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Any chance of a serious Tory Party, anyone? Today is local council election day in England and Wales. As a voter in the area of Westminster, I decided to stick to my local Conservative councillors since whatever I think of the national party (not all that much), the local lot seem to have done a reasonably decent job, and I know them reasonably well as sane individuals, so I duly put my cross against their names. At a national level, meanwhile, it is hard to figure out quite what the Tories are doing. They are confronted by a ruling Labour establishment in meltdown mode, corrupt, incompetent, arrogant and, on the field of civil liberties, positively dangerous. Yet so far leader David Cameron prefers to romp around in the Artic Circle to prove his supposed Green manliness to Guardian Man. All very unimpressive.
Oh well. At least Boris Johnson is honest about the future of the Tory Party: a sports club. Maybe Dave and Boris should pack up their bags and run a light entertainment show. They might even make a decent go of it.
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Sadly you are so right Johnathan. I cannot fathom why the Tories are not capitalising on this governments miriad failures.
So far I can think only of two possible reasons, neither of which fills me with glee:
1) They are playing a fiendishly clever long game that is far too subtle for the likes of us to comprehend.
or:
2) They chose the wrong guy to be leader.
Tories in local government are very good at their jobs. The trouble is that people equate them now with the Cameronians and tar them, so to speak, with the same brush. On that subject Cameron did do a very good job indeed at yesterday’s PMQ session – he and Davis very neatly demolished Clarke and Blair on just about every point so much so that one could clearly see Clarke’s ‘indicators’ going into Defcon 1 (his ears turn almost purple when he is furious).
I have a bit more sympathy for Cameron’s tactical position than some here.
His problem that if goes full blast after Blair then he risks making Brown a hero when he finally gets round to launching his coup d’etat. Camerons dream would be for Blair to limp on, slowly draining his parties morale and destroying the electorates belief in his governments competence, and only handing over to Brown a year or less before the election.
Also i think the caring sensitive action man stuff is a long term anti-Brown tactic as well. Brown’s strengths are his command of policy and stolid managerial style. When he tries to empathise and reach out on “soft” issues he looks ridiculous as he did recently trying to outdo Cameron on enviromental policy. Also he makes Brown look old and tired which unfortunately in the modern worlds youth dominated culture is also a winning tactic.
[…] only of two possible reasons […] 1) They are playing a fiendishly clever long game that is far too subtle for the likes of us to comprehend.
Really it isn’t that subtle, nor that long a game. But it is subtler and longer thatn they’ve done for a while. In order to understand it you just have to lose your implicit assumption that politics is about an open competition of explicit, coherent, policy-sets, and the deeper buried one on which it is based, that many voters share your (our) values.
Maybe politics ought to be about the open competition of explicit, coherent, policy-sets, but it can’t be in a modern democratic state. If you can’t see why Dave’s Arctic Adventure was such a good idea in political terms, the only terms in which it makes sense, then you don’t understand politics because you are attempting to rationalise the wholly instrumental art of manipulating popular sentiment in utilitarian or moral terms. Practical politics is not political economy; they are deadly enemies.
You’re right Guy, much of it is about popular sentiment. I just feel that Camerons attempts at going down this road – particularly the Norwegian excursion and the cycling to work accompanied by his belongings in a car – are not resonating with the general population. Rather they appear at times absurd, generating more scorn than respect. It may be these things are mere managerial problems rather than strategic errors – either way so far it’s not really up to scratch.
What is resonating today is widespread disgust at the Governments arrogance, corruption and incompetance. These issues don’t appear to be areas the Tories are making enough mileage on.
Mind you I do have some sympathy with the view it is better to kep Blair in office as long as possible because the damage he and his cronies are doing to themselves is priceless. It seems that the longer they are there the more they tear down their own castle walls. Maybe there is more subtlety here than I’m giving credit for – I guess time will tell.
Cameron is doing fine. When the no longer want to elect Labour they will have no alternative but the Conservatives. When that time arrives it is beter that Cameron has made no grand, Blair style promises of a new golden age in British politics.
That’s because nobody normal gives a toss about the greenie stuff. Cameron going big on hugging trees and looking at Norwegian glaciers is the perfect example of a Westminster Village idiot not having a bloody clue. No, really, Friday night in the pub does not revolve around the environment. Cameron is the political equivalent of someone who buys clothes just as they go out of fashion. He thinks he looks cool, everyone else can see he’s a sad, unoriginal tosser.
What is resonating today is widespread disgust at the Governments arrogance, corruption and incompetance. These issues don’t appear to be areas the Tories are making enough mileage on.
