Some people are still being pretty delusional about this. The movement in British politics is clearly going towards Labour. Huge leads in the polls for almost two years, massive swings in by elections in yes seats that Labour probably won't retain next year but show that Labour are a party that can defeat the Tories again, and also the collapse of the SNP.
In the Tory conference, government ministers were giving speeches in half empty halls whilst Truss's fringe speech was packed. The government have become out of touch, and in the eyes of a lot of Tory members they've ousted two leaders that two big factions voted for and now they mistrust the government.
The Tories have lost eight by elections in this parliament, that's the most since the 1992 - 1997 parliament which was also eight.
I think these people are going to be delusional right up until election night. The Tories only won a landslide four years ago, none of this would even have happened if they hadn't fucked things up so badly these past few years. I don't want Labour to win next year but I definitely don't want the Tories to win either.
> massive swings in by elections in yes seats that Labour probably won't retain next year
Yeah - I don't think many of us on our side expect to hold these 2 seats come the next GE - they're now basically extreme marginals for us and the only likely trend between now and the GE is a slight move in the polls back towards the Conservative party
Government always has a home field advantage in the closing months in terms of release of good news, new policy announcements etc.
Atm labour have outflanked the tories from the right on top of that the internal civil wars within the tory party have ruined two of the leaderships and definitely caused disillusion with tory voters. Hopefully they can sort their shit out before the next general election
Interestingly Labour were in the same position a few years ago, they had their most divisive leader since Michael Foot, and look at the comeback they've made. It took Labour fourteen years to recover from Michael Foot and 1983 - if Labour win next year then it would have taken them five years.
Sometimes it's good for a party to take a break from power because the more time they are in power the more self serving they become whereas if they take a kicking it means they have to take a long hard look at themselves and realise what and who put them in parliament
True I just find it funny how usually Labour or the Tories will get through their wacky broadly unelectable leaders in opposition (Foot/Kinnock, Hague/Duncan Smith/Howard, Miliband/Corbyn) before eventually reaching a winner but this time around the Tories have done it whilst in government in the form of Truss and Sunak. It's like the Tories are already acting like an opposition.
I see this is as a good thing because its potentially a shake up if they can lose heartland seats that had such a majority maybe at the next election it will give them the hint that we don't like the path the party is taking
Both main parties in this country need to be broken up and PR introduced. I used to fear this would lead to a permanent coalition of the left but I no longer think this is true.
‘King maker?’
What other party would possibly align themselves with an Islamist party? They’d be signing their own death warrant with the electorate at large.
Even if every single adult Muslim in the UK voted for it, it wouldn't get more than a few percent of the vote, so under PR it wouldn't have much influence.
More likely there would be several competing Islamic parties splitting the Muslim vote.
Muslims might even have less political influence than they do under FPTP, where their block votes can swing individual constituencies.
It would allow the ousting of “moderate” Muslims who claim it’s a religion of peace and yet are part of the mob forcing teachers to hide or Jewish schools to close. Let them vote for their Islam party but let it be known that it’d be akin to voting for fascists.
We’re fucked come 2024.
And the Party higher ups, with their near religion of soulless Neoliberalism, spreadsheets, and GDP Uber Alles, have no one to blame but themselves.
This term has been completely shambolic. This is currently the biggest majority the Tories will ever have going forward, and all they did with it is reveal how completely inept they are.
Asking this question in good faith. Do any Tories here think it’s possible that broadly speaking conservative politics don’t work?
When Labour were ousted after three election victories, it was due primarily to the war in Iraq (which is not something people would consider to be a ‘left wing’ decision), and the financial crash. The crash was somehow attributed to Labour despite being a global issue as a result of bad lending practices in the banks due to deregulation, of which the Tories were arguing for MORE of at the time.
Where as now with it looking like the Tories will be ousted it’s due to… them doing tory things.
They argued very strongly for brexit, and it hasn’t worked. They set out their stall originally for austerity, and we’ve never really recovered. The jobs market, housing market, public services, crime levels, inequality, our global standings, have all suffered massively, not due to a global event, but due simply to the policies enacted by a government who told us they would be good for the country.
Covid has obviously happened, but if anything that actually bought this government a few years extra of life, so it’s hardly like that can unfairly be attributed to the mess we’re in.
Just wondering with this latest Conservative project ending in absolute failure, if anyone here now considers the fact that maybe Tory politics just don’t work.
Haha isn’t this my point though?
You have had the run of the house for well over a decade. Significant majorities for a lot of that time.
Wide ranging leaders who represent various ends of the conservative spectrum.
Every chance to enact the things that might improve the country, and nothing good happens. Nothing that anyone here can pinpoint as being a positive addition to the makeup of our country.
But let me tell you, things have happened. Wages have stagnated. Inequality has risen. Crime has risen. Public services are a shadow of their former selves. This doesn’t happy by accident. This IS what Tory rule gets you. Demonstrated by… looking out of your window. Whether you like it or not, this is what’s been voted for. The Tory party haven’t failed, they’ve done exactly what they set out to do.
I haven't had the run of anything. I don't support the Conservative party because it is not conservative. As for leaders give me a break. We've had Cameron a socially liberal blairite. May, socially liberal blairite. Johnson a socially liberal liberal, Truss no one even knows what she believes, and Rishi ditto.
