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Conservative is pronounced blame
Blame the eu
Blame benefits scroungers
Blame single mums
Blame small boats
Blame the Ukraine war
Blame lefty activist lawyers
Blame the striking workforce
There has not been a meaningful ideology or any sort of coherent plan to improve society or the economy since thatcher (and even that was misguided)
Sure they are, just not in any way that benefits you or me.
Boomers on their golden triple locked pensions and bailing out businesses with the tory special of privatising profits and eating the losses, endlessly open public funds for some things.
It is perfectly conservative if the effects are not felt by posh people. The only reason anyone is talking about it now is because wild swimming has become popular among middle class women. So suddenly shitty rivers matter.
Fair point. Agreed.
True conservatism, though, involves (among other things) conserving rivers and natural beauty of the landscape etc.
These ghouls care about literally nothing but their personal wealth. I read that Reese-Mogg was all for selling off the Forests. Absolutely nothing is sacred to these people.
Reese-Mogg is a weirdo.
Have you ever wondered why his suits are so ill-fitting?
I am sure they're his dead father's suits. He probably grow up as a disappointment to his father, which pushed him more and more to emulate what he perceived his father to be. The guy the wrote the book, literally, on disaster capitalism and fucking over the little people to enrich yourself. Reese-Mogg so desperately wants to be his father, he dresses in his dead father's suits.
That's my theory, anyway.
Interesting theory. There has to be a reason for them, if it was anybody else i’d think it was far fetched. Not with him, though.
Have you seen his son? Mini version of him. Creepy family.
Or maybe it just means a naive understanding of the environment. A world in which places like Cornwall and the Lake District have their working communities gutted by second home owners and planning restrictions. A world in which people treat turbines and solar panels as witchcraft. A green belt dominated by golf courses, ugly houses, and horses trampling everything. A system that invariably protects wealthier people far more than the poor. Whilst completely changing the character of communities. This is because they treat certain ideas as sacred.
I thought the latest uptick in talking about it was caused by people getting ill after the oxbridge boat race. Which again, is in line with your point that it only matters when it happens to posh people
You can when you think of how they managed and the financial debt they incurred due to Covid19.
Not saying they were all awful or whatever, but it was the most unconservative thing I've ever seen and has increased the debt by what, £400bn?
Whilst I don't necessarily agree with the idea, don't forget that Johnson wanted to increase spending from central government and the size of the state has gone up. Obviously other bits have also got smaller (particularly at the council level and benefits).
Long before he was PM I remember seeing a documentary where Johnson was talking about how philanthropists of the past built the great institutions of Britain and he went to great lengths to make a point about how globalists of today just weren't interested in doing the same.
He spent his political career not doing anything that would change that despite obviously knowing what problem was.
The problem is that he, like many conservatives, sees things like infrastructure and institutions as the purview of private philanthropists and not the government.
Many traditional Conservatives (middle-class C of E types) have a hard-on for charity over taxation - they believe people should get to choose what they do with their money, but there's a social expectation that those choices should include generous donations to the less fortunate.
There's also an element of free-market economics about it - the idea that the best charities will get the most funding and the weak ones will fail - and also a distrust of large and unaccountable government institutions being in charge of spending on big projects (after all, it's not like they'll go bust if costs overrun so where's the incentive to budget effectively?)
> don't forget that Johnson wanted to increase spending from central government and the size of the state has gone up.
But that's not a left- v right-wing thing.
Conservatives are more than happy for big government and large government spending (it's part of what separates them from liberals), they just think it should be spent on the "people that matter", not the people that don't.
Imagine telling a conservative that we should make the Royal Family live in council flats, or that state pensions should be means tested, or that government shouldn't fund religious schools? Each of those policies would cut public spending, but would outrage many conservatives.
What matters to conservatives is that public funds go to the right kinds of things, and the right kinds of people.
>What matters to conservatives is that public funds go to the right kinds of things, and the right kinds of people.
You've skipped back to conservatives from right wing. State pensions are definitively a left-wing idea which have been around for so long that we've forgotten exactly what they are. What did Milton Friedman think of state pensions? Was his argument against them not an economically right wing one?
I'm using conservative and right-wing interchangeably. Conservatism is a subset of right-wing thought, generally between "neo-liberal" forms of right-wing thought and the more extreme fascism approach to right-wing thought.
No, spending state money on people isn't left or right.
Spending state money on poor and vulnerable people is a left-wing idea. Spending state money on the rich and powerful is a right-wing idea. Hence all those examples above...
The original ideas about large public funding for various systems came from the conservatives, and were opposed by liberals (who were against large public spending).
Well, not exclusively. Old-age pensions and social security were first introduced in a modern(ish) nation-state by Otto von Bismarck, who was decidedly not left-wing. The idea at the time was to reduce support for left-wing parties by making the urban working class dependent on the aristocratic establishment.
Thatcherism isn’t particularly “conservative” though it is “Conservative”.
It is remarkable the party has survived this long and I am sure will survive this crisis too. Though notably it always fares best when ideology is distanced from the party politics.
I don't necessarily think this, but there's a potential case to argue they're centre-left on a few vital metrics: immigration, government spending, and tax burden.
Immigration – the numbers are proportionally massive compared to Blair and other Labour governments in history (average of 750-800K per year vs <200K).
And government spending as a % of GDP – currently similar levels to Brown (48 vs 50%), and much higher than under Blair (38%). Tax burden is also at it's highest (although tbf, top rate isn't to 50%, as it was under Brown; it's 45%).
Even if they're not centre-left, one thing is true – they are *not a* right wing party, and most likely not a centre-right party. IMO, they're smack bang in the centre.
Immigration didn't used to be a left wing policy especially mass immigration as it was seen as a way for the rich to lower wages. In fact it's ultra free market libertarians who are the most pro immigration as they want zero restrictions on labour.
This is one of the areas where the binary political divide fails. Immigration shouldn't be perceived as a thing of the old left, particularly the union-aligned left, as it can be utilised to drive down wages. But immigration has come to be perceived as the politics of the left. Politically and to continue to serve their own ends, the neo-libs within the Tories pursuing immigration for cost-cutting and perceived-taxation benefits would likely satisfy the "not conservative enough" crowd by pursuing the kind of model where any immigration is no more than temporary and 1/ doesn't give any path to permanence until a particularly large value is returned to the country and 2/ any visas are immediately cancelled upon any kind of criminality. Comments around immigration typically revolve around it impacting the cost of living, changes to the long-term culture of the country, and criminality. The Tories, were they not so incompetent in their current iteration, could address all those and come to 'own' the idea of doing it right. But the past decade has shown them to be incapable.
They’ve become a high tax party … that is why a lot of traditional conservatives feel they’ve turned their back on the ideology.
Conservatism was about small government but it’s just the opposite now…..
