Westminstenders: Social Conservativism

[RedToothBrush]

The post election autopsy is starting to show something up. Finally. Brexit is part of wider political issues and fractures. This isn't exactly rocket science but it's an inconvenient truth that has been ignored.

We have something of a conflict going on between economic conservatism and social conservatism.

The Tories as the party of business were economically conservative and put this ahead of other issues. "It's the economy stupid."

But as this has continued this has opened up social division and the gap between rich and poor has laid bare social issues.

This is where Labour and the LDs are now becoming something of a cropper. In Brexit they continued the idea that the economy was the most important this and in doing so has fuelled the idea that they don't care about social issues. They are perceived to be putting the interests of businesses as more important than those people.

Of course it's not as straightforward as this. To fund ways to stop social issues you need good economics.

Add to this the progressive movement which has become authoritarian and has lost sight of certain social issues in favour of identity politics and you start to have a real issue. One that the EU as an identity has become caught up in in this country. The wedge to drive in the cracks.

Issues haven't been tackled because identity is more important and was prioritised. And we've had scandals arising out of this.

Instead we've had the increasing demonisation of social conservativism and the idea that if you question certain things you are backward or bigoted as a means to silence people. And now we've had a massive backlash against that generalisation and lack of nuance. And not seeing what was happening and having a self awareness of how this read to more socially conservative types.

That's not to say there aren't massive issues in social conservatism which can be indeed racist, homophobic, sexist and yes very bigoted in nature. The trouble is that the failure to be able to tackle nuance which identity politics forced and a failure to understand that the pace of change needs to be set by public consensus rather than top down authoritarianism has lead us to where we are now.

Rights set up to protect certain groups have failed in practice even if they exist in law. And those who professed to stand for the interests of certain groups forgot the origins of rights.

Thus undermining the entire centre left project, which in some respects the EU embodies.

We now find ourselves in a divided and ruled scenario where those who should have benefitted most from rights can be exploited by an elite who have successfully seen an opportunity to step into the void that identity politics created.

And now the left and liberals have to wake up to this reality and come up with a solution to it.

There is a lot of uncomfortable and difficult decisions to be made here.

The solution to the culture war isn't to push back harder and to become more authoritarian in tone about the right of 'right and wrong'.

It's to address why identity politics caused the left and liberals to forget their origins and purpose and why they established certain ideals in the first place.

Meanwhile whilst they figure out just how they lost their way and were blinkered by their own self righteousness, everything that the centre left project established will be gradually unpicked. Or if Johnson can do it, without being challenged, at some considerable pace.

It comes down to remembering your roots and having a solid connection with the reality of people's lives rather than high minded idealism and a sense of superiority. This is what people saw regardless of the noble intent of Labour and the Lib Dems.

'Social conservatism' were dirty words. Now they are the reality of the present. Whether we like it or not.

Economic stability has become secondary to this desire for social conservatism.

Labour and the Lib Dems have to adapt to this and will have to offer something to those with more socially conservative views to move forward now. The alternative is a very long wait outside in the cold of politics.

Liberal democracy is about balancing needs. You have to identify needs and you have to understand how to balance them for liberal democracy to thrive. Failure to do the former means the latter fails.

And here we are.

2020 beckons.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New to all.

That wasn't the only inaccuracy in the Aljazeera article social care in the UK has been stretched by the demands of an aging population and austerity-driven cuts to services - but it is currently funded through general taxation and is 100 percent free at the point of use for all those who require it. This is just very lazy journalism. It is true of the NHS, for now but not social care. Indeed one of the issues that needs facing is the unfairness of a system that means people unlucky enough to have care needs (at any age, not just the elderly) who have more than £23 k (in England) in income, savings and assetts have to pay for them to be met, including potentially selling their house. But it won't get faced, because Boris does slogans not policy. He is quite happy for people to remain ignorant of the issue until it affects them or a relative, or they find themselves on an NHS ward with a bunch of octagenarians who are there because their care needs are not being met and they end up falling or getting ill as a result, and there is nowhere else for them to go where their care needs can be met. Ironically when May actually tried to propose a slightly better system. a lower dementia tax in effect, it helped lose her majority in the election. He will have learnt that lesson, better to carry on blustering that it is all being taken care of in some vague undefined way....

DuckWillow do you have any thoughts on who should be the next Labour leader ? Think it's important Labour listens to floating voters like yourself.

I’d like to see someone like Andy Burnham to be honest but I also like Keir Starmer providing he looks hard at what the electorate want.

Labour do need to have a good look at why they lost the election.

For me it’s because Corbyn is not a leader although he may well be a decent man. I’ve never had him down as an anti-Semite or a terrorist sympathiser. In the same way I never had Margaret Thatcher down as a sympathiser for dictatorships and she hobnobbed with plenty of dictators in her time.

Plus he had Diane Abbott in a key opposition role. Now I think Diane Abbott is amazing, she graduated with a First from Oxford and you don’t do that without a pretty good intellect. Unfortunately I think Diane Abbott is increasingly unwell and certainly not well enough to take a key role in Government. I suspect that is behind the gaffes we have seen.

From my knowledge she is a good MP and people in her constituency speak highly of her. She needs to stick to that role and not take on any extra.