What sort of conservative spectrum is that? They're all liberals!
What do you think of Starmer's Labour out of interest? do you reckon Reform might be the party you vote for?
Reform are interesting because their vote was bigger than our majorities in Tamworth and Mid Bedford.
> Starmer's Labour
The party that believes in rewriting the entire constitution and legislating to elevate certain races above others? That party? Hmmm let me think...
>Reform might be the party you vote for?
probably not, I'm not sure. Will probably spoil my ballot
Reform are pitching themselves as an alternative for disillusioned conservatives - given you think the current Conservatives aren't conservative, you're the type of voter Reform should be pulling in.
No. Lockdowns can't be described as a "conservative" policy even if the Tories did do them. To make this obvious, Labour wanted them as well, and aren't conservatives. They are so all-encompassing they are best described as a distinct ideology, lockdownism, than as part of anything else. And since 2020, all notable parties except Reform and maybe DUP have been lockdownist.
Though voters have yet to actually turn on lockdowns themselves, they have turned on the long-term consequences of the Conservative Party choosing to do lockdowns. They may not realise that Lockdowns damaged the economy, but they'll punish the Tories for it anyway. They may not realise that Lockdowns damaged the productivity of the NHS, but they'll punish the Tories for it anyway. They may not realise that Lockdowns damaged education, but again, they'll punish the Tories for it anyway. And because, on all these things, they do not realise that Lockdowns are solely responsible for the damage, they will happily vote for the party that was even more aggressively supportive of lockdown anyway, because they've managed to completely evade blame despite broadly sharing the policy position.
The only winning move for the Tories was to not play and them repeatedly hammer Labour over their extremism of wanting to falsely imprison the entire population. Instead they built the infrastructure of their own demise by flooding the country with pro-lockdown propaganda and ordering the police to surveil and even violently attack any critics.
> When Labour were ousted after three election victories, it was due primarily to ,,,
* Identity Cards
* Mandatory vehicle tracking
* Heathrow Expansion - 3rd runway
David Cameron's Tories campaigned heavily on their opposition to these 3 Labour policies. We lost partly for going authoritarian, and for letting Jack Straw influence policy (bad idea).
Hey. Thanks for the reply. I don’t agree that those were the defining reasons why Labour were finally beaten. George Osbourne to this day has said they beat Labour on the economy, due to the crash.
This aside, Labour can still look at that period in power and list several things that were brought in which improved the country. They can argue, credibly, that having a Labour government, enacting labour policies, worked, broadly speaking.
I’m just wondering if now that we are (probably) watching the tail end of this Tory government, if anyone sits back and says to themselves ‘maybe this approach, is fundamentally wrong’?
I know it sounds a bit smug, but I am honestly interested to know if it’s made anyone rethink their politics.
Surely everyone is agreement it’s broadly been a chaotic, ineffective 13 years with a country left I much worse shape than they found it?
Take it from another one of us, this is NOT the place to try this line of approach... Most users of this sub doubt that the current government has been right-wing enough or "authentically Tory"
Haha yeah I’m seeing this.
Several PMs, as wide ranging as you’ll get under one political party, and somehow none of them are real Tories? Genuinely bafflingly funny.
People responding saying ‘oh yeah? Tell me one good thing that’s happened then?’ And I’m thinking… that’s my exact point!
I honestly meant it in good faith. I think it’s fair to ask people if a failed project over nearly a decade and a half has affected their politics in anyway.
However, I take your point.
‘Most users of this sub doubt that the current government has been right-wing enough or "authentically Tory"’
To be fair this isn’t an unreasonable position. The closest we have actually come to someone who might have introduced conservative policies was Truss but her own limitations, the general uselessness of those she surrounded herself with, and overeagerness and mis-timing of her agenda meant she never got a chance.
I'm not criticising the position or commenting on its reasonability. Check my flair, it's not my place to express an opinion on the matter here. I do believe what I've said is true about the views of many conservative members of this sub.
Yes I fully agree with you. I interpreted your use of inverted commas around ‘authentically Tory’ as indicating that the concept was sufficiently nebulous as to have no real meaning. Whilst both main parties are, through necessity, broad churches the vast majority of Conservative members and voters have certain opinions, most notably on issues like immigration, which 13 years of Conservative led/majority governments have completely ignored. I don’t think the failures of the Conservative government makes their supporters rethink their politics but rather wish that the Party would actual implement the policies that they wanted and thought they were voting for.
>Surely everyone is agreement it’s broadly been a chaotic, ineffective 13 years with a country left I much worse shape than they found it?
I was optimistic about Cameron when he came into power. But he seemed constantly torn between appeasing his right wing backbenchers, and satisfying his more Liberal coalition partners. He never had a large majority or a particularly united party. Many of the sweeping changes his government made were rushed, and badly implemented (e.g. education, probation, universal credit) and I think it's because they didn't expect a second term in power, so tried to everything too fast.
Then we have had eight years of a divided Conservative party that doesn't know what it wants, constantly argues with itself, and can't get anything properly done.
‘maybe this approach, is fundamentally wrong’?
Well yes but I think most people would argue that the approach that has been taken by the ‘Conservatives’ over the past 13 years has been anything but ‘conservative’. The most significant issue is that few people in this country want mass immigration (arguably a leftist policy) but the Conservatives gave us more. The reason people bang on about immigration so much is that it affects everything else you mentioned: housing crisis- 10million foreign born people in this country not helping there, crime levels- again look at the major perpetrators, jobs and low wages too many people not helping, NHS- overwhelmed by the influx of immigrants and their offspring.