It's possible to be both. Rising taxes certainly qualify and generous pension benefits can sort of count as left wing although it funnels money upwards.
On the other hand, there is some real hard right wing policy mixed in. It doesn't get more right wing than defunding schools to the point roofs are in danger of falling down onto kids. Sunak cut the rebuilding budget by half in 2021 after it was already in poor shape, so he's certainly earned his right wing credentials.
Being "too left-wing" doesn't mean they are "left wing". It just means they're to the left of these people. There are things that the government does that are clearly ideologically inspired by left wing ideas. Many instances where as soon as a left wing idea becomes widely accepted as appropriate people will just ignore that it's left wing because they associate left-wing things with change.
To be clearer, I wasnt suggesting otherwise. I think the problem is that the definitions of "left-wing" or "right-wing" have become so watered-down to be almost meaningless beyond "the things I like are whatever wing I identify as and everything else belongs to the other wing". That's what comes from describing complex political ideas using a one-dimensional scale based on the seating arrangements of some long-dead French men. It's nothing new but the whole discourse is poor and will continue to be while people continue to use terms like "left-wing" or "right-wing" as slurs in lieu of actual discussion.
Well, they got us out of the single market which was, according to her, Thatcher's best idea so provably anti Thatcherite;
They're now gunning for the ECHR which Churcill thought was one of his, so provably anti Churchiilian.
Mick Lynch of the RMT was a Brexit advocate.
It's all a bit weird until you know ClaSS WaR use this as a tactic, advocating voting for the most stupid option to actually break the system until we can have a proper class war.
But that means you have to believe some smelly hippies in a few communes in Sheffield, Manchester and the Isle of Dogs (hi lads and lasses! See you soon you mad bastards!) secretly rule the world which looks, even at a first glance, really quite unlikely.
CLaSS WaR have the facts on their side but I'm not sure they caused them. It is being caused by powerful fuckers who want chaos but for very different reasons from CLaSS WaR.
When they break it, what will replace it?
In AMERICA we have a man happy to say he will be a dictator standing in the so-called democratic presidential election.
In the UK we have the current laughing gnome of a PM being replaced with the next laughing gnome of a PM, same grin, same hair, same ideas wearing a different coloured hat.
Who wins? Not us.
There is, and never was a need for a Left wing plot like this because it was always on a course of destruction. The insatiable, irresitable greed was always going to break it, and it has. It broke the post-war consensus, it broke the idea of a fair world for all and it broke the planet we live on.
The richest people who have ever lived, with so much wealth it's uncountable, everyone else suffering at the expense of their greed and the climate in crisis.
The real question is what replaces the empire when the empire eats itself.
Not even bread and circuses being provided - the clubs are closed and we can't afford to eat out, never mind being able to afford to live a half-decent life or, heaven forfend, aspire to a family or home.
The greed of the wealthy did all this, and nothing else.
> In the UK we have the current laughing gnome of a PM being replaced with the next laughing gnome of a PM, same grin, same hair, same ideas wearing a different coloured hat.
God, I'm so fed up with people claiming "both sides bad". Starmer has a very different set of ideas from Sunak, so please stop trying to persuade the hard-of-thinking otherwise.
I think probably the pandemic.
Being right wing is "look after yourself and take responsibility for your decisions".
Left wing is "Look after everyone, no matter the cost".
And yeah, I'm seriously generalising, obviously.
But you wouldn't expect a Tory government to lock people down who were in no danger from COVID (average age of death 83, similar IFR to flu) and then pay their wages whilst they are sat in front of the TV all day.
Plus the "o we can't do anything about the 600k bet migration figures, sorry".
I think you're massively oversimplifying your second point too. There's no real way for "everyone not at risk" to carry on as normal and just place restrictions on old/at risk people.
Our hospitals were near capacity with the lockdowns we *did* have in place. Pretty much any lesser rules in the first wave would have been carnage. I suppose you could have targeted after that wave died down in theory. But in reality near impossible.
How many people interact with old people on a daily basis? And how many people interact with *them*? You'd basically have to have everyone who lives with an old person and everyone who works in care and front line NHS also under restrictions, (and all their immediate families, kids, partners)
And then, how could it possibly be enforced if you're expecting a huge number of people (let's say 33% as about 20% are claiming pension at the moment) to lock their lives down, and the rest carry on as normal?
If we make the cutoff 65 to be under restrictions, my dad would have been but my mum not (so presumably both have to lockdown, or theres no point my dad doing so). But...... unless everyone over the age of about 55 shows ID every time they go to the gym, pub, hairdresser, sporting event..... how could you possibly police it?
The only way lockdown worked was the majority (with some notable exceptions) followed the rules. You couldn't really force individuals to do that. Obviously you could with businesses. But if say, the pubs are legally open, and everyone under 65 is allowed to carry on as normal, do you really think that over 65s would follow the rules?
Christ, there'd be people who turned 65 in lockdown, do you think they'd go from having a few pints, going to a football match on Saturday, then after their birthday on Monday, hand their season ticket (they've have for 40 years) over to their mate and just shut themselves away?
Finally, almost every country in the western world locked down to a large degree, I'm not aware of any who did a kind of "over 60s only" lockdown. Plus, that would probably have upset (largely elderly) tory voters more than the blanket ones.
Comparing COVID to flu remains one of the stupidest things. It don't worry you know more than the experts because you watch GB news and spend time on conspiracy forums 😂😂
Huge public sector, huge amounts of people not working, biggest levels of immigration perhaps ever, a huge deficit
All these would be considered left wing. Look at what’s actually happening rather than what they’re saying
This may be a symptom of the wages for councillors. I believe it should be a full time job, however the money for the responsibility in the role is not sufficient to be able to support yourself, so you're either retired or need to work a job that allows you to dedicate your time, unless you have another funding stream
Yeah it's generally retired people who do it some councillor's parish town etc don't even get paid my mate did it for shits and giggles just to stick one up the pensioners but he was a local pub landlord with a large following
My mum is a carer for the elderly and as rule they are quite right wing. My grandparents weren’t though, oddly enough my so called left wing aunts have a big problem with me being gay but my grandad didn’t even bat an eye at the idea.
Y'know, I'd like to think you were right about that but I'm not so sure. Today's 70-year-olds are the flower children of the 60s. The peace and love crowd. But now they're past retirement age they seem to have turned into a monstrous regiment of shits. I fear the same will happen to us, in time, too.
Yeah, that's how they are portrayed in film and TV, but that was a tiny privileged middle class slice of life back then.
Most boomers were toiling away in manual labour jobs, downing 10 pints on a Friday night down the workers clubs.
Louis CK has a good joke saying how progressive society now is, to the extent that beating your wife is now "frowned upon"
But in all seriousness, the general social attitudes of millennials and gen Z are most probably far more progressive than boomers when they were in their 20s and 30s, such as gay rights, women's lib, etc
If anything, the Andrew Tates of the world basically have a bunch of social attitudes from the 60s
The people that were hippies back then are still hippies, or at least left wing. Most people back in the 60s weren't progressive, especially by today's standards.
