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.

I wonder where all the Tory voters are. Usually on threads about politics the Tory voters are super vocal and there's loads of them

I wonder where all the Tory voters are. Usually on threads about politics the Tory voters are super vocal and there's loads of them

Conservative HQ are cutting back in case they are coerced into giving refunds to donors.

You’re brave OP - Mumsnet is famously left! Tin hat on!

Left of the current Tory party is not a particularly difficult place to be though is it, given they are one of the more far right parties in Europe.

Left of the current Tories is like slightly less hot than the sun...

Yes well that's why Labour are twenty points ahead. The Tories are stupid. Chasing the votes that will barely make a difference regarding race, trans issues, while pretending money and economic competence (their biggest winner by far in vote terms) doesn't matter.

Apparently they had some advice that they could win by gathering up culture war votes. The problem is that culture war just bit them and they are out of step with mainstream opinion. It's probably only a small core of GB News viewers who will vote on this stuff at the expense of their own wallets

Or maybe they are all busy gearing up for Monday's announcement that Sunak has found his spine and balls and is calling a GE.

One can dream.

I'm wondering if Sunak is being told to call an election by his boss, regardless of what bright ideas he may have.

With each passing hour and each slipping point, the number of Tories that will make up the next reincarnation of the parliamentary party is slowly reducing. And it's never going to rise.

The fewer MPs in the parliamentary party, the more chance there is they will go full tonto (to coin a phrase) and pick the most loony tunes MP they can find. Which would condemn them to electoral obscurity for a few parliaments.

Even today, we're being told the unemployed are to be conscripted. Or would be if Richard Drax MP had his way.

Please God let it happen, and put us out of our collective misery.

I’m finding this interminable wait for an election really exhausting. This parliament feels as if it’s lasted about 50 years. It’s torture.

Do you think it's accidental ?

I'm still waiting for the proclamation that "because of" the general election has to be postponed. Or maybe just cancelled. I mean as Brexiteers have so scrupulously observed, we can't keep changing our minds every few years, can we ?

Tory culture wars sure have bit them in the arse. They're losing votes to Reform UK.

Will they swap Sunak out for Penny Mordaunt? You can almost see their minds whirring.

"Well, she doesn't seem entirely bananas, she looks like she knows how to use a hair brush and best of all the proles will remember the sword bearing thing at the coronation and think they're voting for Britannia. Let's put a rosette on her and get her spouting false promises forthwith. We can always stab her in the back and get a bloke in by Christmas."

You could be describing how Thatcher got the gig there. She was supposed to be the joke "anybody but Heath" candidate that would be gone before the year was out.

Another great Tory plan ... although to be fair their bungling it actually did some good for the UK (in places). I'm sure they won't be making the same mistake this time. After all: they have no interest in improving life in the UK, if must be really galling when it happens by accident.

The male, pale and stale Tory membership all fancy her, she reminds them of Thatcher only more glamorous. I don’t think they’d be in any hurry to get shot of her once she was ensconced which is why they’re saving her for after the election. Unfortunately for them she may not have a seat by then.

They fancy her? I don't like much about Mordaunt's policies but it's just typical that you would assume her contribution to the party is primarily her sexual appeal to male party members.

I’m not making that assumption at all. It says far more about the Tory membership than it does about Mordaunt, after all she has no control over them viewing her as a sex object, does she? That was a lovely bit of implied victim blaming.

It says a lot about you that you think that her place in the party is one of a sex object and not a formidable member with potential for leadership.

It says nothing whatsoever about me and everything about Tory men because that’s their opinion, not mine. And they’re the ones who get to make the decision about the next leader, not me.

And where is your evidence that all the Tory Membership fancy her? Rather than hold her in high regard for her political career?

It’s anecdotal. I’m married to one of them, he’s entirely open about it so are his fellow members.

Mrs Thatcher got a lot of male support under the guise of "equality". It was a great tactic to be able to blunt accusations of sexism from the very male Labour cabinet. she stayed in power by keeping that contingent in power and any potential rivals out. A look at her various cabinets will totally fail to unearth any women.

The parallels with the fact that Sunaks heritage is crowbarred into every possible reporting are startling. However, as we know, he would never ever have become leader if the party membership had been asked. Luckily they weren't.

Oh God. Poor you.

I wouldn't assume that a woman's political career and her appeal to the party membership is one dominated by sex appeal because you are lumbered with your particular dh and his awful friends though.

Nah it’s fine @Desecratedcoconut. I chose him for all his other redeeming qualities. But it’s worth bearing in mind that he’s on the left of the party and has had most of his sexism beaten down by 26 years of living with me so what does that say about the majority of them?

I have met Penny Mourdant (actually most of these Conservatives we are discussing) and really, she is just remarkably attractive. I don't think I really noticed until we met in person. Then it was wow

A bit of a diversion as politics generally not filled with attractive people. The number of flattering camera angles used is intense. It can a shock when you actually meet politicians because there is a huge amount of work to make them look better, slimmer and particularly taller if you are a man.