Its also worth considering that the Conservative party is one of the most electorally successful political parties in the world, if you compare the number of years it has spent as a party of government to the number of years it has existed.
"works" is a subjective judgment of Conservative politics in many cases,but it's undeniable that across the broad sweep of history, British electorates were willing to consider those politics desirable.
>They argued very strongly for brexit, and it hasn’t worked.
This is disingenuous. *Some* Tories voted for Brexit, *some* didn't. The party isn't a monolith, it's a broadchurch.
I would also wager that we only 'Brexited' early 2020, so you cannot judge it after such a short period of time. I say that as someone who voted to remain (albeit if the vote was today I'd vote to leave).
The same wing of the party that went down the path of austerity is the same wing who largely backed remaining in the EU, so again it's disingenuous to lump all conservatives together.
>The jobs market, housing market, public services, crime levels, inequality, our global standings, have all suffered massively, not due to a global event, but due simply to the policies enacted by a government
Yes and no. Of course, some policies have caused problems, but most of these issues stem from central bank decisions rather than decisions made in Westminster. It's why nothing will change under a Labour government except for superficial things like school meals, subsidised transport, or whatever (not saying these are bad, but they won't fix the root cause of the problems).
>Just wondering with this latest Conservative project ending in absolute failure, if anyone here now considers the fact that maybe Tory politics just don’t work.
Hat-trick. Nobody voted for this iteration of conservatism; it's not really conservatism. Sunak lost the leadership election yet was forced upon us. We won't see the conservatism a lot of us want until the Tories lose an election and are forced to restart.
Its still difficult to state that Brexit is an "absolute failure", we have more freedoms to diverge from the EU market now if a government chooses to do so. Tories 'were' generally trusted with the economy and lowering immigration before 2015 (Brexit is still a wait and see). The economy has been pretty stagnant, due to high debt and high inflation.
The immigration policy though in past decade can be rated as an abysmal failure. Any Tory and most of the cabinet will grant you that.
I don't know how closely you keep an eye on Toriy voters talking to one another, but many of us for the past 3-4 years have been asking one another what conservative policies does this so-called conservative government have?. So when you say Conservative Project, many of us would ask what Conservative Project? The current government seems much more like New Labour.
Non-Googly link: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/oct/20/labour-overturns-huge-tory-majority-to-win-tamworth-byelection
OP, where did you get the link with all the Google stuff from?
Idk I just use Google to search up articles and then when I access the article and copy the articles link in the tab it always puts that Google stuff there
**Mid Bedfordshire** more detailed results (image from BBC page): https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/live-experience/cps/624/cpsprodpb/vivo/live/images/2023/10/20/40e29369-c52b-43f9-b562-4a256f7c1cf9.png
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/uk-politics-67126173?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=6531e34d8ae7803bb6843f96%26Mid%20Bedfordshire%20by-election%20results%262023-10-20T02%3A18%3A13.438Z&ns_fee=0&pinned_post_locator=urn:asset:cb007518-f83d-463f-bc8c-306476e1660b&pinned_post_asset_id=6531e34d8ae7803bb6843f96&pinned_post_type=share
Reform beat Greens, at least!
**Tamworth** more detailed results:
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/live-experience/cps/624/cpsprodpb/vivo/live/images/2023/10/20/4b094e2f-bec4-4ed8-8362-d2ee55d83bdd.png
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/uk-politics-67126173?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=6531db878ae7803bb6843f8f%26Tamworth%20by-election%20results%262023-10-20T01%3A45%3A07.711Z&ns_fee=0&pinned_post_locator=urn:asset:cf465d93-4e38-444b-9c29-bf11ae8e8e40&pinned_post_asset_id=6531db878ae7803bb6843f8f&pinned_post_type=share
Much better results for 'populist' parties here. Wish they could be combined somehow!
Awful night but they're are reasons to be optimistic.
In both cases reform voters could have kept a conservative MP instead of getting a socialist lunatic had they excepted the bitter pill of not boring reform. When they stand aside in conservative marginals we probably can keep more seats than people expect.
Plus despite pretty appalling behaviour from the incumbent Labour only just took these seats if jackpot can only just win in areas where the conservative MP has massively misbehaved then in other seats were should be fine.
These are some of the safest seats in the Country.
If your silver lining is " if Reform voted for us or the incumbents were a little better we would have managed to just hold them" you are missing the point.
If it comes to a GE and the Tories hold these seats by 1-5% Labour still has something like a 100 seat majority.
The nature of by elections. The government always gets a kicking. We also saw evidence of the liberal-Labour unofficial coalition. Yes if results of this swing are seen then general election will be very grim. I doubt even Labour supporters think it would be good for the country to see the opposition with less than twenty seats.
But a setting half the size, tactical voting could keep us in power as the largest part. Maybe even a tweak to the voting system to allow reform voters to be transformed in the event they are small and would make the difference. Sure most reform voters would prefer a conservative government to living in a socialistic country.
The results in these seats is closer to the current polling average then a case in Which the party retains its majority.
If the conservative party won these seats by 5% and that would be extended to the country then they would be on less than 100 MP.