… May be because those same issues (and I’d add the fact the people perceive a clearly divided party) are exactly the ones that brought down Johnny Major’s lot. People have long memories for things like Black Wednesday, the antics of Lord Archer and the Mellorphant Man romping in his Chelsea kit. Right now, Wavey Davey just couldn’t get away with it and it would descend into a general melee of this government is/isn’t as sleazy as the last Tory one… This would alienate much of the electorate who would think “a plague on both your houses”. They might even decide to vote Lib Dem instead…
No, really, Friday night in the pub does not revolve around the environment.
No; but what politics is about is how people feel on Thursday morning in the polling booth, and many of those people may not be in the “normal” minority who go to the pub on a Friday night.
(Given good weather traditionally favours Labour, maybe there is a long-term, subtle plan to the Tories tackling global warming.)
The vast majority of local government money comes from central government (the grant is weighted towards Labour controlled councils – but there we go).
What local government spends money on is largely decided on by central government (although there is also E.U. imput via directives – for example on recycling).
Local councilors can not even speak against government policy on many matters. As this would mean that they do not have an “open mind” and would therefore run against the Deputy Prime Minister’s “Code of Conduct” (which has the force of law – and local “compliance officers” to enforce it) – Christopher Booker has been going on about this for ages but no one seems interested.
As for the Conservative party.
Even before Mr Cameron was elected leader it was shown that candiates (indeed actual members of Parliament) could be removed by the centre for what they said.
Not “racist” things, but what they said about tax or public services.
Also the “A list” will mean that candidates are to imposed from the centre using the excuse that this will increase the number of candiadates who are women or who have dark coloured skin (there has long been a “candiadates list” which prevents people the centre does not like even being considered).
“But this does not concern local government” – actually a local councilor who said anything that the centre did not like would find themselves in trouble with the government’s “code of conduct”, AND (quite possibly) with the Conservative party as well.
And people are going to vote today. Why?
Doing just fine? His Norwegian expedition, standing on a glacier that was not really shrinking and getting a “Mark Oaten” from a sled dog, was daft in extremis especially during a local election campaign. Cameron is just flatlining in the polls; look where Blair was at this point under the Major years.
Still the Tories are rather good here in Westminster; keeping council taxes down even though the government is trying to shaft them at every turn.
Good question, Paul Marks. Unlike Cameron and Guy Herbert, I don’t think it’ll have anything to do with organic marrows and windmills.
He got his bottom licked? LibDem MP’s would pay a lot of money for that sort of thing – perhaps they should be campaigning on more glacial issues.
Look at the bright side of things, this tory idiocy may eventually lead to an internal revolt and replacement by a vertebrate.
There’s a story in today’s Sun that Prezza’s contribution may have more to do with cocktail sausages.
I know that given the title of this post, this may seem a rather hypocritical comment. But damnit, I thought it was funny.
the grant is weighted towards Labour controlled councils
For at least 30 years the grant has been weighted towards councils run by whichever party is in power or where they think they can take power. Local government hasn’t been truly local since the ’30s – if then. That won’t change while parties of all persuasions see the local council as an extension of the national state.
Unlike the rest of Europe and the USA, local goivernment in the UK can only do what it is told – it doesn’t have a general power to do anything that isn’t otherwise illegal. Many here will see that as a good thing, but it isn’t because it hands power to central government – to buffoons like Blair and Cameron.
The ward I’m fighting today is the one where Cameron launched his “Built to last” manifesto at the rather trendy Vinopolis. Unfortunately he didn’t stop to ask why the ward including the rather trendy Vinopolis is dominated by the Lib Dems with us a not so impressive third despite a decade or more of rapid gentrification.
The answer, for the record, is that the Conservative Party suffers from appalling over-centralization, blindness of and contempt for local associations and an inability of many people to do anything other than look to the next step that they will be taking on the political ladder. The result is a lack of long term commitment to any political project, area or organization. I tend to characterize it as too many people looking upwards and not enough looking down.
You guys should just start up a new party: the Silly Party.
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“As a voter in the area of Westminster, I decided to stick to my local Conservative councillors” – says it all really – I wonder what Karl Popper would have made of it.
Alfred E. Neuman – That was funny! Thank you!
Mr Newton should be careful what he writes (even if he is not writing under his own name). It would not be difficult to find out who was the Conservative party candidate was for the ward he mentions – and party rules allowing him to be removed for writing what could be interpreted as an attack upon the party.
One point that we have not dealt with interests me. “Where is all the money comming from”.
Mr Cameron is spending money hand over fist – where is it comming from?
Or is he putting the party deeper in debt?
To judge by the Bolton area there is no Labour party campaign.