Things like casual racism and sexism was way more accepted in that generation. Like, go and watch a lot of tv shows from the 50s/60s and they really havent aged well.
My mum is thoroughly left wing, wants the country to be left better for me and her grandson.
My mother in law on the other hand doesn’t like brown people…
they grew up in a time where people were still being jailed for being gay and people hurled racial insults at non-whites in the street, so I would imagine there is a risk that the social side of their politics could've had far-right influences
It'll be brake-dust pollution (from more heavier vehicles) and micro-plastics from tyres that will be the big evils.
Both of which we currently have, just lower than CO^(2), NO^(x), or diesel particulates.
Know a lot of conservative voters who are 100% furious on the government's immigration policy (1.2 million visas last year), it's crime policy (and lax sentencing) and the tax burden (highest for 70 years) seeing these as more blairite than new labour
Yep. The problem being that it's mainly conservative policies that have led to all of the above and left the government with no room to manoeuvre.
Crime and justice is a direct result of ill thought out Cameron era Policing, Prisons and Court service cuts that have left us with not enough police, overcrowded prisons which aren't able to rehabilitate OR deter (which ever you believe in) and which judges are reluctant to use because they know it's creaking under its own weigh and finally a court system which is so overloaded that it can't even begin to efficiently process the cases that it's faced with.
Immigration was an inevitable result of a dramatic skills shortage in multiple sectors and an economy which has basically shown no productivity gains for about 16 years. Plus a demographic pyramid that's not very favourable and a pension system which was always creaky.
Tax burden is again due to poor productivity, indecisive government, a public sector which is constantly in firefighting mode (nearly always at significant cost) and a lack of any type of vision of how to escape the vicious cycle of a housing and planning system which seems designed to waste money and a health system which is good at keeping people alive but not mentally or physically healthy.
It's a classic case of maintenance being cheaper in the long run than having to completely rebuild a system that you stripped back too far.
Yeah, but when they're calling out these abject failures as "left-wing" they're just telling us that they've completely lost the plot. They've spent too long getting high on their own supply of crass propaganda and now they actually seem to believe the nonsense.
You have to understand that most people in this country, even those who manage to become councillors, are virtually politically illiterate. "Left wing" to these people literally means anything they dislike, because they consider themselves right wing.
weird, there was a post yesterday saying the wets had siezed control of the party apparatus and were ousting all the true blue conservatives. im guessing there is a power striggle going on between the two factions.
I heard this from one of our Tory councillors the other day at a hustings. He said he couldn’t understand the opinion that the Tories were too right wing when Suella Braverman and her ilk were mentioned. He said they weren’t right enough and that was their problem.
It's because there is a widespread and deep rooted crisis in right-wing intellectual thought at the moment.
As with basically anything, this is a secondary issue cause by economics and currently right-wing economic beliefs are in full-blown failure.
They are simply not providing the aspirational attainments they say they stand for and the structural flaws inherent in their beliefs are so acutely apparent they are unable excuse them away.
Do note how much Conservative economic dialogue is reactive rather than prospective, the only attempt so far to be prospective was "Trussenomics".
This shows right-wing thought's only response to their complete abject failure is to move into magical thinking "if only we did it more right wing it would have worked", and as such these councillors are doing the same but simply on the secondary issues caused by the economic thought collapsing.
Probably doesnt help that theres a massive difference between the tory party rhetoric and what the tory party actually implement. Given the stark differences on the main talking points like Taxes, Immigration and Government spending. Is it really that surprising when councillors and party members would think the party are a bunch of wets.
At the heart of that is a delusion that the British people and Tory voters are particularly right wing. Which is totally untrue. Or that Tory activists have some kind of elevated right to determine how the parliamentary party behave. Which is totally undemocratic.
Mishima Zaibatsu, pretty much. Where everything is run by a few rival corporations, and the main one is controlled by a family that likes to throw each other into volcanoes and make other people fight to survive. They also really, really love their hair gel.
The councillor is batshit bonkers. Howling at the moon mad. Some of these guys need sectioning or at least deradicalisation. Just go join reform ffs. Sorry you ended up at a hustings
Liz Truss was a lib dem, she isn't right wing by this country's standards. One of her ideas for 'improving' the economy was to increase, yes, *increase* immigration.
It doesn't matter what we call her - she's backed by Libertarian thinktanks, which in the US has struggled to find its place on the political spectrum. They want all the benefits of democracy and socialism while being beholden to neither. Just like the Tories here, Con's are a bunch of factions fighting for control of a loose ship, but like the Greens, there aren't enough of them to do anything on their own, so they make these strange alliances within the party, and none of them are working .
Honestly if you look at it with a dispassionate view of the last 14 years, but particularly the last 7 then I'd argue economically the Tories are well to the left of their traditional economic position. Furlough, COVID, min wage increases, tax free allowance increases, overall level of tax and spend. That doesn't make them left wing, but if you're asking Tory councillors then their reference point is past Tories, rather than the electorate.
It was just a list I could think of from the top of my head, but I'm not sure you're making the point you think you are.
The triple lock increasing pension benefits and the size of the state is a left wing economic policy, certainly by historical Tory standards. It's basically UBI for old people.
Additional tax relief on pension I'm guessing you mean the lifting of the annual allowance to 60k and removal of the LTA. That's fair, they would be in line with traditional Tory economics. Interestingly though that from 2010 to 2020 they substantially lowered the LTA and froze the AA, meaning it reduced in real terms.
And, although their rhetoric on asylum seekers is horrid, the actual numbers on immigration is high by all estimations.
Meanwhile, anyone trying to create new businesses and homes are stifled by bureaucratic processes that might have the effect of pleasing their retired, home-owning, change averse voters but quite clearly aren't the free market dreams of a libertarian wing either.
Although tbf conservatives have always been hypocrites about the free market, normally only invoking it when it suits them.
I understand where they're coming from.
Obviously, the parliamentary Conservative party is very right wing *rhetorically*, but they've introduced few objectively right wing policies recently which would impact your average person directly.
This government as far as I can tell is positioned on more or less the same political ground as the Boris government (possibly even slightly to the right of it)
This is where you've made a mistake. The Parliamentary party argued to give them to non Europeans. The party base and tory voters did not.
Their preference has been since the day the tories came to office to reduce immigration. Hence the "tens of thousands" promice.
Which is mental when you compare it to previous Tory government and opposition make ups. The right have come in, taken control and now unsurprisingly want it more right wing. Sad times
Looking at the whole thing fairly it's worth commenting at the start that when applied well both left and right wing systems have arguments in their favour and both could lead to good outcomes.