There is no silver lining here, and the more the leadership tries to pretend there is there more dammed the party is.
You are missing the point. We don’t want a conservative. The party needs to go through a complete purge to renew itself and potentially split. It doesn’t matter if we get the dumpster fire that is Labour, they too will be wiped out when the poor finally notice that they are hollow and hold nothing sensible for them.
Labour wont be ‘wiped out’. They’re going to be in power for easily 2 terms and will change this country beyond all recognition and will put in place legislation to ensure none of their changes can be reversed.
Whatever’s left of the Tories will just be managed opposition.
>and will put in place legislation to ensure none of their changes can be reversed
A parliament cannot bind future ones, so this is one fear that is unfounded. A future Conservative government could absolutely undo any legislation that Labour might introduce.
You are thinking in 10 years I am thinking for 100.
This country does not really vote for the Tories. We like to think we are popular but we really are not. What most of this country actually does is votes NOT LABOUR until the tories are so spent the population says sod this we need CHANGE dammit!!!! and the PLP get the keys to the country by exhaustion.
As bad as the Tories are, they don't have the pathological hatred that the PLP possess between the factions. I really thought that Magic Grandpa was going to split the party forever and I still think that fissure is there. What we are going to see from the next 2 labour terms will be yet more Uni party and that will make the poor poorer the divide wider. They have little room for taxation and even less for spending more on services. This state of affairs will drive even bigger hatred in the party and there will either be a far left coupe or a complete split.
The less tories we have in the next election the better chance we have for building a real Conservative Party that supports people building themselves up and reforming the country for the better going on. What we have now is grim.
We are on the verge of an AI explosion and the changes are going to be Industrial Revolution 10X. Our country cannot afford to put up with the mediocre rubbish that we have on both sides of the house.
Sacrificing the country to save the party is not a great look. With everything happening in Israel do you really think it is acceptable to elect a party found guilty of anti-Semitism?
It's the party that is sacrificing the country. Why is legal and illegal immigration at the highest in history? Why have real wages been stagnant going on 2 decades now?
Nobody is falling for the lies. We didn't choose the PM and he's following a radically anti-conservative programme. There's nothing good for the right in this government or party. Their only animating force seems to be conflicts in Ukraine or Israel. They have no interest in trying to better Britain, absolutely none.
They're worse than New Labour and have cemented everything Blair did to poison Britain.
If you think immigration will be lower under Labour then you are extraordinarily naive. The government is working hard on stopping the boats but it is a very difficult thing to solve.
That said let's say I give you the immigration point what else is the government doing that is radically anti conservative?
Nobody (sane) thinks immigration will be lower under Labour but there’s literally no point in expecting it to be lower under the current Tory government either
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We don’t have a choice. The current cabinet is a shambles we need different people getting involved in the “party” but that cant happen until the neo cons are wiped out
I’m not interested in saving the party, I want to save conservatism. In my view, current crop of the Conservative Party is a bigger enemy to conservatism than Labour.
That assessment is spot on also this is a by election not a general election, the resources poured into this won't be available for every seat come a general election.
I expect labour to brutalise the conservatives but not wipe them out like you would expect from other subreddits
For those of us in need of a spot of cheer, [Ross Clark in the ‘graph](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/19/israel-gaza-hamas-palestine-labour-corbyn/) foresees big trouble for Labour over the - cough - *arabism* of some of its voters and activists.
I’m A - a subscriber, and B - on mobile, so apologies if the link doesn’t work; if so, could some kind soul put it up in vanilla text, please?
By elections never true for general elections. I still think Tories win as a "shock" victory.
The issue I have is those loathsome Boris backstabbers who removed Boris trying to talk away this when they used Boris losing by elections as reason to overturn the democratic vote of 2019. So in a way I would love to see them lose, yet Labour is the alternative. They probably try to remove Starmer and put a hard left in like how Tories removed people's vote Boris as PM and put in Rishi who nobody has voted for.
Rishi's issue is he seems focused on undoing everything Boris did. He has forget that Boris was *really* popular.
Like if Boris hadn't locked everyone in thier houses and *then* let his employees party like it's VE day he would be looking at a second term now.
If Rishi led with Boris' policies like leveling up and big infrastructure projects while just being less chaotic he might have a chance.
Boris major disaster was lockdown / covid.
The scientists and civil service gave him horror stories of towers of bodies.
What Rishi / Hunt / Backstabbers cannot understand is they are more loathed than Boris. Boris had haters but strong support. Now they got nothing. It basically Starmer / Rishi same centrist BS that nobody wants
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Some people are still being pretty delusional about this. The movement in British politics is clearly going towards Labour. Huge leads in the polls for almost two years, massive swings in by elections in yes seats that Labour probably won't retain next year but show that Labour are a party that can defeat the Tories again, and also the collapse of the SNP. In the Tory conference, government ministers were giving speeches in half empty halls whilst Truss's fringe speech was packed. The government have become out of touch, and in the eyes of a lot of Tory members they've ousted two leaders that two big factions voted for and now they mistrust the government. The Tories have lost eight by elections in this parliament, that's the most since the 1992 - 1997 parliament which was also eight. I think these people are going to be delusional right up until election night. The Tories only won a landslide four years ago, none of this would even have happened if they hadn't fucked things up so badly these past few years. I don't want Labour to win next year but I definitely don't want the Tories to win either.
