The fall of the Tory party

A thoughtful thinker ….

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Unexpected anal there too.

Subliminal Tory messaging?

I mean, it can’t be accidental from such a thoughtful thinker

Unsparing too!

Tough love

Apparently if Jenrick doesn’t win then the members are going to fuck off to Reform - neither outcome is promising for the Tory Party

Whenever I think of the tories from now on it will always remind me of unsparing anal. And whenever I think of unsparing anal, it will make me think of the tories - not sure which is worse!

Tbh it might suit them if they could just get rid of the members, then they could deal directly with donors without complications. Maybe Starmer could advise them on how to get rid of 300k members...

Interesting twists yesterday, and in the run up. Clearly cleverly has the momentum and jenrick peaked too soon / blew his chances by opening his mouth at conf. Not over yet though. I've been long on those two and, for the last week or so, very short on Badenoch. Was also very short on Tugs, and Mel Stride (who I'd never heard of until a couple of weeks ago). I thought Badenoch was a busted flush a few days ago when I went short on her, and she didn't have a great conference. She probably still is busted as there is talk of cleverly lending jenrick votes to make sure she's knocked out, and when push comes to shove, I reckon the tory members will vote for the whiter option, whatever the polling samples say.

It would be interesting to see Jenrick vs Badenoch purely from a “who can howl loudest at the moon” perspective

Is that not what they've been doing all along?

Nah, need to win MP selection- once you are in the final two it’s a direct appeal to the party membership who are, generally, a lot further to the right than the MP’s.

My takeaway from this is “in what situations is Frank using the phrase “unsparing anal”?”

Being a middle aged dad I think there would be a place for a small c conservative party.

I know labour are currently holding that mantle but if the nutters fuck off to reform and slowly die out the conservative party could become useful again (in political terms).

Why do people always assume the meaningful opposition to Labour have to be a party on the right? I think it’d be great if our two main parties were Greens and Labour.

It feels as the right have got more extreme Labour has moved in that direction too.

Two party politics is a weird illusion of democracy, the idea that we need a left wing and a right wing party and somehow their bickering will allow a moderate centre ground to be achieved is fucking fallacious.

This wasn’t really aimed @Grumpy_Git I just hit reply to their post.

the conservative party could become useful again

as compost.

There seems to be a strong ‘anyone but Kemi’ undercurrent in what’s left of the parliamentary party.

Because

the party membership who are, generally, a lot further to the right than the MP’s.

I also don't think MPs like KB.

Much agreement. I'm not a Dominic Cummings fan but his analysis of the state of Labour/Tory is bang on. Basically, we have 2 zombie parties, both dead from the neck upwards, both inadequate to the task of reversing national decline. His take though is to hand the country over to big data companies. As ever with the right , this is just another top down fantasy. Our state needs radical reform. The problem at the moment there is no agent for this.

Indeed. Classic fallacious both-siding going on there.

I think the assumption follows from assuming Labour is and will always be on the left.

Maybe the tories have been forced to move further to the right because Labour moved right and stole their patch..? In truth I think it's a bit of both, but we saw how a left-leaning labour party was able to drag the tories under Johnson to ditch austerity in their 2019 manifesto. Long since abandoned now that Labour has re-embraced austerity.

The Greens are making progress but only slowly, as the constraints are money and people. The greens came second in 17 seats in London. With enough resources they would target them all (plus the others where they came second outside London). But they are likely to only target one seat in Hackney.

Lack of friendly billionaires has always been the key structural weakness of left leaning parties!

Well put: reassuring to hear my pessimism is not alone!

What might save the Tory party is the entirety of the current membership moving to Reform.

Why do people always assume the meaningful opposition to Labour have to be a party on the right?

It is a political reality here. It's hard to get away from the fact we are a centre right country and the Tories are the most successful electoral party in the world.

Maybe austerity was the beginning of the end but it will need time to run through. Corbyn Vs Starmer is an indicator that there is little space to the left of labour currently (well at least a few years ago anyway).

Corbyn Vs Starmer is an indicator that there is little space to the left of labour

Depends on how you define 'space'. If you mean number of people willing to support, then the Corbyn years showed that there were an awful lot of people there. But if you mean what can be acheived given the strong and sustained headwinds of the press and other UK institutions, then I fear you are right. I agree that we are institutionally a right-wing country but I do not think that that comes from the population, it comes from the top / centre.

Regarding the Tories, I would change 'are' to 'were'. They may become so again - but they may not, they have the ability to self-destruct and may not adapt to changed times - which they were always very good at in the past. The Whigs under Gladstone were once the most successful party!

Brexit destroyed the Tory party.

Brexit was means by which it was destroyed.

But I'd argue there are bigger forces behind it: the break up of the post-war political consensus and the advance of neoliberalism since Thatcher/Reagan. That has led to rabid right wing politics across the West, and other parties have had similar fates. Les Republicains in France is tiny now, not sure what became of the Christian Democrats in Italy. Even the mighty CDU (which is arguably the most successful political party of the post war era) is retreating in the face of competition from the right.

Without Brexit I believe the tories would have found other rocks on which to flounder!

Their obsession with Europe since Major, yes agreed, a slow decline. Now they are holding off joining reform, in this context it is inevitable. Either become or join it's all the same and become a one issue party.

Meanwhile, on ConservativeHome.

#neverreadthecommemts

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