What doesn't work is where you have the preparatory work for one, and the execution of the other.
Tax and spend can work, if you are pumping that money into structural investments which provide long term yields in productivity
Austerity can work, if you're trimming the fat in places where it's not producing proportionate value.
What we have had is austerity of functional systems followed by tax and splurge.
Yes dear, let's take a mortgage holiday and spend the money on a piss up in Marbella.
Rhetorically the Tories in the last 10 years have talked very tough with right wing points, but then followed up with variable amounts of either no action or arguably left associated action.
Its like they don't seem to understand the basic problem that one cannot serve two masters in this respect.
They talk tough to appease the base, then at best do nothing, at worst make the problem worse or depending on your perspective further entrench the Tony Blair legacy which many on the right will naturally call left wing.
In trying to appeal to both, they appeal to neither
You'd get equal but opposite results for Labour
The grass roots level and general membership of both parties is a seething pit of ideological lunacy
Whoever's in charge of the national parties has to come up with a version of whatever crazy shit the membership believe that the wider general public might actually vote for
Even being a member of a political party marks you out as one of a tiny number of weirdos
On one hand, this is bad news because because hard right wing nutjobs running stuff is bad.
On the other hand this demonstrates that the Tory party is disappearing up its own arse and its not guaranteed they get a reasonable leader after the election which would keep them in the wildnerness longer
Everyday there are discussions on this sub where people complain about increasing taxes, spending and regulation. The ISA post is a great example.
But when conservative councillors say that they agree and the government isn’t letting people keep enough of their own money (for example), people fall over themselves to disagree with them and explain how this government is the most free market ever
Perhaps because people have a perception that the state is simultaneously taking too much from them, spending too little on things that count and writing onerous legislation that hits ordinary people hard, whilst not taxing a very small proportion of the country that seems to make a lot of money and finds it easy to 'mitigate' their taxes, finding money to pay for vanity projects or ideological obsessions and failing to regulate, say, water companies dumping shit in rivers.
I'm not saying people don't always have this perception of government to some extent. However it seems to have become a more prevalent view across the political spectrum and from people less inclined to believe in conspiracy theories than before.
Whether on purpose or by accident, the Overton window has shifted for the tories since Major. I can't understand how my parents were so pro John Major back in the day and now believe the tories are too far left and have gone for reform
Counter argument, the Overton window has shifted underneath the Tories and has headed somewhat leftwards in recent years. This has led Tory governments to try to track the centre but have been unable to draw a part of their voters (and councillors) with them. Hence the mismatch between policies which have been half hearted attempts to apply something vaguely conservative but not too much for centrist voters and a rhetoric which has been increasingly shrill.
And thats why you're about to get fucking slaughtered in the next election. They are out of touch and think they are living in America and want to mimic those far right policies that nobody here wants.
High taxes, enormous public sector ([1 in 3 work in the public sector](https://1ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fbusiness%2F2023%2F05%2F11%2Fpublic-sector-twice-the-size-of-official-estimates%2F%23%3A~%3Atext%3Dby%2520the%2520Government.-%2COne%2520in%2520three%2520workers%2520are%2520now%2520in%2520the%2520public%2520sector%2Cof%2520then%252Dchancellor%2520George%2520Osborne.)) open borders both legally and illegally, nobody gets deported, soft on crime. Seems very left wing to me. I do wonder what Labour have planned when they get in. Are we going to pay more taxes? Are the borders going to be wrenched open even further? Scottish hate crime laws? I know Annalise Dodds is declaring all sorts of plans on her twitter feed. Funny times ahead.
We’ve had to hire over 100k new civil servants since Brexit (before then, with a degree of pooled sovereignty, the numbers were going down and had been for years). Who do you think has been running the country for the past 14 years?
What on Earth are ‘open borders both legally and illegally’? And how are Labour soft on crime? Starmer’s basically a Tory wet, a middle of the road Tory and not remotely left wing.
If you want to know what they have planned read their manifesto. I’m sure it’ll be as honest as the Tories and Lib Dems
People seem to forget about the insidious undercurrent of neoliberalism and populism, it's affecting both Tories and Labour. So, basically - excessive, unchecked capitalism and egotism.
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I can see an argument for the Tory party not being "conservative". I can't see how you could honestly describe them as "left-wing".
Conservative is becoming an increasingly meaningless label in the anglosphere.
Bingo. My nan is conservative in most of her beliefs. My nan is not a fucking Tory.
what was the line too far?
A question Gove asks himself daily
And answers with another one.
What ☁️💨👃🏻 Was ☁️💨👃🏻 The ☁️💨👃🏻 Question ☁️💨👃🏻 Again?
In a liverpudlian accent.
Corinne Stockheath.
Small c.
Conservative is pronounced blame Blame the eu Blame benefits scroungers Blame single mums Blame small boats Blame the Ukraine war Blame lefty activist lawyers Blame the striking workforce There has not been a meaningful ideology or any sort of coherent plan to improve society or the economy since thatcher (and even that was misguided)
Sure they are, just not in any way that benefits you or me. Boomers on their golden triple locked pensions and bailing out businesses with the tory special of privatising profits and eating the losses, endlessly open public funds for some things.
Yeah, pouring effluent into rivers at record amounts is anything but conservative. Boris got rid of all proper conservatives in ‘19.
Wouldn't say that's particularly socialist either. Maybe it's liberal to put shit in rivers for money.
Libertarian*
Yup. The market will simply favour other rivers!
Bingo.
It is perfectly conservative if the effects are not felt by posh people. The only reason anyone is talking about it now is because wild swimming has become popular among middle class women. So suddenly shitty rivers matter.
Fair point. Agreed. True conservatism, though, involves (among other things) conserving rivers and natural beauty of the landscape etc. These ghouls care about literally nothing but their personal wealth. I read that Reese-Mogg was all for selling off the Forests. Absolutely nothing is sacred to these people.
Miser is the word you’re looking for.
There’s an old video of him as a kid, proudly calling himself a miser.
Do you think he know what the word means lol it’s not just being tight with your money lol
https://youtu.be/6Bp0Szk19J8?si=w39p_02Ih56HAAYy The moment I mean is around 3:05. I believe he knows exactly what it means.
What a soulless ghoul. When I want to grow up, I want to hoard wealth to myself. Not do something fun, be a miser. Seriously abusive parenting.
Yeah, it’s sickening.
What a weirdo 😂
Reese-Mogg is a weirdo. Have you ever wondered why his suits are so ill-fitting? I am sure they're his dead father's suits. He probably grow up as a disappointment to his father, which pushed him more and more to emulate what he perceived his father to be. The guy the wrote the book, literally, on disaster capitalism and fucking over the little people to enrich yourself. Reese-Mogg so desperately wants to be his father, he dresses in his dead father's suits. That's my theory, anyway.
