Why Aren't the Tories Winning Easily? Because of 2001 and 2005. That's Why.

Snowman

Not that it matters to O’Sullivan what I say, he more than capable to defend his stance, but he’s right, you wrong. What overrides both countries concerns happens to be of the same flavour – a widespread yearning for some common sense policies that in the past were synonymous with conservative thinking on issues that bother the great unwashed alot.

Have a think Alex, and try to do it outside the cocoon of the pseudo-liberal pap that is clouding so much of the thinking nowadays.

What do’y reckon the response of the electorate would be if Cameron were to announce that the Tories will bring back capital punishment with the following safeguard: anyone sentenced to hang would have the right of appeal to the High Court that will be obliged to commute the sentence to life imprisonment. Nothing would really change, yet the tweaking of the law would enable the society to show its revulsion towards those committing the most abhorrent crimes yet under current legislation get life often with laughable tariffs attached. The gain in votes would be quite noticeable, I reckon.

cg

It always amazes me that Snowman and others seem ignorant of the fact that hardline Tory policies are a loser with the British public. If Norman Tebbitt was leading the Conservative Party today they would be behind Gordon Brown in the polls. Too many people are ignorant of the harm that Maggie Thatcher did to the Conservative Party. Tory MPs were a common sight in northern cities like Liverpool, Sheffield, Newcastle until Thathcer's forced unemployment policies kickedin. Now there are no Tory MPs in these cities. Cameron has had to fight hard to get the Tory Party back in position where it can challenge for any kind of power and if he wins it will be no thanks to the Heffers, Warners (if Brown had been talking about him instead of Mrs Duffy he would have been on much stronger ground) and all the other useless idiots.

blueporcupine

Great piece. But - and I'm a non-Tory making this observation in a spirit of friendship - if the traditionalists aren't getting what they want from Dave, they're democratically entitled to bugger off and/or tell him to. You're absolutely right that they aren't heeding the lessons of 2001 and 2005. But they don't need to. They presumably are in politics to promote their point of view, like the rest of us, and their voice deserves to be heard for all the good it will do them. Is there any point in your holding out the prospect of the return of the good times to these pesky malcontents, if they won't actually enjoy the Cameroon version of the good times?

Incidentally, the continuing tension between trad and Cameroon seems to me to be very marked in this election's offering. On the one hand there's the big society, which is all fine-sounding robust liberal stuff about how the future will look etc etc. But when you look at actual headline policies - the NI package, IHT, marriage tax breaks, jail sentences, the immigration cap - all of them are either very trad Tory concerns or made up on the hoof in response to criticism (I include the NI package in that). It's quite difficult to effect linkage between traditional conservatism and a more soi-disant "progressive" outlook. And unsurprisingly it has not worked, which I think is as good a symbol as anything of what's really going on.

Boo

I find it amusing that some people think that the reason the Tories arn't doing well enough is cos they arn't right wing enough.
Really?
Then why are the Libdems give the party such trouble.

blueporcupine

@Snowman

"Nothing would really change, yet the tweaking of the law would enable the society to show its revulsion towards those committing the most abhorrent crimes"

You cannot make law because you want to send a message. It's an absolute non-starter morally, legally and practically. Much of Labour's worst legislation - and nearly all the tax legislation, from what I can see - has been framed to send a message. Either you want to confer on the state the power to kill or you don't.

David Bouvier

Alex - I very much agree with the basic point of your article, but you seem blind to the possibility that Cameron is simply sincere about the EPP, marriage tax etc.

The EPP issue was a festering sore, and its policies provided cover for the some of the 5th columnist MEPs who have broken cover since we left. Given the guerilla warfare waged by MEPs actively opposed to the settled party (and national) point of view, it was one of those battles that was best won early and shows that Cameron is preparing for a different - more Conservative - relationship with the EU.

David Galea

Was the 2005 Manifesto "right wing"?