I didn’t feel confident enough in them to form a Government this time.

Quick check-in.

Re the Al Jazeera article. I'm astounded anyone bothered to take it seriously after reading the section on social care. Why I think the SNP may have a point in limiting the franchise for expats.

Equally astounds me how many people don't realise free personal care for the elderly is already available in Scotland. Equivalent numbers don't realise this does not mean that residential care is free.

The Damian Green proposal re insurance is actually a resurrection of the cross party proposals drawn up under Andy Burnham when he was health secretary.

Not sure if the original article spelled Damian's name wrong but it's a faux pas right up there with Sir Kier.

Andrew Rawnsley does not mince his words
and his comments about the demonisation of Blair are bang on.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/22/labour-has-no-hope-of-rebuilding-unless-it-breaks-cold-grip-of-the-hard-left

Also on the embarrassing Big Ben ringing on 31 Jan. How F ing ridiculous:

1. Half the country do not want this.

1. Are bells going to ring each time we conclude or quit a trading relationship?

The main reason for objections to the EU's ' control' was an objection in principle to a basic externally agreed platform of decent working conditions. The anti EU brigade always wanted to leave this choice to business owners

Yes, this was the main reason I voted remain as I didn't trust Tory governments to retain workers' rights.

To cut workers rights to the bone, you have to have enough people who are desperate enough to take the jobs - which isn't the case in a country with an ageing population and has told the countries nearest who supplied the immigrants under FoM that they are not wanted

Yes but you're also about to cut off our own citizens' escape routes. We lose FoM so we have to put up with the jobs and working conditions we can get in this country. So they can absolutely do what they want with workers rights because they know people can't leave unless they are either extremely skilled and/or have an EEA passport down the back of the sofa.

Give it two years and holiday entitlement will be cut back to 20 days including bank holidays. Give it five years and we'll have the bank holidays.

Thanks for replying DuckWillow. I can vote in the leadership contest, at the moment I am leaning towards Keir Starmer, I like Lisa Nandy too, but will make a final choice after listening to all of the candidates.

For calming stuff, here is my feline equivalent of Brexit. The cat on the right is an immigrant (ie my dead DM's cat, we rehomed him with us of course). The two on the left were the existing cats. The very thick one with the bow tie marking on his nose cares for nothing except he should get MORE food at all times. The stroppy black one in the middle wants to be sure he gets everything. He is a Tory.

and his comments about the demonisation of Blair are bang on.

Otherwise known as confirmation bias

yolo I like your cats and your analysis of them in relation to Brexit.

However, how are the chickens getting on? What are their political leanings?

Also on the embarrassing Big Ben ringing on 31 Jan. How F ing ridiculous

Dunno, you could argue it's kind of appropriate. A loud, crowing, triumphalist but ultimately meaningless and hollow noise for convincing susceptible adherents that something significant has occurred, whereby the thing that adherents most want to achieve is simply to brutally rub the noses of unbelievers into the manure so much they don't care that they'll be rolling in the muck themselves.

It's just the sort of populist nonsense the National Conservative Party would come up with. I hope all the remaining EU states also have a bell celebrating good riddance to a difficult family member who has decided to go NC.

Yes but you're also about to cut off our own citizens' escape routes. We lose FoM so we have to put up with the jobs and working conditions we can get in this country.

True, but unless Johnson develops an anti-ageing elixir, a lot of us are too old to be fit enough to labour in fields fruit or potato picking. I could have done it 40 years ago, I can't now.

Watching with interest.

I am hoping something comes of the EU efforts to offer British individual quasi-membership or similar.

I am hoping something comes of the EU efforts to offer British individual quasi-membership or similar.

Sadly I doubt it. After all, the UK has voted to leave - and was told in terms of ringing clarity that it would not be allowed to cherry pick the bits of the EU it likes - and that includes FoM. Especially an FoM which isn't backed by the ECJ.

The EU was a package deal - like a broadband (or indeed any other) contract. If you want it, you have to take the landline too.

I dunno there are 16 million of us. Say at £20 per associate membership -that's worth having maybe?

a lot of us are too old to be fit enough to labour in fields fruit or potato picking

With a pension age of 75 and you're as fit for work as an Atos examiner says you are and with the DWP already able to sanction 100% of your income for spurious reasons, theres plenty of workforce left in unchained post Brexit Britain

@DGRossetti - yep, I know what you mean about the cherry-picking. The person who gave me the idea was Guy Verhofstadt who retweeted support of it on the 18th December. It's probably just political showboating.

A loud, crowing, triumphalist but ultimately meaningless and hollow noise

“It is a tale. Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

-Shakespeare on Brexit, probably.

The Associate Membership thing is pure showboating.
I do not understand why anybody thinks it could be real

Hope, perhaps. We take it where we can find a glimmer.

Regards prison 'slave' labour, many US products use this. The Constitution specifically calls it slavery, which was abolished in the 1860s in all cases except as a punishment.

Maybe that's what we need, a few chain gangs out in the fields at this time of year to pick the brassicas.

Saw star wars on Friday. It was oddly stirring. A tale of redemption - as all the best stories are.

"There are more of us than them"

May the force be with you all
😁

Wow those age maps. Starkly different.