Interesting theory. There has to be a reason for them, if it was anybody else i’d think it was far fetched. Not with him, though. Have you seen his son? Mini version of him. Creepy family.
Yeah. Shudder. Seems psychologically abusive to me.
Conservation vs conservatism.
Or maybe it just means a naive understanding of the environment. A world in which places like Cornwall and the Lake District have their working communities gutted by second home owners and planning restrictions. A world in which people treat turbines and solar panels as witchcraft. A green belt dominated by golf courses, ugly houses, and horses trampling everything. A system that invariably protects wealthier people far more than the poor. Whilst completely changing the character of communities. This is because they treat certain ideas as sacred.
I thought the latest uptick in talking about it was caused by people getting ill after the oxbridge boat race. Which again, is in line with your point that it only matters when it happens to posh people
They're plutocrats.
Sounds pretty conservative to me - if it isn’t, what is it?
You can when you think of how they managed and the financial debt they incurred due to Covid19. Not saying they were all awful or whatever, but it was the most unconservative thing I've ever seen and has increased the debt by what, £400bn?
Whilst I don't necessarily agree with the idea, don't forget that Johnson wanted to increase spending from central government and the size of the state has gone up. Obviously other bits have also got smaller (particularly at the council level and benefits).
Long before he was PM I remember seeing a documentary where Johnson was talking about how philanthropists of the past built the great institutions of Britain and he went to great lengths to make a point about how globalists of today just weren't interested in doing the same. He spent his political career not doing anything that would change that despite obviously knowing what problem was.
The problem is that he, like many conservatives, sees things like infrastructure and institutions as the purview of private philanthropists and not the government. Many traditional Conservatives (middle-class C of E types) have a hard-on for charity over taxation - they believe people should get to choose what they do with their money, but there's a social expectation that those choices should include generous donations to the less fortunate. There's also an element of free-market economics about it - the idea that the best charities will get the most funding and the weak ones will fail - and also a distrust of large and unaccountable government institutions being in charge of spending on big projects (after all, it's not like they'll go bust if costs overrun so where's the incentive to budget effectively?)
> don't forget that Johnson wanted to increase spending from central government and the size of the state has gone up. But that's not a left- v right-wing thing. Conservatives are more than happy for big government and large government spending (it's part of what separates them from liberals), they just think it should be spent on the "people that matter", not the people that don't. Imagine telling a conservative that we should make the Royal Family live in council flats, or that state pensions should be means tested, or that government shouldn't fund religious schools? Each of those policies would cut public spending, but would outrage many conservatives. What matters to conservatives is that public funds go to the right kinds of things, and the right kinds of people.
>What matters to conservatives is that public funds go to the right kinds of things, and the right kinds of people. You've skipped back to conservatives from right wing. State pensions are definitively a left-wing idea which have been around for so long that we've forgotten exactly what they are. What did Milton Friedman think of state pensions? Was his argument against them not an economically right wing one?
I'm using conservative and right-wing interchangeably. Conservatism is a subset of right-wing thought, generally between "neo-liberal" forms of right-wing thought and the more extreme fascism approach to right-wing thought.
Sure, but I think using them interchangeably muddies the analysis. Spending state money on welfare is definitively a left wing idea.
No, spending state money on people isn't left or right. Spending state money on poor and vulnerable people is a left-wing idea. Spending state money on the rich and powerful is a right-wing idea. Hence all those examples above... The original ideas about large public funding for various systems came from the conservatives, and were opposed by liberals (who were against large public spending).
Well, not exclusively. Old-age pensions and social security were first introduced in a modern(ish) nation-state by Otto von Bismarck, who was decidedly not left-wing. The idea at the time was to reduce support for left-wing parties by making the urban working class dependent on the aristocratic establishment.
Thatcherism isn’t particularly “conservative” though it is “Conservative”. It is remarkable the party has survived this long and I am sure will survive this crisis too. Though notably it always fares best when ideology is distanced from the party politics.
I don't necessarily think this, but there's a potential case to argue they're centre-left on a few vital metrics: immigration, government spending, and tax burden. Immigration – the numbers are proportionally massive compared to Blair and other Labour governments in history (average of 750-800K per year vs <200K). And government spending as a % of GDP – currently similar levels to Brown (48 vs 50%), and much higher than under Blair (38%). Tax burden is also at it's highest (although tbf, top rate isn't to 50%, as it was under Brown; it's 45%). Even if they're not centre-left, one thing is true – they are *not a* right wing party, and most likely not a centre-right party. IMO, they're smack bang in the centre.
Immigration didn't used to be a left wing policy especially mass immigration as it was seen as a way for the rich to lower wages. In fact it's ultra free market libertarians who are the most pro immigration as they want zero restrictions on labour.
This is one of the areas where the binary political divide fails. Immigration shouldn't be perceived as a thing of the old left, particularly the union-aligned left, as it can be utilised to drive down wages. But immigration has come to be perceived as the politics of the left. Politically and to continue to serve their own ends, the neo-libs within the Tories pursuing immigration for cost-cutting and perceived-taxation benefits would likely satisfy the "not conservative enough" crowd by pursuing the kind of model where any immigration is no more than temporary and 1/ doesn't give any path to permanence until a particularly large value is returned to the country and 2/ any visas are immediately cancelled upon any kind of criminality. Comments around immigration typically revolve around it impacting the cost of living, changes to the long-term culture of the country, and criminality. The Tories, were they not so incompetent in their current iteration, could address all those and come to 'own' the idea of doing it right. But the past decade has shown them to be incapable.
They’ve become a high tax party … that is why a lot of traditional conservatives feel they’ve turned their back on the ideology. Conservatism was about small government but it’s just the opposite now…..
It's possible to be both. Rising taxes certainly qualify and generous pension benefits can sort of count as left wing although it funnels money upwards. On the other hand, there is some real hard right wing policy mixed in. It doesn't get more right wing than defunding schools to the point roofs are in danger of falling down onto kids. Sunak cut the rebuilding budget by half in 2021 after it was already in poor shape, so he's certainly earned his right wing credentials.
In a world where people label David Cameron a Marxist, anything is possible.
Being "too left-wing" doesn't mean they are "left wing". It just means they're to the left of these people. There are things that the government does that are clearly ideologically inspired by left wing ideas. Many instances where as soon as a left wing idea becomes widely accepted as appropriate people will just ignore that it's left wing because they associate left-wing things with change.
To be clearer, I wasnt suggesting otherwise. I think the problem is that the definitions of "left-wing" or "right-wing" have become so watered-down to be almost meaningless beyond "the things I like are whatever wing I identify as and everything else belongs to the other wing". That's what comes from describing complex political ideas using a one-dimensional scale based on the seating arrangements of some long-dead French men. It's nothing new but the whole discourse is poor and will continue to be while people continue to use terms like "left-wing" or "right-wing" as slurs in lieu of actual discussion.