Page one was a list of vacuous phrases:-

"
More Police

Cleaner Hospitals

Lower Taxes

School Discipline

Controlled Immigration

Accountability

Are you thinking what we're thinking?

It's time for action."

Page two was an ugly black and white photograph of Michael Howard posing against a white background.

The rest is page after page of empty drivel and waffle. There is a photograph of a black lollypop lady and a black businessman, clearly placed in a cowardly and weak attempt to defend the Conservative Party from charges of racism. "It's not racist to talk about immigration" - a cowardly phrase. Why not say "we will heavily cut immigration"? Howard stupidly danced to Blair's tune, in a manifesto prepared by David Cameron.

It's a mistake to infer that this manifesto represents the opinions of people like Tebbit, Heffer, Hitchens, Warner, and Phillips. It comes nothing close.

Tariq

There's an odd tendency in politics, and not just on the right, to believe that the way to win more votes is to campaign on the same policies that lost you votes the last time around, but with more ardour. Mr. Massie's basic point bears repeating until it finally sinks in: the reason Mr. Cameron has such a steep hill to climb is because the red meat conservatism of his predecessors has left him with fewer seats than Mr. Foot won in 1983. Running on a doctrinaire conservative platform would therefore be suicidal.

Fergus Pickering

I want to confer on the state the right to kill. Not that it doesn't have that already. Plenty of dead Iraquis about killed by Tony Blair. But there are a good few British people around the place who'd be the better for a hanging, don't you think? You don't? Wellnow!

THX1138

We have a far right party UKIP, that would bring back capital punishment; send the immigrants home and remove us from the EU, the policies that so many commentors on the CH espouse yet they will be lucky to gain a single set in the GE.. The reason that Dave and the Tories are in the hunt at all is because he has managed to drag "the nasty party' kicking and screaming to the centre. If DC does win a small majority next week I'm totally convinced that will be the reason .

My prediction is that if he does win climate change will become his EU, with the likelihood of further warming and greater understanding of the science over the next few, further cap and trade type legislation is inevitable. I'm sure this is going to lead to huge battles between the leadership and the mostly sceptical back benchers, Hilton has already seen the dangers and sent many AGW deniers to green re-education training camps.

joe

Political change doesn't happen slowly and smoothly. It happens suddenly and often violently when things just can't carry on as before.
The Labour party had no chance in 1955 and '59
because we literally "had never had it so good". In 1979 it was time for a revolutionary change because we just couldn't carry on like that.

In 2001 and 2005, there was no chance of a change because people were prospering, and the media were still in love with Blair. Any comparison between those elections and this is just misplaced. The best the Tories could do then was to point out the inherent contradictions in Labour policy and wait for the wheel to turn.
Politics shoud be, in part, an educational process.
Uncontrolled immigration, tax and spend, borrow and spend, more EU control, the surveillance society, the breakdown of the criminal justice system and so on. The job in 2005 was to lay down the markers.
Nobody likes 'I told you so', but an unrelenting opposition in those years would hve laid the groundwork, and educated people as to the real problems ahead.
Look at the Tea Parties in America.
Cameron would be in the box seat now, had the Tories opposed diligently in the last ten years, and had his hubris not led him to insist on the Presidential debates.
Surely even he could have foreseen that the electorate would prefer the 'more of the same' Liberal policies rather than the root and branch revolution that we really need.
Elections have to be fought for years in advance, not just in the last four weeks.

Snowman

Cg at 3.43:

Listen up, mu blogging partner, me a useless idiot may be, but what the heck. It’s democracy, there must be a place under the sun in a multi-culti society for useless idiots, too.

If Lady T were the reason for the Tories losing seats everywhere and aplenty the party would have imploded in 1992. It didn’t. It got kicked out big five years later, and not predominantly because of the sleaze of the Major years. It was the 90’s cutbacks in public spending that did it. The great unwashed would have swallowed the misbehaviour of the Tory governing elite had it not been for the pain the cuts engendered just as they have ‘forgiven’ Labour for Iraq because the money was still rolling in 2005.

