Iain Dale has an article in the Telegraph called Gordon Brown is out to destroy the Tories, which makes for interesting reading.
Not surprisingly I have a somewhat different take on what the implications of Gordon Brown’s “ruthless” political tactics would be, should he be successful and finally make the Tory’s collapse once and for all.
Of course Labour want to destroy the Tory party… as it is now ideologically indistinguishable from Labour under the dismal Cameron, they are clearly fighting for the same centre-left statist voters as neither side cares about conservatives.
As a consequence voters who are actual conservatives ideologically have only one genuinely conservative party to vote for and that is not the preposterous Blue-Green caring-sharing hug-a-hoodie tax-and-spend Tory party, it is UKIP. Thus is Gordon Brown well and truly “destroys” the Tory party, it might actually finally force the rump of suicidally loyal Tories to look elsewhere for their psephological fix on election day.
In fact if Brown manages to destroy the Tory party, he will be doing actual conservatives a great service (though in truth it will be ‘Dave’ Cameron and all those who voted for him to be leader who actually destroyed the party, not Brown).
Why isn’t privatization of the BBC an issue that UK conservatives could rally around? Why is this media conglomerate still feeding at the public trough?
regards,
a clueless American.
If by “conservatives” you mean “Conservatives” then the reason is that iDave thinks the BBC will grow to love him and help him issue in more of the same, only greener (Ooops, I mean more ethical) and we all know how the BBC is so keen on the old ethical-living issues.
Proper UK conservatives want both the BBC and CameronPod to disappear into an oubliette.
doug, you describe yourself as a “clueless American” but then you and your country-folk haven’t allowed a situation to arrive where you need a $260 annual license to own a TV!
I just set up a direct debit for mine.
Now, who looks clueless, me or you?
I think it’s because British Conservatives are conservative. The BBC, like it or not, is a national institution, and they like that kind of thing (it’s why they’re so reluctant to sweep away the last vestige of European Communism that is the NHS). They’ll put up with their political beliefs being misrepresented and spat upon day in, day out as long as they can still get “those wonderful wildlife documentaries” and Gardeners’ Question Time. Getting rid of it would be too much fuss.
I think Sam Duncan has it largely right. I can’t remember who wrote it, but I remember reading in a newspaper not long ago a conservative pundit saying that the post office shouldn’t be privatised merely because since the government had ran for centuries, it was a ‘tradition’ that had to be kept.
Question is — What is a Conservative, in the British sense?
Used to be that a Conservative was archetypically a retired Army major who lived in Chipping Sodbury, kept bees, and wanted no change from the Days of Empire. Now there are conservatives who want to see change — smaller, less-intrusive government. Problem for David Cameron is that he represents neither kind of C/conservative.
But the Conservatives annointed Mr. Cameron as their leader. In a democracy, people get what they deserve.
Is a license still required if the TV is never connected to a cable or antenna?
Yes, its about ownership of a device for the reception of TV/Radio signals. Technically if you just own a video recorder or a DVD recorder with a TV tuner built in then you need a TV licence. In fact in the UK the Television Gestapo takes the automatic view that if you claim you do not own a TV then you must be a liar.
UKIP may not be the city set on a hill that that it once appeared to be.
The modern Conservative Party can be divided into two broad camps. There are the economically liberal but socially authoritarian types (small “c” conservatives, of the type Alice described above), and then there is a wing that leans closer to libertarianism. Parenthetically, a lot of the internecine warfare of the last decade can, I reckon, be put down to a fight for the upper hand between these two factions.
The problem for UKIP, according to a recent post on DK’s blog, is that a bunch of those social authoritarians are cheesed off with Cameron’s social liberalism and have decamped en masse to UKIP, where they’re attempting to stage a coup for the leadership of the party.
Sunfish: a licence is not required if the television reception equipment (a TV or VCR) is not connected to an antenna or other broadcast receiver. It’s perfectly legal to own a TV for the purposes of watching VHS or DVD recorded programmes or movies without a licence. The licence fee derives from the broadcast receiving licence mandated by the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1904.
So far, so good. But, the fact is, if you don’t have a licence, regardless of whether you own a TV or not, they will pester you relentlessly. This includes threats of prosecution if you don’t admit their commissars to inspect your home to see that you aren’t “breaking the law” (they don’t have any legal right to demand admittance of course). But very few people have the knowledge and courage to just tell them to piss off.
All this concentration on the BBC by the commentariat is, for me, a disappointment.
The problems faced by the country (through the current policies of its main political parties) are education, health and wealth redistribution (the latter being excessive, and so seriously demotivating to the work ethic of the people), and perhaps the EU as our nation-state. The sins of the BBC (though not nonexistent), are trivial by comparison: just look at the budgets and the criticality to everyday life.