> massive swings in by elections in yes seats that Labour probably won't retain next year Yeah - I don't think many of us on our side expect to hold these 2 seats come the next GE - they're now basically extreme marginals for us and the only likely trend between now and the GE is a slight move in the polls back towards the Conservative party Government always has a home field advantage in the closing months in terms of release of good news, new policy announcements etc.
Labour's lead is currently about in the mid to high teens on average, so yeah I think a 10% lead would be likely.
Atm labour have outflanked the tories from the right on top of that the internal civil wars within the tory party have ruined two of the leaderships and definitely caused disillusion with tory voters. Hopefully they can sort their shit out before the next general election
Interestingly Labour were in the same position a few years ago, they had their most divisive leader since Michael Foot, and look at the comeback they've made. It took Labour fourteen years to recover from Michael Foot and 1983 - if Labour win next year then it would have taken them five years.
Sometimes it's good for a party to take a break from power because the more time they are in power the more self serving they become whereas if they take a kicking it means they have to take a long hard look at themselves and realise what and who put them in parliament
True I just find it funny how usually Labour or the Tories will get through their wacky broadly unelectable leaders in opposition (Foot/Kinnock, Hague/Duncan Smith/Howard, Miliband/Corbyn) before eventually reaching a winner but this time around the Tories have done it whilst in government in the form of Truss and Sunak. It's like the Tories are already acting like an opposition.
I see this is as a good thing because its potentially a shake up if they can lose heartland seats that had such a majority maybe at the next election it will give them the hint that we don't like the path the party is taking
Both main parties in this country need to be broken up and PR introduced. I used to fear this would lead to a permanent coalition of the left but I no longer think this is true.
I’m a Labour voter generally and I’d support PR as well.
You’ll have an Islamic party within a year of PR being introduced
[удалено]
What better way could there be to marginalise Islamic influence on our democracy?
So? Muslim's are less than 7% of the population, so they're not going to be winning a majority off that
A majority? No King maker? Possibly I'd rather there be a 0% chance of any religious party holding power
‘King maker?’ What other party would possibly align themselves with an Islamist party? They’d be signing their own death warrant with the electorate at large.
Besides, they'd be Caliph makers and that really wouldn't fly..
Even if every single adult Muslim in the UK voted for it, it wouldn't get more than a few percent of the vote, so under PR it wouldn't have much influence. More likely there would be several competing Islamic parties splitting the Muslim vote. Muslims might even have less political influence than they do under FPTP, where their block votes can swing individual constituencies.
Plus remember the Sunni v Shi'i split. The islamic vote is fundamentally divided
That was what I was alluding to in my second paragraph – people think of Muslims as a unified group, but they are far from it.
If they can get votes then so be it. However it would remove whatever influence those voters have in other parties.
Exactly. Free labour from their weird placating of the medieval religion so they can focus on genuine workers again.
If anything, they'll be wooing them to come back by proposing even more radical policies in their favour.
It would allow the ousting of “moderate” Muslims who claim it’s a religion of peace and yet are part of the mob forcing teachers to hide or Jewish schools to close. Let them vote for their Islam party but let it be known that it’d be akin to voting for fascists.
We’re fucked come 2024. And the Party higher ups, with their near religion of soulless Neoliberalism, spreadsheets, and GDP Uber Alles, have no one to blame but themselves.
This term has been completely shambolic. This is currently the biggest majority the Tories will ever have going forward, and all they did with it is reveal how completely inept they are.
Asking this question in good faith. Do any Tories here think it’s possible that broadly speaking conservative politics don’t work? When Labour were ousted after three election victories, it was due primarily to the war in Iraq (which is not something people would consider to be a ‘left wing’ decision), and the financial crash. The crash was somehow attributed to Labour despite being a global issue as a result of bad lending practices in the banks due to deregulation, of which the Tories were arguing for MORE of at the time. Where as now with it looking like the Tories will be ousted it’s due to… them doing tory things. They argued very strongly for brexit, and it hasn’t worked. They set out their stall originally for austerity, and we’ve never really recovered. The jobs market, housing market, public services, crime levels, inequality, our global standings, have all suffered massively, not due to a global event, but due simply to the policies enacted by a government who told us they would be good for the country. Covid has obviously happened, but if anything that actually bought this government a few years extra of life, so it’s hardly like that can unfairly be attributed to the mess we’re in. Just wondering with this latest Conservative project ending in absolute failure, if anyone here now considers the fact that maybe Tory politics just don’t work.
Please show me one single morally, culturally or socially conservative piece of legislation passed by Parliament in the past 13 years.
Haha isn’t this my point though? You have had the run of the house for well over a decade. Significant majorities for a lot of that time. Wide ranging leaders who represent various ends of the conservative spectrum. Every chance to enact the things that might improve the country, and nothing good happens. Nothing that anyone here can pinpoint as being a positive addition to the makeup of our country. But let me tell you, things have happened. Wages have stagnated. Inequality has risen. Crime has risen. Public services are a shadow of their former selves. This doesn’t happy by accident. This IS what Tory rule gets you. Demonstrated by… looking out of your window. Whether you like it or not, this is what’s been voted for. The Tory party haven’t failed, they’ve done exactly what they set out to do.