Hard to say what propelled the confused party on par with the two monolithic tribes. I reckon it was the realisation on the part of the great unwashed that this is the only way they can ensure a voice for the many rather than the few floaters that each party seems to be focusing on. Amongst those voices are those of the UKIP and the BNP, both having in the manifestos a pledge to restore capital punishment to the statute books. The two parties that won’t get a look in because of the FPTP electoral system have re-discovered what the great unwashed have known for centuries: capital punishment saves lives, it’s the best deterrent a mankind has to stop the lowest scum murdering, raping and stuff. They endorsed the hoi polloi’s frustration with a criminal justice system that’s vacuous of real punishment for the most obnoxious criminals. Since capital punishment got scrapped, over 120 murderers murdered again after they completed their tariff. What would your message be to their relatives, or close friends then?

As David Galea @ 6.13 points out what is it you find ‘right wing’ on 2005 Howard’s policies, ha? Bugger all. As I said above, the tanned one won because the money was still cheap and aplenty, who would want to rock the boat…

More to the point. What’s right wing about capital punishment, referendum on the EU, halting immigration until we sort out the fate of the 1mn illegals and stuff? Capital punishment was a part of the criminal justice system under both Labour and the Tories until the pseudo-liberal clique arrived arguing that being nice to people harbouring evil will stop such people from murdering, raping and stuff. Doesn’t work. You watch the TV bulletins? If crime reporting were to be dropped the news would run a fraction of the 30 minutes.

Even idiots have to be cautious making predictions. However, it seems likely that we will get a hung Parliament, followed hopefully by a new constitutional arrangements on voting, and thus a greater choice on whom we honour with a seat in the House.

blueporcupine @ 4.01:

point taken. I withdraw my suggestion, and back Fergus’s @ 6.59.

Bill Quango

David Galea.
You are missing the point.
Its what the manifesto allowed Labour to claim and influenced what people already thought abut the Tories..

More Police - "lock 'em all up"

Lower Taxes - "Tax cuts for my rich friends"

School Discipline - "Grammar Schools for the privileged"

Controlled Immigration "keep those foreigners out"

Accountability - "Get yourself a job scrounger"

Are you thinking what we're thinking? - "There's an awful lot of coloured people around now, isn't there?"

The articles main point about the massive overturn that Dave's Tories need is absolutely correct. The failure to 'New Labour' in 2001/2 now means a landslide is required just to get a hung parliament.

skynine

Might it just be that the Tories have such a mountain to climb because the electoral setup presently is tilted towards Labour?

In the 2005 election the Tories polled the most votes in England yet Labour had more seats and used the votes of Scottish and Welsh MP's to foist their views on English voters.

That's the real democratic deficit that needs to be addressed. We need devolved government in the 4 countries with the same MP joining together for non devolved issues.

Augustus

However badly the Tory banner did in 2005, nevertherless nearly a third of voters backed parties that were neither Labour nor Tory, and Blair's party returned to power with the support of barely one in five voters. Such stifling trends can't last forever. New generations require new representation relevant to their concerns.

gareth

I can still remember the 80s and it seems to have been successfully eradicated from history, along with Thatcher, by our elites. The constant propaganda from the MSM, academia, musicians, films, TV comedy and political correctness has taken it's toll.
It was Labour's turn again in 1997 and Britain was doing well, a blind eye was turned to their record and the fact they were copying the Tories. It looked as if things would get better, could only get better. Why be churlish?
The black hole in debate these days is a consequence of this free ride given to Labour to pursue Tory prosperity without being venal Torys. Tony and Gordon still to an extent inhabit that barren landscape of hypocrisy and privilege - it's no wonder they got a little unhinged - there was no accounting in that conspiracy of silence, that critical immunity. Barack Obama's just got the same treatment with his landslide.
The Americans have something we don't however, a conservative forum - which has borne fruit with the tea-partiers.
They have NRO, Fox, Limbaugh etc.... which in a free market absolutely kill the MSM - it's almost like they are reporting on different worlds - though the fantasy of CNN et al. are losing viewers rapidly, so sorry Alex - you lose in reality. A bit like the Guardian is losing it's audience here.
Why read stuff that tells you like it isn't?

