To feel sorry for the Tories?

[User135644]

The Conservative Party are a British institution. The most successful political party in the democratic world. They're going through a bad time at the moment and have been dealt a bad hand. They inherited a global financial crash which the western world is still to recover from and then a once in a lifetime pandemic which has further crippled the economy. Now there's wars in Gaza and Ukraine. Really unfortunate circumstances for them to operate in.

It looks like they're going to get a really bloody nose in the next election. Starmer has taken the centre ground and now Reform are starting to steal their MPs as well as voters. Now even their biggest donor is caught up in a scandal. When it rains it pours.

How can they recover from this? Can they recover from this?

The Tories are the great survivors but it's hard to see how they can win the next election, or maybe even the one after that.

They are going through a hard time?

Er, no. They are inflicting hardship on the population. Fuck them. I hope they are destroyed by the next election.

Cameron, like him or not (NOT) presented as a competent politician on the world stage. He had an air of 'friendly authority' which made him electable. Thatcher, also as you said,came across as knowledgeable and determined, whetheher or not people agreed with her policies, she was clearly not to be messed with. Johnson on the other hand came across as a complete incompetent idiot, but a slightly more charismatic idiot than Corbyn, so got in.

I think that Treasurer Liam Byrne’s infamous jokey note to his Tory successor in 2010 saying, “I’m afraid there’s no money” is still causing major damage to Labour.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/09/labour-liam-byrne-apologises-no-money-left-note-general-election

I see it quoted/paraphrased all the time in online comment threads as proof that Labour can’t be trusted with the economy. A few weeks ago, I was chatting to an elderly neighbour about the state of our local council’s finances and we moved on to the state of the country in general. My neighbour couldn’t wait to tell me about this note (even though I already knew about it). He was quite sure it wasn’t a joke.

Cameron also failed to win a majority in 2010 and managed a paltry majority of 11 in 2015 - not exactly electoral catnip.

Not this old chestnut about a Treasury ongoing joke which started with former Tory chancellor, Reginald Maudling’s “Sorry, old cock, to leave you such a mess”.

https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2023/04/conservative-obsession-afraid-no-money-note-says-labour

Do you mean the other parties had nothing to do with him being made leader of the Conservatives, or nothing to do with him being made leader of the country as prime minister? The first, yes, all on the Torys who they chose as their leader. 2nd, no, the other parties could have tried harder and better to stop him winning

He was made prime minister by virtue of being made leader of the Tory party.

The election came later.

other parties could have tried harder and better to stop him winning

How? The only other party that played any party in him winning was UKIP or whatever they were calling themselves at the time. They stood candidates down in constituencies where they’d have split the vote.

Agree, let's look at the groups of people they've pissed off:

The disabled
The poor
The working class
The middle class
Migrant workers
Refugees
Racists because they couldnt stop migration despite brexiting (tbf I have no time for racists)
The Rich (Truss/Kwarteng)
Anti-vaxxers
People who lost loved ones because they failed to implement covid measures at the start of the pandemic
People who couldn't visit relatives in hospital or care homes or attend funerals due to covid rules (which the Tories flouted)
The young (introducing photo ID to deter voters)
The elderly
Enviromentalists
Farmers
Fishermen
Socialists
The Far Right
Themselves

I mean is there any group I've not mentioned here that they've not pissed off???

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/rishi-sunak-echr-prime-minister-rwanda-andrea-jenkyns-b1145058.html

In the run up to the last election I heard countless interviews with people who didn’t want to vote for Johnson but were then saying that they couldn’t vote Labour because of Corbyn. I’m not sure what they thought a Corbyn government would result in given that the press would have scrutinised his every action in a way that they don’t scrutinise the Tories.

I don’t think Corbyn would have been an effective PM but he wouldn’t have been corrupt. He was an activist first and foremost.

It's so wrong that the media are able to manipulate people like that and get away with it. I personally think we would have faired okay under Corbyn. It's a moot point now and of course we don't vote for the PM, we vote for the party that mostly aligns with own ideals.

Thats the nature of our FPTP voting system... Govts are always minority ones.

We ve a heavily biased printed media and a state funded principal broadcaster.

Look at todays Sun and Mail front pages? one is about Maddie McCann, the other defence spending..... the media not reporting when the Tories fuck up is a huge issue for opposition parties.

But the opposition is nothing to do with how well the Tories Govern, they ve been in power for the majority of the last 75 years and have totally wrecked the country.
We should have Europes best public services, roads, transport and housing because unlike any other european country (Norway aside) we had North Sea oil and gas, instead this windfall went into corporate profits and some v short term tax cuts.