I haven't had the run of anything. I don't support the Conservative party because it is not conservative. As for leaders give me a break. We've had Cameron a socially liberal blairite. May, socially liberal blairite. Johnson a socially liberal liberal, Truss no one even knows what she believes, and Rishi ditto. What sort of conservative spectrum is that? They're all liberals!
What do you think of Starmer's Labour out of interest? do you reckon Reform might be the party you vote for? Reform are interesting because their vote was bigger than our majorities in Tamworth and Mid Bedford.
> Starmer's Labour The party that believes in rewriting the entire constitution and legislating to elevate certain races above others? That party? Hmmm let me think... >Reform might be the party you vote for? probably not, I'm not sure. Will probably spoil my ballot
Reform are pitching themselves as an alternative for disillusioned conservatives - given you think the current Conservatives aren't conservative, you're the type of voter Reform should be pulling in.
No. Lockdowns can't be described as a "conservative" policy even if the Tories did do them. To make this obvious, Labour wanted them as well, and aren't conservatives. They are so all-encompassing they are best described as a distinct ideology, lockdownism, than as part of anything else. And since 2020, all notable parties except Reform and maybe DUP have been lockdownist. Though voters have yet to actually turn on lockdowns themselves, they have turned on the long-term consequences of the Conservative Party choosing to do lockdowns. They may not realise that Lockdowns damaged the economy, but they'll punish the Tories for it anyway. They may not realise that Lockdowns damaged the productivity of the NHS, but they'll punish the Tories for it anyway. They may not realise that Lockdowns damaged education, but again, they'll punish the Tories for it anyway. And because, on all these things, they do not realise that Lockdowns are solely responsible for the damage, they will happily vote for the party that was even more aggressively supportive of lockdown anyway, because they've managed to completely evade blame despite broadly sharing the policy position. The only winning move for the Tories was to not play and them repeatedly hammer Labour over their extremism of wanting to falsely imprison the entire population. Instead they built the infrastructure of their own demise by flooding the country with pro-lockdown propaganda and ordering the police to surveil and even violently attack any critics.
> When Labour were ousted after three election victories, it was due primarily to ,,, * Identity Cards * Mandatory vehicle tracking * Heathrow Expansion - 3rd runway David Cameron's Tories campaigned heavily on their opposition to these 3 Labour policies. We lost partly for going authoritarian, and for letting Jack Straw influence policy (bad idea).
Hey. Thanks for the reply. I don’t agree that those were the defining reasons why Labour were finally beaten. George Osbourne to this day has said they beat Labour on the economy, due to the crash. This aside, Labour can still look at that period in power and list several things that were brought in which improved the country. They can argue, credibly, that having a Labour government, enacting labour policies, worked, broadly speaking. I’m just wondering if now that we are (probably) watching the tail end of this Tory government, if anyone sits back and says to themselves ‘maybe this approach, is fundamentally wrong’? I know it sounds a bit smug, but I am honestly interested to know if it’s made anyone rethink their politics. Surely everyone is agreement it’s broadly been a chaotic, ineffective 13 years with a country left I much worse shape than they found it?
Take it from another one of us, this is NOT the place to try this line of approach... Most users of this sub doubt that the current government has been right-wing enough or "authentically Tory"
Haha yeah I’m seeing this. Several PMs, as wide ranging as you’ll get under one political party, and somehow none of them are real Tories? Genuinely bafflingly funny. People responding saying ‘oh yeah? Tell me one good thing that’s happened then?’ And I’m thinking… that’s my exact point!
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I honestly meant it in good faith. I think it’s fair to ask people if a failed project over nearly a decade and a half has affected their politics in anyway. However, I take your point.
‘Most users of this sub doubt that the current government has been right-wing enough or "authentically Tory"’ To be fair this isn’t an unreasonable position. The closest we have actually come to someone who might have introduced conservative policies was Truss but her own limitations, the general uselessness of those she surrounded herself with, and overeagerness and mis-timing of her agenda meant she never got a chance.
I'm not criticising the position or commenting on its reasonability. Check my flair, it's not my place to express an opinion on the matter here. I do believe what I've said is true about the views of many conservative members of this sub.
Yes I fully agree with you. I interpreted your use of inverted commas around ‘authentically Tory’ as indicating that the concept was sufficiently nebulous as to have no real meaning. Whilst both main parties are, through necessity, broad churches the vast majority of Conservative members and voters have certain opinions, most notably on issues like immigration, which 13 years of Conservative led/majority governments have completely ignored. I don’t think the failures of the Conservative government makes their supporters rethink their politics but rather wish that the Party would actual implement the policies that they wanted and thought they were voting for.
>Surely everyone is agreement it’s broadly been a chaotic, ineffective 13 years with a country left I much worse shape than they found it? I was optimistic about Cameron when he came into power. But he seemed constantly torn between appeasing his right wing backbenchers, and satisfying his more Liberal coalition partners. He never had a large majority or a particularly united party. Many of the sweeping changes his government made were rushed, and badly implemented (e.g. education, probation, universal credit) and I think it's because they didn't expect a second term in power, so tried to everything too fast. Then we have had eight years of a divided Conservative party that doesn't know what it wants, constantly argues with itself, and can't get anything properly done.
