle of 2007 our argument was that politics had moved on from the economy to other issues because we had won all the arguments on the economy – a “declare victory and move on” strategy. That made it totally incredible, later, when we began declaring that Gordon Brown had long mismanaged the economy – eveyone naturally asked: Well, why did you agree with him, then?
On Europe we’ve won the argument with the public, but our leadership prefers not to implement the policies on the EU that it promised and that are supported by the overwhelming mainstream majority of party members (as well as, by the way, the general public at large).
Going to another point, it simply isn’t true that the 2001 and 2005 platforms represented what is currently meant by mainstream Conservatism. In 2001 and 2005 there was almost no discussion of the economy or of public services reforms – the key issues in the voters’ minds. The essence of the strategy pursued was the same as that from 2005-2008 – try to move the debate away from the main issues (where Labour was conceived of as strong) onto peripheral issues where Labour might be weaker. In 2001 and 2005 the peripheral issues chosen were asylum seekers, gypsies, and Europe; in 2005-8 the peripheral issues chosen were the environment and gay rights. Now the policies might well have been *right* on the environment and gay rights (as indeed they were *right* on asylum-seekers, gypsies and Europe (though not on immigration in 2005 – or 2010)), and the environment and gay rights might be much *better* peripheral issues to choose than asylum-seekers and gypsies. But, either way, the essence of the strategy was the same – refuse to engage on the main issues and try to move the debate elsewhere.
Mainstream Conservatives, by contrast, always urged that we *should* talk about the economy and about public services reform, without, of course, resiling from our correct positions on Europe, asylum-seekers, the environment, etc.. *That* is the key issue here: on the liberal Conservative side it is urged that “detoxification” required (and requires) the Party to step away from the mainstream views of its membership on the economy, public services, tax, Europe, immigration, and so on. Mainstream Conservatives are not embarrassed of Conservatism, do not despair of it’s winning the argument and thence winning a General Election, and hence do not accept that we must deny or hide our beliefs on these issues.
Brilliant article Dave – your point about governing rather than opposing is spot on. I do think sometimes that some on the Tory right would rather remain in opposition if the British people dont see fit to elect them on an ideologically-pure right wing platform. And this is the point, as long as these people keep kidding themselves that over 40% of the electorate (the amount required to win an outright majority) really want a Government pursuing a a policy agenda taken from the sheets of the Mail, then we will truly be condemned to a future of coalitions with the Liberals at best, opposition at worst.
What’s great about this article is the comments it’s provoked! Some really interesting debate here, but frankly I find it utterly laughable (yet also quite depressing) that someone can try and argue that the 2001 and 2005 elections were fought on a ‘modernising’ agenda – i.e. we didnt win because we weren’t right wing *enough*. Oh yes, one more lurch to the right and the country will finally realise what it really wants.
Agree with 17 that it’s nonsense that a left-wing cabal is running the Tory party. I think we have a pretty balanced Government, representing a number of wings of the party. That is all the more impressive given the ‘ultra’ reaction of the 1990s that finished off almost all of the Euro-positive wing of the Tory Parliamentary party.
It’s also a bit galling that the hardliners are trying to appropriate the word ‘mainstream’ when this word was protected under the stewardship of the moderate Party in the Conservative Mainstream Group during the lurches to the right in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
David Skelton – thank you for the kind response.
Could you please explain to me why Iain Duncan Smith was sacked and replaced by Michael Howard?
Why do Platform 10 and The Times newspaper, both loyal to David Cameron and modernisation, suggest a vote for the Liberal Democrats in the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election?
Could you please show me where to find further details of the YOUGOV poll? Personally, I am very suspicious of opinion polls. How many people were asked? I prefer to look at general election results. In 2005, Labour won 9,552,436 votes. The Conservatives won 8,784,915 votes. UKIP won 605,973 votes. If the Conservative Party had a policy of leaving the EU, UKIP would have disbanded and the Tories would have won many more seats, not only that, many UKIP campaigners would have fought hard to convince new voters to switch to the Conservative Party.
In 1992 John Major won 14 million votes but in 1997 he won only 9,600,943. If you look at the numbers, only about 1,200,000 voters could have switched from Tory to Labour, leaving about 4 million voters who either voted for an anti-EU party or stayed at home. 13 million voters were happy to vote for Thatcher, so please tell me what changed? Did 4 million voters leave due to a lack of modernisation? If so they could have voted Labour or Liberal Democrat. Perhaps Maastricht had something to do with it? The story from 1997 to 2010 is of Tories staying at home. Why would they stay at home rather than vote Tory?
Andrew @ 19. Thanks for the comments. Like Nick, I have enjoyed reading your pieces on Con Home as well as your reports when you were at Policy Exchange.
As far as not talking about the economy is concerned, I don’t think this was a failure of the Tory modernisers, I think it was a failure of the entire political class. For too long we swallowed the nonsense that manufacturing (particularly niche and hi-tech manufacturing) didn’t matter and we were happy to be over-dependent on a financial services sector based in the South East and the City of London. The result of that folly is now clear for all to see. The effects of not being able to answer or even ask the questions, ‘how do we compete in the next 5, 10 or 20 years’ and ‘what kind of economy do we want and how do we achieve that’ are now clearly visible. We are now playing catch up in terms of creating a balanced economy, which can compete in a highly skilled global marketplace.
Having said that, the economy, along with immigration and public service reform, was the major issue in last year’s election. We failed to win an overall majority outright because enough people were not convinced that we had changed. That is the message that I heard on the doorstep as a candidate. We had failed to do enough to appeal to the floating voters, who still had back of their mind concerns about what a Tory Government might mean. We also failed to build a compelling narrative, so that the average voter was unable to say, “me and my family will be better off if we vote Tory because…”
As Phil Cowley said as part of his analysis of the 2010 election:
“Finally – and most importantly, in terms of the debate about the party’s future – there is the claim that the campaign was not Right-wing enough. Look at the votes that leaked to Ukip, say some of those who wanted a more muscular approach: it enjoyed the best ever performance by a fourth party.
It is here that critics of the Cameron approach are in danger of misreading the public. For sure, Ukip cost the Tories votes. But minor parties are now part of political life, and hurt the other parties as well.
Much more significantly, the party’s own polling found a lingering distrust of the Conservatives among the public. When those who had considered voting Tory were asked why they had not eventually done so, the most common answers involved concerns that the party was still for the rich rather than for ordinary people, or about spending cuts and the removal of benefits such as tax credits.
The marginal constituencies where the Conservative failed to break through, and which they needed to win an overall majority, were those in Scotland or with large numbers of ethnic minority voters or public-sector workers, or all three.. It is difficult to argue that the best way to appeal to them in future will be to move the party back to the Right.”
One of the lingering after-effects of the Thatcherite policies of the 80s was to lose Tory seats in much of the North of England and in Scotland, making it much harder for us to win a majority outright. It is very hard to see how the mainstream Conservatism that you and Con Home are advocating will help us win the marginal constituencies that we need to win an overall majority.
Regarding your point @9, it is interesting that you say ‘mainstream Conservatism’ is about a broader offering than the Cameroon one, rather than an alternative to an agenda apparently forced upon us by the Liberals, as is suggested by other ‘mainstream Conservative’ commentators.
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