The Tories squandered NS opportunities.

Bizarre to blame Labour for Tory incompetence, no one dictate who or what the electorate are inspired by or who they will vote for.

Just remember that all those now sitting in the shadow cabinet, the likes of Wes Streeting, Liz Kendall, Yvette Cooper, preferred another Tory government under Johnson to a Labour government under Corbyn. They were told categorically in polling that their stupid second referendum policy was going to decimate their heartlands and they went ahead with it anyway. Corbyn understood this and held out for as long as possible before finally capitulating. It wasn't about a second referendum at all, it was about getting rid of a centre left leader.

Look at the state of America because it has two right wing parties. The Democrats might be better than the Republicans (and lets face it, they've gone complete batshit crazy now) but they're not left wing. That's what we're now being presented with. Right wing and slightly less right wing. Blair's 3 terms were squandered because he kept with the Thatcherite economic orthodoxy. 13 years of a centre left government would have seen our utilities brought back in public hands, the stopping of PFI in the NHS, no bringing in of tuition fees and quite possibly the addition of tech colleges to replace the polys that were elevated to universities, the stopping of right to buy, etc etc. New Labour were not left wing, not remotely. And Starmer's bunch aren't either. What a dreadful choice to be presented with.

This ^

Oh bless your heart listing "achieving brexit" like it's a good thing.

The Tories don't give a shit about you, the sooner you realise that the better.

Just remember that all those now sitting in the shadow cabinet, the likes of Wes Streeting, Liz Kendall, Yvette Cooper, preferred another Tory government under Johnson to a Labour government under Corbyn. They were told categorically in polling that their stupid second referendum policy was going to decimate their heartlands and they went ahead with it anyway

The country was split, totally fed up with Brexit mess in Parliament and Corbyn was painted as anti British and a Terrorist sympathiser... both of which were untrue, Labours manifesto was though, completely unrealistic... free broadband for all? wtf was that all about???
People saw through it, just as now they see through the shambles of a Govt under Sunak, now even less popular than Liz Truss, who compared less favourably to a lettuce.

Bojo promised to resolve Brexit, people believed him... they don't now.

The Tories were out for at least three general elections from 1997. They came back.

Alternatively in northern Ireland the official unionists and SDLP, both more moderate parties have been completely replaced by the democratic unionists and sinn Fein, both more radical parties. Little sign of a return. On the mainland the Tories, labour and SNP face alternatives more radical and likely to dilute their votes.

The country was split, totally fed up with Brexit mess in Parliament and Corbyn was painted as anti British and a Terrorist sympathiser... both of which were untrue, Labours manifesto was though, completely unrealistic... free broadband for all? wtf was that all about???

There was a lot of politicking going on in parliament, done for selfish narrow ends rather than what was best for the country going forward. They were acting like children for the most part and it was a completely unedifying spectacle, I agree. The free broadband thing though, in light of what happened with Covid and the numbers of poorer children being locked out of learning, would it have been such a bad thing? Huge swathes of the country are still not on fibre. Wasn't it meant to address this?

The trouble with this country is that way too many people, if they don't see the value in something for themselves, extrapolate that to think whatever it is has no value AT ALL.

Agree with the WiFi thing maybe not being realistic, but do remember the last labour manifesto under Corbyn was fully costed so they must have had some plan in place. With the millions the tories have squandered I reckon it was probably doable at a fraction of the cost

WiFi for all now looks like an enlighted policy if he had of been able to enact it before the pandemic arrived...

Is this a joke?

From the 2019 Tory campaign on facebook

https://www.itv.com/news/2019-12-06/88-of-conservative-ads-on-facebook-misleading

Over 500 ads included claims that the Conservatives would create jobs for 50,000 more nurses as well as more than 5000 ads claiming that the party would build 40 new hospitals. Both claims have been labelled as misleading by the fact checker.

https://fullfact.org/election-2019/ads/

Liz Truss found out who runs Britain. Spoiler alert - not the PM. Markets, big business, finance, whatever you call it.

New Labour tried their best to carefully achieve socialist goals within a market economy- it was a good effort but never going to work. PFI, for example, get private companies to help build hospitals - sounds great, basically gave private company pigs a trough for their snouts 😞

Let's hope Starmer can do better - he's named for legendary Keir Hardie so that's a good omen!

I love Keir as a name. Had never heard of it til KS.