The British Conservative Party

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Couple of points:

1. The recession and mass unemployment of the '80's was the fault of the Thatcher Regime (er... Government... yes... government...), mass unemployment was actually deliberate in an attempt to control inflation (this attempt failed).
Thatcher also devastated the mining communities by [rants like this for hours on end]

2. I dispute that any national trends can be taken from Council Elections... while it's true that Labour lost control of a lot of councils with large middle class populations, they gained control of a lot with large working class populations (notably in South Wales and the Potteries).
The BBC's national popular vote thingy was total and utter bullsh**t.
Do you know how they came to that figure? By adding up the results in a couple of hundred wards and assuming all other wards voted the same way...
The fact that even after the council elections, Labour held the most councillers in the councils that had held elections was hardly mentioned in the media.

3. The LibDems are not to the Left of Labour, except on certain social issues.
They've swung to the right big time recently (they want to displace you guys by the looks of things) but the media has hardly noticed this.
Slightly raising taxes so you can slash and burn Government Departments while divirting money from the NHS to Pensioners isn't exactly left wing...

4. While Ken Clarke did a good job at Number 11 (mostly by reverting to the Keynsian economic policies of the Callaghan Government. Seriously. The media never noticed this either...), the reason why the Major government was hated was because of the botched privatisations... and the numerous corruption scandels and government leaks.

5. Most opinion polls that are worth at least the ink used to print them with if not the paper (note to Americans: our polling industry is truely dire. It's also pretty much the only industry in the U.K to be completely unregulated. Go figure...) don't show Howard "connecting with people"... he's fairly popular with a certain sort of suburban voter, but he lacks a broader appeal.
You guys should have chosen Clarke in '97 or '01... I'm pleased you didn't though

6. I don't think that the Tories will die... but if the LibDems "decapitation" strategy (on the hitlist: Howard, May, Letwin, Davis... and most of the rest of the Shadow Cabinet from what I hear. Methinks the plan might be a wee bit ambitious...) works next year, they'll be like headless chickens for a few years.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Christopher Gill is another I would support. I think he's still in the Party?

That racist bastard?
He's with UKIP nowadays. There is a rumour going round that he's going to try to win his old seat (Ludlow) back.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I've never read anything racist from Christopher Gill, indeed I've read some very wise words.

Perhaps you could be more specific in your reactionary exclamations?

Shortly before the '01 election (when Gill retired) he made an... er... interesting... remark supporting what a certain Mr. Townend (who also retired that election) said.
The following row sunk Hauge amoung floating suburbanites.

Remember?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Boris Johnson is a joke.

Can't argue with that, but a lot of his comic idiocy seems to be put on... plays well in Henley did NOT play well in South Clwyd

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Labour Party internal polls show that almost all the voters we've lost since '01 are Middle Class Suburbanites (or Muslims).
The Tories will pick up a couple of suburban seats by default.

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I don't know Kent but I do know Dorset... Letwin is in BIG trouble...

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Yardley is actually suburban... is Hemming running there again? If he does, he wins as Morris (who actually has a bigger personal vote in East Brum than Hemming...) is standing down next election. If not... well the demographics of Yardley aren't "natural" LibDem territory.
Rochdale is a puzzle... they shouldn't have lost it in '97 and should have regained it in '01...

Nice to see you back Pete

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Second, when I suggested you start this thread, I was interested in having you tell me what policies, if any, differentiate the Conservatives from New Labour.  So far, I'm still wondering.

A lot.
The changes to the Labour Party in the early/mid '90's were mostly cosmetic (example: Clause IV was actually abolished; it was re-written), most of the changes from Labour's policies in the early '80's (which were very leftwing) happend in the late '80's under Kinnock.
The economic policies of the current government are *fairly* similer to the Callaghan Govt.

The Tories utter failure to recover from the '97 humiliation is a result of braindead thinking in Conservative Central Office that: a) Politics had swung to the right and that they could get away with a big rightward swing and get away with it, b) That Labour's sucess was solely due to the re-branding and that all the Tories problems can be solved by a new logo etc.

The Tories rightward swing has made them un-electable in the eyes of most people in the U.K, and their voters are getting older every year (the average age of a Tory member is over 65... and it's almost that grim with their voters. Not as extreme a pattern as the CDU in Germany though...).

Labour is generally quite moderate on social issues, but tends to be fairly left wing on economic issues, regeneration etc, while the Tories tend to be fairly right wing (though more so on economic issues) on both (a generalisation. The "Wets" tend to be moderate on most things, and the Tories have a large far-right wing).
As an example, one of the main achievments of the Labour Government has been the introduction of the minimum wage. The Tories opposed this.
Another is the "New Deal" (a, very effective, programme to reduce Youth Unemployment) the Tories (and the LibDems) want to scrap it.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Last night the Tories came fourth (FOURTH??!?!!?!) in the Hartlepool by-election... they couldn't even crack 10% of the vote.