Alex - perhaps you should blog less articles - try more quality and less quantity, and see what happens to your hit rate. Tell us about Tony Rezko, Unite, Palestine, Bond Markets, the UN, the EU, how Mexico treats illegal immigrants, Congo, China......the good stuff - you know - FACTS - they're not too dangerous to know.

It is no accident there is no New Statesman (Rik Mayall) Yes MInister, Spitting Image etc... these days and humour is PC (except for Harry and Paul) and pretty low calorie - though there has never been a more inept and corrupt government to take the piss out of - humour and truth go together - you can't have one without the other.
PC and fear are our new masters, and low quality, lazy journalism - like yours.

David Galea

Bill Quango, Thatcher never danced to Labour's tune. She confidently and passionately fought for what she thought was right on every level possible. People responded by voting for her in droves. Michael Howard, though a nice man, was a total coward by comparison. And 2005's campaign had social democrat moderniser types like Cameron, Finkelstein etc heavily involved, exactly the people who wanted the right wing policies to be dropped. So no wonder the manifesto was rubbish! It wasn't right wing, it was right wing as imagined by social democrats and modernisers.

It would be interesting if a Speccie journalist asked the major right wing journalists what they thought of the 2001 and 2005 manifestos and campaigns, to combat the lies and misconceptions that are often repeated without proper thought. How hard would it be to interview Melanie Phillips on what she thought of the 2005 manifesto seeing as she also works for the Spectator?

djw2009

Look, Alex, you socialist Scot, you - even if Cameron wins a majority on 36% of the vote, he will still have done so by default, owing to the electoral system. 36% is not a landslide. 36% is only 36%. So we don't have to credit him with winning - as I am not interest in a party machine winning - I am interesting in regaining our nation - which Cameron is opposed to. You can be as obtuse as you like, but it just shows how intellectually challenged you are. If 80% turn out, he'll get 36% of 80% - this is not a mandate for anything. Re-read those words several times. Ask a child to read them to you, if you don't get it.

The public are hooked on subsidy and so probably wouldn't go for proper Toryism. The elite use the large state to embezzle state funds - so they wouldn't go for it either. But, without a conservative agenda, the Conservative Party has no right to exist. Even if it wins 90% of the popular vote, it won't achieve anything if it doesn't set out to do so.

Why does the Green Party exist? To promote environmentalism. It would be a particularly Scottish form of logic to argue that the Green Party should OPPOSE environmentalism in order to get more votes. Even if true, it would negate the party's purpose. The purpose of conservatism is national independence, preservation of the national culture and way of life, freedom from state control and interference - Cameron opposes all of these in order to get himself elected, having worked out the elite wouldn't allow him to get elected any other way. But the result is that all the parties stand for the same thing, and SO IT DOESN'T MATTER WHICH OF THEM GETS ELECTED.

The politics of the Socialist Worker - which is what all this gay rights and multiculturalism is - may get Cameron elected, but then we would get the politics of the Socialist Worker with the other parties too.