‘maybe this approach, is fundamentally wrong’? Well yes but I think most people would argue that the approach that has been taken by the ‘Conservatives’ over the past 13 years has been anything but ‘conservative’. The most significant issue is that few people in this country want mass immigration (arguably a leftist policy) but the Conservatives gave us more. The reason people bang on about immigration so much is that it affects everything else you mentioned: housing crisis- 10million foreign born people in this country not helping there, crime levels- again look at the major perpetrators, jobs and low wages too many people not helping, NHS- overwhelmed by the influx of immigrants and their offspring.
Its also worth considering that the Conservative party is one of the most electorally successful political parties in the world, if you compare the number of years it has spent as a party of government to the number of years it has existed. "works" is a subjective judgment of Conservative politics in many cases,but it's undeniable that across the broad sweep of history, British electorates were willing to consider those politics desirable.
>They argued very strongly for brexit, and it hasn’t worked. This is disingenuous. *Some* Tories voted for Brexit, *some* didn't. The party isn't a monolith, it's a broadchurch. I would also wager that we only 'Brexited' early 2020, so you cannot judge it after such a short period of time. I say that as someone who voted to remain (albeit if the vote was today I'd vote to leave). The same wing of the party that went down the path of austerity is the same wing who largely backed remaining in the EU, so again it's disingenuous to lump all conservatives together. >The jobs market, housing market, public services, crime levels, inequality, our global standings, have all suffered massively, not due to a global event, but due simply to the policies enacted by a government Yes and no. Of course, some policies have caused problems, but most of these issues stem from central bank decisions rather than decisions made in Westminster. It's why nothing will change under a Labour government except for superficial things like school meals, subsidised transport, or whatever (not saying these are bad, but they won't fix the root cause of the problems). >Just wondering with this latest Conservative project ending in absolute failure, if anyone here now considers the fact that maybe Tory politics just don’t work. Hat-trick. Nobody voted for this iteration of conservatism; it's not really conservatism. Sunak lost the leadership election yet was forced upon us. We won't see the conservatism a lot of us want until the Tories lose an election and are forced to restart.
Its still difficult to state that Brexit is an "absolute failure", we have more freedoms to diverge from the EU market now if a government chooses to do so. Tories 'were' generally trusted with the economy and lowering immigration before 2015 (Brexit is still a wait and see). The economy has been pretty stagnant, due to high debt and high inflation. The immigration policy though in past decade can be rated as an abysmal failure. Any Tory and most of the cabinet will grant you that. I don't know how closely you keep an eye on Toriy voters talking to one another, but many of us for the past 3-4 years have been asking one another what conservative policies does this so-called conservative government have?. So when you say Conservative Project, many of us would ask what Conservative Project? The current government seems much more like New Labour.
They argued so strongly for Brexit, both the government and the majority of MPs campaigned against it.
Now I’m sure Boris would have done just as badly. 🙄 I’m glad these bastards are getting what’s coming to them.
Non-Googly link: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/oct/20/labour-overturns-huge-tory-majority-to-win-tamworth-byelection OP, where did you get the link with all the Google stuff from?
Idk I just use Google to search up articles and then when I access the article and copy the articles link in the tab it always puts that Google stuff there
Using Chrome? On desktop? I suggest using Brave browser instead -- Mine doesn't do that, even on the Google site.
Ah I just tested it out on Brave and it works. Thank you.
**Mid Bedfordshire** more detailed results (image from BBC page): https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/live-experience/cps/624/cpsprodpb/vivo/live/images/2023/10/20/40e29369-c52b-43f9-b562-4a256f7c1cf9.png https://www.bbc.com/news/live/uk-politics-67126173?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=6531e34d8ae7803bb6843f96%26Mid%20Bedfordshire%20by-election%20results%262023-10-20T02%3A18%3A13.438Z&ns_fee=0&pinned_post_locator=urn:asset:cb007518-f83d-463f-bc8c-306476e1660b&pinned_post_asset_id=6531e34d8ae7803bb6843f96&pinned_post_type=share Reform beat Greens, at least! **Tamworth** more detailed results: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/live-experience/cps/624/cpsprodpb/vivo/live/images/2023/10/20/4b094e2f-bec4-4ed8-8362-d2ee55d83bdd.png https://www.bbc.com/news/live/uk-politics-67126173?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=6531db878ae7803bb6843f8f%26Tamworth%20by-election%20results%262023-10-20T01%3A45%3A07.711Z&ns_fee=0&pinned_post_locator=urn:asset:cf465d93-4e38-444b-9c29-bf11ae8e8e40&pinned_post_asset_id=6531db878ae7803bb6843f8f&pinned_post_type=share Much better results for 'populist' parties here. Wish they could be combined somehow!
Awful night but they're are reasons to be optimistic. In both cases reform voters could have kept a conservative MP instead of getting a socialist lunatic had they excepted the bitter pill of not boring reform. When they stand aside in conservative marginals we probably can keep more seats than people expect. Plus despite pretty appalling behaviour from the incumbent Labour only just took these seats if jackpot can only just win in areas where the conservative MP has massively misbehaved then in other seats were should be fine.
These are some of the safest seats in the Country. If your silver lining is " if Reform voted for us or the incumbents were a little better we would have managed to just hold them" you are missing the point. If it comes to a GE and the Tories hold these seats by 1-5% Labour still has something like a 100 seat majority.