Hartlepool (like most ports) used to have a large working class Tory vote (The Hartlepools (as it was then) M.P from 1959 to 1964 was a Tory, and they've come a strong second in most general elections since then).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Is the UKIP socially conservative on issues like abortion and the like? If so, Im rooting for them. 

I've no idea. There are a lot of pro-life Labour M.P's though

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[Filuwaúrdjan]

I think he's adding social issues to the mix, although I would say that parts of Labour, from what you've indicated, Al, match the econ left social right category...but I admit I'm not sure how the socially liberal U.K. handles these issues, if at all.

Very few people in the U.K vote on social/wedge issues (the main voting indicator is Class)... certain unscrupulous candidates have played the race card (infamously in Smethwick, 1964: "If you want a n*gger neighbour, vote Liberal or Labour") and recently homophobia (not gay marriage. The fact that candidate x is gay) has been used (unsuccessfully) against Labour candidates in Exeter and also in the Rhondda (the euphamism used was "exotic candidate"... the "exotic candidate" went on to win with 67% of the vote).
Abortion has never been a major issue, because it was legalised to stop backstreet abortions (which had reached disturbing levels in inner cities) and not as a "right".
One ever-present wedge issue is crime, with the Tories and LibDems taking predictable stances (ie: Traditionalist and Libertarian) while Labour has something of a "militant communitarian" viewpoint which was noticable in the recent Hartlepool By-election especially over it's pet project "ASBO's" (Anti Social Behavior Orders).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Very interesting...would you agree that in the U.S., we vote more on social/wedge issues and less on Class than in the U.K.? You certainly get some...interesting groups voting together here!

Pretty much every countries politics is less class-orientated than ours

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Very interesting...would you agree that in the U.S., we vote more on social/wedge issues and less on Class than in the U.K.? You certainly get some...interesting groups voting together here!

Pretty much every countries politics is less class-orientated than ours

Ouch! You gotta get some wedge issues going on so you can have the same enjoyable bitter debates the rest of us do!

There are wedge issues, but they tend to be local

[Filuwaúrdjan]

They did at the last general. Right now, they're tending LD or Respect.

It's a bit more complicated than that... Muslims tend to vote how their community leaders tell them to vote (a sweeping, and often unfair, generalisation).
Example:

In Bethnal Green & Bow, the Labour candidate in 1997 (she's now the M.P) was/is half Jewish, so the local Muslim leaders (mostly Bangladeshi, BTW) instructed their followers to vote Tory (which they did).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

as that seat is very largely muslim and the swing was about 8% (and Labour held it, and it swung back into line in 2001), "sweeping and often unfair" is correct. But there is something to it.
Yeah, Muslims used to be voting 70%+ Labour (like the working class people they are, in Britain), and have trended heavily LD in recent by-elections and such. Not at all sure whether this will continue at the next general, if it does it might make for some, er, interesting, new Lib-Lab marginals. Probably won't though. Too much fear of PM Howard.

30% of that seat is Asian (mostly Bangladeshi IIRC)... in 2001 the Tory candidate won almost all the Bangladeshi vote but sod all white voters. There's a rumour that George Galloway will run there next election, but unless he demonstrates a previously unseen ability to connect with White Working Class voters I don't think he'll do much better than the Tory did last time.

Interesting to note that while in (say) the Brent East by-election or local elections in Birmingham, Muslims have swung towards the LibDems, in a lot of Cities up North (and not just BNP-blighted Cottonopolises) they haven't.
Backs up you're theory I guess.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Newham, Tower Hamlets and Brent are the only three UK boroughs where whites make up less than 50% of the population.

True. Racial voting can be a problem in all of them

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Newham, Tower Hamlets and Brent are the only three UK boroughs where whites make up less than 50% of the population.

True. Racial voting can be a problem in all of them

IIRC Leicester isn't far off.

Local election patterns in Leicester are usually *worse* than in those parts of London...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Newham, Tower Hamlets and Brent are the only three UK boroughs where whites make up less than 50% of the population.

True. Racial voting can be a problem in all of them

IIRC Leicester isn't far off.

Local election patterns in Leicester are usually *worse* than in those parts of London...

I actually meant in terms of nonwhite percentage - not far off the 50% mark.

I think it's over 50% (or very, very close to it) in Leicester East. IIRC Leicester South has the highest % of Muslim's in the U.K. Leicester West is mostly white, working class territory (I think it has, or had, a large Jewish population).