Tory – More Zonkyness

Time To Drive The Knife Deeper Into The Tory Heart

Jul 112024

A combination of Tory incompetence, mismanagement, the austerity fetish, and probably outright corruption has allowed us the electorate to drive a knife into the heart of the Tory beast. But the job is not over yet; the beast still lives if wounded.

The Tories may well thrust the knife in themselves with a variety of different groups moving the party to the right with the impression that the country is moving in the direction of ReformUK. Ignoring their traditional supporters.

But in case sanity returns by the time of the next election, we should be planning on finishing off the Tory beast. That doesn’t mean the right shouldn’t have a party – there is still a bunch who would vote for a centre-right party.

But the current Tory party itself is guilty of such atrocious mis-management that it deserves to die.

We need to demand electoral reform – getting rid of a government so miserable in performance and fractured in nature shouldn’t require tactical voting. People should be free to vote with their conscience and belief and to find the result reflects their vote in proportion to everyone else.

It is worth pointing out that the 2019 election result gave the Tories an 80 seat majority on 44% of the popular vote whereas the combination of Labour, Greens, and Liberals got 46% of the popular vote. How is giving the right-wing the government when a left-wing ‘coalition’ had a majority of the popular vote supposed to be fair?

And that was quite possibly the poorest result for the left of centre parties in recent times.

If we do not get electoral reform, we need to push tactical voting twice as hard – and drag old old stories of just how bad the Tories in government really were.

A long road to the gatehouse — Dover Castle Gateway

The Death of The Tory Party

Politics No Responses »

Jun 302024

… is excessively exaggerated.

Sure, it looks likely that the Tories will lose the election and quite possibly at a scale even worse than the 1906 election. Much as I like the idea, the likelihood of them being forced into third place is perhaps rather remote.

The key to the Tories’ failure is their Brexit-induced lurch to the right – both in terms of economic policy and in terms of “cultural” policy. They’re not only lurched to the right, but looking at their lack of popularity have doubled-down and gone further right.

The problem (without regard to the stupid viciousness of right-wing policies) is that not every Tory voter is happy with the far right lurch. The Tory supporters always used to be a collection of folk varying from those just right of centre all the way through to goose-stepping full on fascists. The ones closer to the centre than fitting in with the crew with the smart uniform fetish, are currently homeless.

This can best be seen amongst the young where support amongst the 18-24 aged folk is as low as 1%.

The funny thing is that the worse their defeat, the more likely they are to start fixing things. They actually need to be forced into third place. Anything less and they will likely carry on the same path they’re currently on. Which in the end may very well result in them being placed third at the next election; or worse (especially if proportional representation is brought in).

And even if the result is bad enough to spend a long time reconsidering and rebuilding, if they let the extreme right-wingers (of whatever kind) and corrupt spivs retain control, then they won’t get anywhere near power ever again.

No, they need to return to the centre. Rebuild support amongst traditional conservatives who amongst other things respect honesty and probity. Those conservatives (lower case “c”) will go somewhere – either a reconstituted Tory party or a new party.

But death? Well it is possible, but there have been previous incidents of parties being reduced to what the Tories will likely be reduced to – the Liberal party for example. Whilst the modern Liberal Democrats isn’t the same party as the old Liberals, the later did last into the modern era (well, the 1980s).

So if anything being beaten into third place next week, may actually be the best outcome for the Tory party. At least if they mend their ways.

The Tory Austerity Fetish

Politics No Responses »

May 262024

Way back when the Tories got into power (2010), they had a bit of a cheer-a-thon when austerity measures were announced. I said at the time that even if austerity was necessary (and it probably wasn’t), it wasn’t the sort of thing to cheer about.

We’ve since seen the effect of their austerity fetish taking effect on our public services – NHS waiting lists grown out of all proportion, trouble filling public-sector vacancies, pot-holes in the roads, libraries closed left, right, and centre.

Even if it were necessary, the initial cheering tells us everything we need to know about Tories. They don’t give a damn about most of us – they would rather cut taxes for their rich pals.

So remember when you vote – the Tories aren’t on your side.

Is A New Tory Party Leader A Good Idea?

Politics No Responses »

Mar 172024

Well yes, the Tories need a new party leader to rebuild their party after the next election. Before the election? The new leader will just be a sacrificial lamb that’ll probably be thrown out onto the slag heap (hopefully a nice soggy wet one) at the next election.

It’ll almost certainly not save them from being wiped out (and that’s from 6 months ago; if anything, things are even worse today) at the next election.

An overwhelming majority of people want an election now and changing leaders now in what will be seen as yet another undemocratic move (it isn’t; it’s just people like to think they’re voting for a particular PM when they’re just voting for their MP) is likely to make the Tories even more unpopular.

If I were Starmer, I’d launch a parliamentary vote of no confidence as soon as the replacement showed up in parliament :-

The people don’t want you.
We don’t want you.
The other parties here don’t want you.
And if they were honest, half of those on your side don’t want you either.
– Me putting words in Starmer’s mouth.

He’d lose of course, but the people will see it as an honest attempt at doing the right thing.

Why Tories Should Vote Against Tories

Politics No Responses »

Jan 142024

This is going to be a bit of a departure from the normal far-left propaganda and I dare say almost every Tory voter will be ignoring it. But maybe a few will at least listen – at least to me it makes sense. And not because I’ll not be voting Tory myself either.

Today’s Tory party is broken – to at least the extent that the Labour party was broken during the era of the Militant tendency; they have been infiltrated by two (at least) factions of the far right.

The first are your classic proto-fascists – nationalistic to the extreme, anti-immigration, and worried by “woke-ism” to the extent they’ll by really nasty to those the wokeists will say you should be nice to. And I don’t just mean with words – they’re basic thugs.

The second are disaster capitalists who don’t care about the country. They’re after enriching themselves and their rich mates. They’re after tax cuts – not because they believe in small government but because they want to cut taxes for the rich.

The fix for this is to smash the party at the next election; anything less won’t work. The party needs to be reduced to the point that the extremists will give up on the party and leave for greener pastures. Hopefully they won’t find a new home.

It is quite possible that a loss at the next election won’t be quite enough – real Tories need to get out and shout down the extremists at every opportunity. The party needs to look closely at what the public as a whole wants – for example, sabotaging the NHS over the last decade has made much of the public very, very angry.

And the party needs to look very closely at why the young steer clear – the way things are going at the moment, the Tory party will be having an annual conference in a back street pub in a couple of decades. The old adage about young people becoming more right-wing as they age is almost certainly wrong, but even if it’s right, they’ll be looking to the right-wing of the Labour party or the Liberals as their home.

Why am I trying to help the Tories? Because I’ll enjoy seeing the Tories have an election result that’ll make the 1906 disaster look like a tea party of course. But a relatively small loss won’t cause the party to do a proper reflection to the extent they need.

Older Entries