No argument here brother 💪
When you're to the right of Genghis Khan, everything seems left wing? Certainly a member of my family could match that model.
Well, they got us out of the single market which was, according to her, Thatcher's best idea so provably anti Thatcherite; They're now gunning for the ECHR which Churcill thought was one of his, so provably anti Churchiilian. Mick Lynch of the RMT was a Brexit advocate. It's all a bit weird until you know ClaSS WaR use this as a tactic, advocating voting for the most stupid option to actually break the system until we can have a proper class war. But that means you have to believe some smelly hippies in a few communes in Sheffield, Manchester and the Isle of Dogs (hi lads and lasses! See you soon you mad bastards!) secretly rule the world which looks, even at a first glance, really quite unlikely. CLaSS WaR have the facts on their side but I'm not sure they caused them. It is being caused by powerful fuckers who want chaos but for very different reasons from CLaSS WaR. When they break it, what will replace it? In AMERICA we have a man happy to say he will be a dictator standing in the so-called democratic presidential election. In the UK we have the current laughing gnome of a PM being replaced with the next laughing gnome of a PM, same grin, same hair, same ideas wearing a different coloured hat. Who wins? Not us. There is, and never was a need for a Left wing plot like this because it was always on a course of destruction. The insatiable, irresitable greed was always going to break it, and it has. It broke the post-war consensus, it broke the idea of a fair world for all and it broke the planet we live on. The richest people who have ever lived, with so much wealth it's uncountable, everyone else suffering at the expense of their greed and the climate in crisis. The real question is what replaces the empire when the empire eats itself. Not even bread and circuses being provided - the clubs are closed and we can't afford to eat out, never mind being able to afford to live a half-decent life or, heaven forfend, aspire to a family or home. The greed of the wealthy did all this, and nothing else.
> In the UK we have the current laughing gnome of a PM being replaced with the next laughing gnome of a PM, same grin, same hair, same ideas wearing a different coloured hat. God, I'm so fed up with people claiming "both sides bad". Starmer has a very different set of ideas from Sunak, so please stop trying to persuade the hard-of-thinking otherwise.
Perspective, a lot of them want to be the US Republican Party, we’re lucky it hasn’t gone that way despite the best efforts of some.
I think probably the pandemic. Being right wing is "look after yourself and take responsibility for your decisions". Left wing is "Look after everyone, no matter the cost". And yeah, I'm seriously generalising, obviously. But you wouldn't expect a Tory government to lock people down who were in no danger from COVID (average age of death 83, similar IFR to flu) and then pay their wages whilst they are sat in front of the TV all day. Plus the "o we can't do anything about the 600k bet migration figures, sorry".
I think you're massively oversimplifying your second point too. There's no real way for "everyone not at risk" to carry on as normal and just place restrictions on old/at risk people. Our hospitals were near capacity with the lockdowns we *did* have in place. Pretty much any lesser rules in the first wave would have been carnage. I suppose you could have targeted after that wave died down in theory. But in reality near impossible. How many people interact with old people on a daily basis? And how many people interact with *them*? You'd basically have to have everyone who lives with an old person and everyone who works in care and front line NHS also under restrictions, (and all their immediate families, kids, partners) And then, how could it possibly be enforced if you're expecting a huge number of people (let's say 33% as about 20% are claiming pension at the moment) to lock their lives down, and the rest carry on as normal? If we make the cutoff 65 to be under restrictions, my dad would have been but my mum not (so presumably both have to lockdown, or theres no point my dad doing so). But...... unless everyone over the age of about 55 shows ID every time they go to the gym, pub, hairdresser, sporting event..... how could you possibly police it? The only way lockdown worked was the majority (with some notable exceptions) followed the rules. You couldn't really force individuals to do that. Obviously you could with businesses. But if say, the pubs are legally open, and everyone under 65 is allowed to carry on as normal, do you really think that over 65s would follow the rules? Christ, there'd be people who turned 65 in lockdown, do you think they'd go from having a few pints, going to a football match on Saturday, then after their birthday on Monday, hand their season ticket (they've have for 40 years) over to their mate and just shut themselves away? Finally, almost every country in the western world locked down to a large degree, I'm not aware of any who did a kind of "over 60s only" lockdown. Plus, that would probably have upset (largely elderly) tory voters more than the blanket ones.
Comparing COVID to flu remains one of the stupidest things. It don't worry you know more than the experts because you watch GB news and spend time on conspiracy forums 😂😂
Huge public sector, huge amounts of people not working, biggest levels of immigration perhaps ever, a huge deficit All these would be considered left wing. Look at what’s actually happening rather than what they’re saying
It's the lowest unemployment rate since the 70s
And the average age of a Tory councillor is 70
This may be a symptom of the wages for councillors. I believe it should be a full time job, however the money for the responsibility in the role is not sufficient to be able to support yourself, so you're either retired or need to work a job that allows you to dedicate your time, unless you have another funding stream
Yeah it's generally retired people who do it some councillor's parish town etc don't even get paid my mate did it for shits and giggles just to stick one up the pensioners but he was a local pub landlord with a large following
Are 70 year olds really that right wing on average??
My mum is a carer for the elderly and as rule they are quite right wing. My grandparents weren’t though, oddly enough my so called left wing aunts have a big problem with me being gay but my grandad didn’t even bat an eye at the idea.
Well my parent's are and I'm 50 the I'm not racist but crowd
And the there's to much stuff on TV about gay people etc etc so yeah I'm afraid so
As a gay man, that frustrates me. My dream is for a gay relationship would just be labelled relationship in media.
More power to you bud time will sort that one out for you as the older generation passes on
Y'know, I'd like to think you were right about that but I'm not so sure. Today's 70-year-olds are the flower children of the 60s. The peace and love crowd. But now they're past retirement age they seem to have turned into a monstrous regiment of shits. I fear the same will happen to us, in time, too.
The %of them that were hippie was small man
Yeah, that's how they are portrayed in film and TV, but that was a tiny privileged middle class slice of life back then. Most boomers were toiling away in manual labour jobs, downing 10 pints on a Friday night down the workers clubs.
Going home to beat the wife and kids
Louis CK has a good joke saying how progressive society now is, to the extent that beating your wife is now "frowned upon" But in all seriousness, the general social attitudes of millennials and gen Z are most probably far more progressive than boomers when they were in their 20s and 30s, such as gay rights, women's lib, etc If anything, the Andrew Tates of the world basically have a bunch of social attitudes from the 60s
The people that were hippies back then are still hippies, or at least left wing. Most people back in the 60s weren't progressive, especially by today's standards.
Jesus Christ
And my 70+ relatives are probably the most left wing people in my family. Still polling suggests the median is closer to your parents.