State spending on education is £77billion; on health is £104billion; on wealth redistribution, its a large swathe of £161billion on ‘social protection’ and of the £28billion on ‘personal social services’. By contrast, the BBC comes in at a bit over £4billion, and does rather a lot of good things in addition to its irritating political bias.
The whole nation could easily survive (though perhaps less happily) without the BBC, and many of us switch off (actually or mentally) during the irritating bits. However, only the seriously better off can survive, without noticeable drop in their standard of living, without state education for their children and remaining healthy without the NHS.
If you want to change the country, or the Tory party, I think it would be better to concentrate on the more important issues.
As for UKIP, I am delighted that Perry has found a new home for his political beliefs; I just doubt it is a real solution given its current mass is too far below critical. Still: ride on, at least with the criticism of both New Labour and current Tory policy.
As to what ‘true’ conservative voters should vote for (rather than staying home), I suggest again a mass turnout for ‘None of These’. The count of spoilt votes must be reported: if it is purposefully systematic, that count should be a great boost to those against the currently ascendent politics, not least this might benefit some parts of the Tory Party.
Best regards
Presumably we are looking at a one perty state for the foreseeable future – if we are to accept your assessment of things? Moreover you seem to see it as not unwelcome.
Presumably we are looking at a one perty state for the foreseeable future – if we are to accept your assessment of things? Moreover you seem to see it as not unwelcome.
Presumably we are looking at a one party state for the foreseeable future – if we are to accept your assessment of things? Moreover you seem to see it as not unwelcome.
Alice,
Conservatives want a nation where people mostly create their own realities via tradition, habit and institutions and government is there, in the main, to support them in doing this by providing a basic legislative framework, a police force, army and to carry out those basic functions that neither individuals nor markets can adequately manage.
We might not be big on sudden or dramatic change but that would depend, ultimately, in how far the country is from the ideal described above. To get back to something approaching this ideal we would need to leave the EU, comprehensively reform welfare, privatise education and health, end wanton immigration, perhaps double the prison population…
In other words, to get to a situation where we change very little – and then only slowly – we’d need to bring about seismic change first.
Ironic, innit?
Ironic indeed! Self-described progressives basically want to keep things the way they are, whereas self-described conservatives want to change today’s world drastically.
Generally, human beings are suspicious of change, which may explain part of the success of what would once have been callled left-wing extremism throughout the West. Many of the Brits who identify themselves as Conservative have gone back to tending their own gardens and closing their eyes to the gradual disappearance of the world they once knew.
But the wheel turns. If a young man in Britain wanted to rebel against the status quo today, he would have to adopt Religion, join the Army, and smoke. The stuck-in-the-past fuddie-duddies are now the old lefties promoting homosexuality and climate alarmism. They have become the New Establishment — and they will eventually end up as the objects of derision, mocked by the vigorous young.
Of course, the Young Turks may indeed turn out to be intent on imposing Sharia on those decadent old lefties. Small consolation to today’s bereft Conservatives.
Concerning ‘the Establishment’ (old and new), there is an interesting article by Peter Oborne over on the Spectator, here [hat-tip to David Moss over on NO2ID].
Best regards
Sheri wrote:
But would you not agree that in the UK we have only really had a one party government for the past 10 years?
One might say that the Libdems are a smoke-and-mirrors party in the way they appear to be earnest enough, yet lack any spine or sufficient clout to deal with Labour. It just takes Brown or Blair to drop a vague promise about a coalition government and 30-odd Libdems wet themselves at the prospect of climbing a notch higher up the greasy pole. As for the Conservative Party, I’m afraid Orwell encapsulated it perfectly at the end of Animal Farm where the animals look from pig to man and from man to pig and realise that they can not tell the difference any more …
Alice
It is likely that this retired Major who kept bees (or rather this sort of person) would want a smaller less intrusive government.
In spite of his military background he might really want hardly any government at all – “Tory Anarchist” is not as odd as it sounds.
I remember as a child talking (really listening – I was eager to find people who said different things to the teachers and to the voices on the radio and television) to old Tory folk (many of them ex military) about the evils of state education, the income tax and government supported fractional reserve banking.
I had not read a page of the Austrian school at the time – and nor had most of them (although a few had).
What they really were was the ghost of the old “Country” tradition.
For that was the real divide – not Whig and Tory but Court and Country, and “Court” could mean Paliament and the City rather than the Crown (the “Crown” being a different thing from the person of the King or Queen of course).
As for the Empire – even the arch Imperialist Kipling had more than a trace of such opinions.
Mr Cameron and co:
I have no interest in these people.
We already have a one-ideology-state, with two parties offering an illusion of choice. If the Tory party collapses, perhaps UKIP can fill the void and actually offer a really choice.