Your perception that politics HAS to be in the tiny middle ground actually amounts to the perception that democracy is over in this country.

cg

The middle ground is not tiny. It is where electins are won. djw etc need to get out of their self-reinforcing comfort bubbles and see the real world.

djw2009

cg, are you a person of low IQ? If you read my comment - duh? - you will see that I agreed the middle ground is where elections are won. But the middle ground is very tiny indeed - the amount of policy that is genuinely contested by the party is limited. They agree on the EU, immigration, multiculturalism, tax and spend, the welfare state, and much else. Of course, their PRECISE policy formulations are not the same. Eg, on immigration, Labour wants massive immigration via the totally unnecessary work permit system (you would never think we survived for thousands of years without Africans and Asians in our midst, would you?), with the aim of producing a new non-British population. The Lib Dems claim to want to step up our border controls, but want a mass amnesty, and they favour some primary immigration and second immigration that will eventually achieve the same thing as Labour's policy. The Conservatives say they want 10s of 1000s of immigrants from outside the EU arriving every year (gasp! why?), presumably in addition to refugees and secondary immigration - eventually arriving at the same result, whereby English people are a minority in England. So you can play up the differences, but the end result is the same.

Yes, the middle ground is where the elite allows elections to be won. But that means there is no real choice for us.

cg

djw - the middle ground is tiny? As I say, get out of your buybble and meet some real people, not just political activists. And why do you use elite in a pejorative manner? I would have thought that a person of such obviously high IQ as yourself would have seen elitism as a good thing, not a bad one.

djw2009

cg - the middle ground is a tiny area of politics. We don't really know how many people would support a challenge to the middle ground until PR comes in - and even then we will still be dealing with the BBC's abuse of its position to promote far-left politics. In the end, the elite is in a position to set the political tone, and in any society most people will follow the line of their elite. The Chinese people for the most part believe the Chinese Communists. We for the most part believe the BBC - so pointing that many people support the middle ground is just a way of saying "they watch the BBC and imbibe its propaganda". However, when people say all the parties are the same, it shows they are looking for something different.

People of high IQ in the elite? Well, they are using their IQs for their own interests, not to further the interests of society as a whole. When I spoke of IQ I was talking specifically about your inability to read a post and understand it. Have you in fact understood this post of mine? I doubt it.

Snowman

djw2009:

it’s more accurate to quote the share of the popular vote based on the whole of the electorate rather than on people who actually vote, I reckon. Many, like myself, and Mrs. Duffy, don’t vote not because they aren’t interested in politics, but because no candidate gets any close to what their views are.

In my book, this is what has contributed massively to the death of active participation in the electoral process. It has led to governments of ‘minority dictatorships’, with all that it entails – laws that most of us don’t want, imploding governments (Labour now, the Tories in 1997), apathy, anger amongst the electorate and stuff. Blair, having secured only 23% backing of the whole electorate, had no mandate to govern even though his Commons majority was large under this non-democratic voting arrangement.

After the collapse of communism the Czech Communist party regularly secured around 20% of the popular vote in free elections. These were the natural supporters of the creed just like the core Labour, Tory voters here. Under communism they imposed their will on the rest of the country, and we all know how it ended.

You absolutely right that the floaters are a small chunk of the electorate. Their numbers vary, but whatever their size they should never be the only ‘targeted’ audience effecting the governance of the whole country. In fact, this boil on democracy should not have been allowed to arise. It was a signal that something’s not right, and it’s time to cut it out.

Cg:

William F. Buckley: ‘I would rather be ruled by 100 people taken at random from the Boston telephone directory than by the faculty of Harvard University.’

You reckon that Buckley has got it wrong, then?

cg

Snowman and djw - I believe there might be some very good conspiracy theory films coming to the pictures soon. sounds just like your kind of stuff.

Rodney G James

The reason the Tories are not further in the is 2 fold;
1. Cameron in delivering his message has forgotten the great marketing principle,"Keep it Simple Stupid". His big society concept lacks therefore lacks the brill. simplicity of Kennedy's "Ask not want your contry can do for you, but what you can do for your country".
2. Labour has cynical created a massive client state of the swollen public sector, the benefits army and immigrants, who even if they will not vote Lab will either not vote or choice another party of the left to molly coddle them still.Thus the moral fibre of the paopulation is undermined.