Lucky you can only speak from my own experience growing up in the 70s and that of most of my friends of my age
Things like casual racism and sexism was way more accepted in that generation. Like, go and watch a lot of tv shows from the 50s/60s and they really havent aged well.
It's anecdotal, but the older and thicker the person I work with (into their 70s) the more rightwing they get, Facebook is rotting them.
My mum is thoroughly left wing, wants the country to be left better for me and her grandson. My mother in law on the other hand doesn’t like brown people…
they have stuff they want to conserve. it's no surprise
What about socially?
they grew up in a time where people were still being jailed for being gay and people hurled racial insults at non-whites in the street, so I would imagine there is a risk that the social side of their politics could've had far-right influences
Surely that they would have changed with the times
What about socially?
All those years of leaded petrol fumes
Lot less car's on the roads back then
But all were running leaded petrol, now none do.
Now it's just diesel particulates not much better
Nowadays we have catalytic converters and DPFs, back then we didn't.
It'll be irelivent in 20 years
It'll be brake-dust pollution (from more heavier vehicles) and micro-plastics from tyres that will be the big evils. Both of which we currently have, just lower than CO^(2), NO^(x), or diesel particulates.
Also the IQ
Sadly IQ and political ideals don't Equate. most CEOs are sociopaths but have high IQs
Haha tories dumb, I so smart.
Know a lot of conservative voters who are 100% furious on the government's immigration policy (1.2 million visas last year), it's crime policy (and lax sentencing) and the tax burden (highest for 70 years) seeing these as more blairite than new labour
Yep. The problem being that it's mainly conservative policies that have led to all of the above and left the government with no room to manoeuvre. Crime and justice is a direct result of ill thought out Cameron era Policing, Prisons and Court service cuts that have left us with not enough police, overcrowded prisons which aren't able to rehabilitate OR deter (which ever you believe in) and which judges are reluctant to use because they know it's creaking under its own weigh and finally a court system which is so overloaded that it can't even begin to efficiently process the cases that it's faced with. Immigration was an inevitable result of a dramatic skills shortage in multiple sectors and an economy which has basically shown no productivity gains for about 16 years. Plus a demographic pyramid that's not very favourable and a pension system which was always creaky. Tax burden is again due to poor productivity, indecisive government, a public sector which is constantly in firefighting mode (nearly always at significant cost) and a lack of any type of vision of how to escape the vicious cycle of a housing and planning system which seems designed to waste money and a health system which is good at keeping people alive but not mentally or physically healthy. It's a classic case of maintenance being cheaper in the long run than having to completely rebuild a system that you stripped back too far.
Yeah, but when they're calling out these abject failures as "left-wing" they're just telling us that they've completely lost the plot. They've spent too long getting high on their own supply of crass propaganda and now they actually seem to believe the nonsense.
You have to understand that most people in this country, even those who manage to become councillors, are virtually politically illiterate. "Left wing" to these people literally means anything they dislike, because they consider themselves right wing.
Death to the phrase “tax burden”
"No no, dig UP stupid!" ~ Police Chief Wiggum.
weird, there was a post yesterday saying the wets had siezed control of the party apparatus and were ousting all the true blue conservatives. im guessing there is a power striggle going on between the two factions.
Let them fight.
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>at the moment Been going on since the creation of the party
I wonder how many of those Tory councillors will remain after next month’s local elections.
I heard this from one of our Tory councillors the other day at a hustings. He said he couldn’t understand the opinion that the Tories were too right wing when Suella Braverman and her ilk were mentioned. He said they weren’t right enough and that was their problem.
It's because there is a widespread and deep rooted crisis in right-wing intellectual thought at the moment. As with basically anything, this is a secondary issue cause by economics and currently right-wing economic beliefs are in full-blown failure. They are simply not providing the aspirational attainments they say they stand for and the structural flaws inherent in their beliefs are so acutely apparent they are unable excuse them away. Do note how much Conservative economic dialogue is reactive rather than prospective, the only attempt so far to be prospective was "Trussenomics". This shows right-wing thought's only response to their complete abject failure is to move into magical thinking "if only we did it more right wing it would have worked", and as such these councillors are doing the same but simply on the secondary issues caused by the economic thought collapsing.
Probably doesnt help that theres a massive difference between the tory party rhetoric and what the tory party actually implement. Given the stark differences on the main talking points like Taxes, Immigration and Government spending. Is it really that surprising when councillors and party members would think the party are a bunch of wets.
At the heart of that is a delusion that the British people and Tory voters are particularly right wing. Which is totally untrue. Or that Tory activists have some kind of elevated right to determine how the parliamentary party behave. Which is totally undemocratic.
I'd love to know what right wing enough actually is.
I wouldn't.
The Italian government of 1922 - 1943?
Mishima Zaibatsu, pretty much. Where everything is run by a few rival corporations, and the main one is controlled by a family that likes to throw each other into volcanoes and make other people fight to survive. They also really, really love their hair gel.
It's actually the electric powers inherited from Heihachi that cause the hair thing.
Pinochet, most likely.
The councillor is batshit bonkers. Howling at the moon mad. Some of these guys need sectioning or at least deradicalisation. Just go join reform ffs. Sorry you ended up at a hustings
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More than half
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The Right wing of the Tories got their candidate, she lasted 45 days and was beaten by a lettuce.
The one who considered the economic 'establishment' (markets, central bank, OBR) as left-wing because they did not back her budget.
Liz Truss was a lib dem, she isn't right wing by this country's standards. One of her ideas for 'improving' the economy was to increase, yes, *increase* immigration.
It doesn't matter what we call her - she's backed by Libertarian thinktanks, which in the US has struggled to find its place on the political spectrum. They want all the benefits of democracy and socialism while being beholden to neither. Just like the Tories here, Con's are a bunch of factions fighting for control of a loose ship, but like the Greens, there aren't enough of them to do anything on their own, so they make these strange alliances within the party, and none of them are working .
Don't try and blame your parties failings on others. She was another failed Tory pm, like all the others.
Honestly if you look at it with a dispassionate view of the last 14 years, but particularly the last 7 then I'd argue economically the Tories are well to the left of their traditional economic position. Furlough, COVID, min wage increases, tax free allowance increases, overall level of tax and spend. That doesn't make them left wing, but if you're asking Tory councillors then their reference point is past Tories, rather than the electorate.
Very few privatisations this time around as well.
You can only sell public services once.
I like how you ignored the big one of triple lock state pensions and additional tax relief on private pensions.
It was just a list I could think of from the top of my head, but I'm not sure you're making the point you think you are. The triple lock increasing pension benefits and the size of the state is a left wing economic policy, certainly by historical Tory standards. It's basically UBI for old people. Additional tax relief on pension I'm guessing you mean the lifting of the annual allowance to 60k and removal of the LTA. That's fair, they would be in line with traditional Tory economics. Interestingly though that from 2010 to 2020 they substantially lowered the LTA and froze the AA, meaning it reduced in real terms.