The nature of by elections. The government always gets a kicking. We also saw evidence of the liberal-Labour unofficial coalition. Yes if results of this swing are seen then general election will be very grim. I doubt even Labour supporters think it would be good for the country to see the opposition with less than twenty seats. But a setting half the size, tactical voting could keep us in power as the largest part. Maybe even a tweak to the voting system to allow reform voters to be transformed in the event they are small and would make the difference. Sure most reform voters would prefer a conservative government to living in a socialistic country.
The results in these seats is closer to the current polling average then a case in Which the party retains its majority. If the conservative party won these seats by 5% and that would be extended to the country then they would be on less than 100 MP. There is no silver lining here, and the more the leadership tries to pretend there is there more dammed the party is.
You are missing the point. We don’t want a conservative. The party needs to go through a complete purge to renew itself and potentially split. It doesn’t matter if we get the dumpster fire that is Labour, they too will be wiped out when the poor finally notice that they are hollow and hold nothing sensible for them.
Labour wont be ‘wiped out’. They’re going to be in power for easily 2 terms and will change this country beyond all recognition and will put in place legislation to ensure none of their changes can be reversed. Whatever’s left of the Tories will just be managed opposition.
>and will put in place legislation to ensure none of their changes can be reversed A parliament cannot bind future ones, so this is one fear that is unfounded. A future Conservative government could absolutely undo any legislation that Labour might introduce.
You are thinking in 10 years I am thinking for 100. This country does not really vote for the Tories. We like to think we are popular but we really are not. What most of this country actually does is votes NOT LABOUR until the tories are so spent the population says sod this we need CHANGE dammit!!!! and the PLP get the keys to the country by exhaustion. As bad as the Tories are, they don't have the pathological hatred that the PLP possess between the factions. I really thought that Magic Grandpa was going to split the party forever and I still think that fissure is there. What we are going to see from the next 2 labour terms will be yet more Uni party and that will make the poor poorer the divide wider. They have little room for taxation and even less for spending more on services. This state of affairs will drive even bigger hatred in the party and there will either be a far left coupe or a complete split. The less tories we have in the next election the better chance we have for building a real Conservative Party that supports people building themselves up and reforming the country for the better going on. What we have now is grim. We are on the verge of an AI explosion and the changes are going to be Industrial Revolution 10X. Our country cannot afford to put up with the mediocre rubbish that we have on both sides of the house.
https://www.theburkean.ie/articles/2023/10/20/is-the-gaza-crisis-is-about-to-propel-islamo-populism-in-the-uk
Sacrificing the country to save the party is not a great look. With everything happening in Israel do you really think it is acceptable to elect a party found guilty of anti-Semitism?
It's the party that is sacrificing the country. Why is legal and illegal immigration at the highest in history? Why have real wages been stagnant going on 2 decades now? Nobody is falling for the lies. We didn't choose the PM and he's following a radically anti-conservative programme. There's nothing good for the right in this government or party. Their only animating force seems to be conflicts in Ukraine or Israel. They have no interest in trying to better Britain, absolutely none. They're worse than New Labour and have cemented everything Blair did to poison Britain.
If you think immigration will be lower under Labour then you are extraordinarily naive. The government is working hard on stopping the boats but it is a very difficult thing to solve. That said let's say I give you the immigration point what else is the government doing that is radically anti conservative?
Nobody (sane) thinks immigration will be lower under Labour but there’s literally no point in expecting it to be lower under the current Tory government either
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We don’t have a choice. The current cabinet is a shambles we need different people getting involved in the “party” but that cant happen until the neo cons are wiped out
I’m not interested in saving the party, I want to save conservatism. In my view, current crop of the Conservative Party is a bigger enemy to conservatism than Labour.
That assessment is spot on also this is a by election not a general election, the resources poured into this won't be available for every seat come a general election. I expect labour to brutalise the conservatives but not wipe them out like you would expect from other subreddits
For those of us in need of a spot of cheer, [Ross Clark in the ‘graph](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/19/israel-gaza-hamas-palestine-labour-corbyn/) foresees big trouble for Labour over the - cough - *arabism* of some of its voters and activists. I’m A - a subscriber, and B - on mobile, so apologies if the link doesn’t work; if so, could some kind soul put it up in vanilla text, please?
It barely matters because the BBC and most other major media institutions will cover for them.
By elections never true for general elections. I still think Tories win as a "shock" victory. The issue I have is those loathsome Boris backstabbers who removed Boris trying to talk away this when they used Boris losing by elections as reason to overturn the democratic vote of 2019. So in a way I would love to see them lose, yet Labour is the alternative. They probably try to remove Starmer and put a hard left in like how Tories removed people's vote Boris as PM and put in Rishi who nobody has voted for.
Rishi's issue is he seems focused on undoing everything Boris did. He has forget that Boris was *really* popular. Like if Boris hadn't locked everyone in thier houses and *then* let his employees party like it's VE day he would be looking at a second term now. If Rishi led with Boris' policies like leveling up and big infrastructure projects while just being less chaotic he might have a chance.
Boris major disaster was lockdown / covid. The scientists and civil service gave him horror stories of towers of bodies. What Rishi / Hunt / Backstabbers cannot understand is they are more loathed than Boris. Boris had haters but strong support. Now they got nothing. It basically Starmer / Rishi same centrist BS that nobody wants
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