I suppose Mr Brown has put the word out that if the elections go badly for Labour Mr Blair will go sooner.
A case of “vote blue and get Brown”.
I’m entirely with Pete_London on this. As far as I can see, the things Cameron seems obsessed about are the things that will endear him to Newsnight editors, and other denizens of the meejah circus.
Indeed, I’m relatively convinced he was only elected because it was thought that the sole way of regaining power would be to have a leader the media wouldn’t excoriate on a daily basis.
In my (fairly extensive) travels, I meet few who are sobbing that they don’t pay sufficient taxes on fuel or air fairs. I do meet quite a few who are upset about immigration levels.
And what of the argument, ‘Haig tried that, it didn’t work?’. That was some years ago – long, long before the public had decided Bliar was finished. In other words – right message, wrong time.
Cameron is a dud. Whatever tonight’s results say.
GCooper,
Are you thinking they should’ve brought back William Hague?
That’s what I always thought.
Labour have lost just over 250 council seats and their share of the vote is 26%.
It is about the same as the other midterm council losses in 2004 in spite of the terrible stories comming out about the government every day for the last several weeks.
If the Conservative party was going to win the next general election it would not be sweeping the board (rather than getting about 40% of the vote), by the time of the next general election Labour under Mr Brown will have recovered (just as they recovered between the last protest vote in 2004 and the general election of 2005).
However, I suspect that the Labour majority will be cut (as it was in 2005). I am not sure what the Labour share of the vote will be, but I believe that both the Conservatives will fall quite a lot (yesterday was the Conservatives’ big day) and the Lib Dems will slip a bit.
The “Manchester approach” does seem to have been a failure – with the Conservatives not winning a single seat in the big northern cities of Liverpool, Newcastle and Manchester.
Well at least that means will not be hearing much more from “Hezza” and his expensive plans for “urban regeneration”.
The Cameron approach of out Lib Deming the Lib Dems does seem to have worked in some places – although the Liberals did take Richmond from the Conservatives and eliminated the last Conservative councilors in places like Cambridge.
However, it has meant that the ordinary folk (the “white working class”) have only the B.N.P. to turn to if they are angry with Labour – which is unfortunate.
As normal in modern Britain, the vast majority of the population did not vote at all.
How far Mr Brown can increase the turn out of Labour voters remains to be seen. Certainly Mr Cameron can do no more (without changing his line of policy and his style) in getting Conservative party voters out to the polls (there was a massive effort).
Could anyone here view a Lib Dem – Tory coalition as a possible outcome of the next GE?
Nick M writes:
“GCooper,
Are you thinking they should’ve brought back William Hague?
That’s what I always thought. ”
First, I must apologise for spelling his name ‘Haig’ in my earlier post. Must have been all the excitement of the election (ho ho!).
In a roundabout answer to your question, I’d say: ‘yes – but not now’.
I beieve Hague failed because he had mission impossble. At the time he was apointed leader, even though he was so clearly intellectually superior to Bliar and Co, the GBP still had half a mind to ‘give Labour a chance’.
I doubt even had Hague walked up the Thames one morning, that it would have had any influence on his poll results.
He also sufered from the crippling ‘Tory boy’ image and that will be a harder blow to land as he ages.
When Cameron has failed, maybe then it will be time for The Return of Hague.
For a site which normally maintains a rational approach to world events the expectations for the Tory party seem incredible. The Tory party have been very succesfully painted as inherently bad, there is a significant amount of time before the next election, any solid statement made by the Tory leader in the past 9 years has been met with derision and the media who Cameron is derided for trying to befriend are the primary way the electorate interprets what the parties are proposing.
It’s from this situation that the Tory strategy has to be determined. Cameron is currently, working very hard to undermine the base interpretation of the Conservatives, that requires him NOT to be particularly solid on policy. Green is fine, no one can attack environmental positive policy because it’s a sacred crow to the media. So he gets attention, because anything to do with global warming attracts the media, avoids significant direct criticism, and gets a platform to start introducing ideas to test for resonance.
Some of those ideas, such as displayed in the Metro interview on Thursday, include reducing government involvement, legislative reach, etc. But he is a politician if no positive feedback is shown to those ideas, and he does get positive feedback in expanding government that’s what he’ll do.
Instead of expecting them to instantly remodel themselves according to what you want, why don’t we accept that they are currently fluid and now is the time to impress on them which ideas we want to see. If we praise small government ideas and hammer big government ideas we might end up with a Tory party more to our liking.
Of course we could just sit and snipe and then say ‘told you so’ when without any feedback beyond political think tanks and lobbyists they come up with a bunch of policies that support massive public spending and social intervention.