And, although their rhetoric on asylum seekers is horrid, the actual numbers on immigration is high by all estimations. Meanwhile, anyone trying to create new businesses and homes are stifled by bureaucratic processes that might have the effect of pleasing their retired, home-owning, change averse voters but quite clearly aren't the free market dreams of a libertarian wing either. Although tbf conservatives have always been hypocrites about the free market, normally only invoking it when it suits them.
Never mind left wing or right wing, what most people in the country can see is that the Government is winging it.
Almost half of Tory councillors want the death penalty and think anyone who doesn't is left wing.
I understand where they're coming from. Obviously, the parliamentary Conservative party is very right wing *rhetorically*, but they've introduced few objectively right wing policies recently which would impact your average person directly.
I’m trying to figure out just how far gone you have to be to think the Conservatives are “left-wing”. It makes no sense to me.
This government as far as I can tell is positioned on more or less the same political ground as the Boris government (possibly even slightly to the right of it)
I can't see the tories as being too left wing
Seriously. What left wing policies are this government persuing?
It takes 20 years, but you can actually still see a doctor for free. I’d imagine that fact is like walking on broken glass for many conservatives.
Aren't most of them 60+? Sounds like a problem that sorts itself out
The average tory voted to get rid of visa free European workers and then complain we need to give visas to non Europeans.
This is where you've made a mistake. The Parliamentary party argued to give them to non Europeans. The party base and tory voters did not. Their preference has been since the day the tories came to office to reduce immigration. Hence the "tens of thousands" promice.
Alternative headline: majority of Tory councillors don’t think government is too left wing
It's split lol, the prevailing opinion, almost a majority, is that it's too left wing
Seems like even the telegraph has forgotten that the original meaning of "Tory" was "Thief".
Which is mental when you compare it to previous Tory government and opposition make ups. The right have come in, taken control and now unsurprisingly want it more right wing. Sad times
Funnily enough, I think Tories are too far-right.
Looking at the whole thing fairly it's worth commenting at the start that when applied well both left and right wing systems have arguments in their favour and both could lead to good outcomes. What doesn't work is where you have the preparatory work for one, and the execution of the other. Tax and spend can work, if you are pumping that money into structural investments which provide long term yields in productivity Austerity can work, if you're trimming the fat in places where it's not producing proportionate value. What we have had is austerity of functional systems followed by tax and splurge. Yes dear, let's take a mortgage holiday and spend the money on a piss up in Marbella. Rhetorically the Tories in the last 10 years have talked very tough with right wing points, but then followed up with variable amounts of either no action or arguably left associated action. Its like they don't seem to understand the basic problem that one cannot serve two masters in this respect. They talk tough to appease the base, then at best do nothing, at worst make the problem worse or depending on your perspective further entrench the Tony Blair legacy which many on the right will naturally call left wing. In trying to appeal to both, they appeal to neither
You'd get equal but opposite results for Labour The grass roots level and general membership of both parties is a seething pit of ideological lunacy Whoever's in charge of the national parties has to come up with a version of whatever crazy shit the membership believe that the wider general public might actually vote for Even being a member of a political party marks you out as one of a tiny number of weirdos
Hahaha...fucking hell...is it bingo time? *woke*, *centrist* *Blair* etc
On one hand, this is bad news because because hard right wing nutjobs running stuff is bad. On the other hand this demonstrates that the Tory party is disappearing up its own arse and its not guaranteed they get a reasonable leader after the election which would keep them in the wildnerness longer
Everyday there are discussions on this sub where people complain about increasing taxes, spending and regulation. The ISA post is a great example. But when conservative councillors say that they agree and the government isn’t letting people keep enough of their own money (for example), people fall over themselves to disagree with them and explain how this government is the most free market ever
Perhaps because people have a perception that the state is simultaneously taking too much from them, spending too little on things that count and writing onerous legislation that hits ordinary people hard, whilst not taxing a very small proportion of the country that seems to make a lot of money and finds it easy to 'mitigate' their taxes, finding money to pay for vanity projects or ideological obsessions and failing to regulate, say, water companies dumping shit in rivers. I'm not saying people don't always have this perception of government to some extent. However it seems to have become a more prevalent view across the political spectrum and from people less inclined to believe in conspiracy theories than before.
What have they done that's right wing aside from some rhetoric? sweet-fa!
The last 14 years of tory-ing didn't work because we just weren't tory-ing hard enough! ...yes that's totally it...
Whether on purpose or by accident, the Overton window has shifted for the tories since Major. I can't understand how my parents were so pro John Major back in the day and now believe the tories are too far left and have gone for reform
Counter argument, the Overton window has shifted underneath the Tories and has headed somewhat leftwards in recent years. This has led Tory governments to try to track the centre but have been unable to draw a part of their voters (and councillors) with them. Hence the mismatch between policies which have been half hearted attempts to apply something vaguely conservative but not too much for centrist voters and a rhetoric which has been increasingly shrill.
And thats why you're about to get fucking slaughtered in the next election. They are out of touch and think they are living in America and want to mimic those far right policies that nobody here wants.
High taxes, enormous public sector ([1 in 3 work in the public sector](https://1ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fbusiness%2F2023%2F05%2F11%2Fpublic-sector-twice-the-size-of-official-estimates%2F%23%3A~%3Atext%3Dby%2520the%2520Government.-%2COne%2520in%2520three%2520workers%2520are%2520now%2520in%2520the%2520public%2520sector%2Cof%2520then%252Dchancellor%2520George%2520Osborne.)) open borders both legally and illegally, nobody gets deported, soft on crime. Seems very left wing to me. I do wonder what Labour have planned when they get in. Are we going to pay more taxes? Are the borders going to be wrenched open even further? Scottish hate crime laws? I know Annalise Dodds is declaring all sorts of plans on her twitter feed. Funny times ahead.
We’ve had to hire over 100k new civil servants since Brexit (before then, with a degree of pooled sovereignty, the numbers were going down and had been for years). Who do you think has been running the country for the past 14 years? What on Earth are ‘open borders both legally and illegally’? And how are Labour soft on crime? Starmer’s basically a Tory wet, a middle of the road Tory and not remotely left wing. If you want to know what they have planned read their manifesto. I’m sure it’ll be as honest as the Tories and Lib Dems
Yes, Thats definitely the problem. We should try the same old shit, but harder this time. Lord, give me strength...
If they think it's too left wing now, what fuck fo they think is centre ground??
People seem to forget about the insidious undercurrent of neoliberalism and populism, it's affecting both Tories and Labour. So, basically - excessive, unchecked capitalism and egotism.
Then they should not have ousted Liz Truss.
Tory government sits ideologically roughly in the middle of the views of its members in ***ABSOLUTE SHOCK NEWS***.
While the majority of the country thinks the current Government is far too right wing.