Major British Conservative tells Americans that they have to vote Democrat. (user search)
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  Major British Conservative tells Americans that they have to vote Democrat. (search mode)
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Author Topic: Major British Conservative tells Americans that they have to vote Democrat.  (Read 3930 times)
Michael Z
Mike
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« on: July 11, 2004, 11:16:21 AM »
« edited: July 11, 2004, 11:21:17 AM by Michael Z »

Goldwater,

The British definition of "conservative" differs from the American one. Different cultures use different political terminology, and you are simply applying yours to ours.

But perhaps you are trying to cause a fuss over something as trivial as semantics to divert attention from the main subject of this thread?
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Michael Z
Mike
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Posts: 4,288
Political Matrix
E: -5.88, S: -4.72

« Reply #1 on: July 11, 2004, 11:28:58 AM »
« Edited: July 11, 2004, 11:30:49 AM by Michael Z »

Goldwater,

The British definition of "conservative" differs from the American one. You are applying your own cultural interpretation of political terminology onto another country.

But maybe you are simply trying to cause a fuss over something as pedantic as semantics to divert attention from the main subject of this thread....? Wink
What should be the point of that - who cares what El Portillo says?

Yes, that's a good point, actually.....

Still, apparently some Tories will be secretly supporting the Kerry campaign to undermine Blair. You know things are looking strange when you have a Labour PM rooting for a Republican President and the Tory opposition hoping for the Democrats to put a spanner into Tony Blair's works... But of course this would be to completely ignore the fact that Blair could work very well with either Bush or Kerry (as would Gordon Brown, no doubt).

If anything this thread demonstrates Portillo's one shortcoming (and possibly the main reason he never managed to rise to become party leader): He always says what he thinks, a big no-no amongst front bench politicians. Successful politicians know when to keep their mouths shut; Portillo never could, which ultimately led to him alienating a vast bulk of the Party faithful.
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Michael Z
Mike
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« Reply #2 on: July 11, 2004, 11:37:38 AM »


Of course it is... but not in the gloomy and Machiavellian world of politics.
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Michael Z
Mike
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Posts: 4,288
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E: -5.88, S: -4.72

« Reply #3 on: July 11, 2004, 12:08:15 PM »

Here is an example: I don't know all the details, but recently in Britain there was controversy over charging students tuition (I assume for college). Blair wanted to, as I understand it, and so the Tories were against it.

Well, let's operate under the assumption that "conservative" is a purely relative term. This still makes no sense for the Tories, because they are supposed to be more 'conservative,' thus they should appreciate reductions in the size of government and its involvement in higher education.

So, it's not that I'm holding Tories to GOP standards; rather, they operate as a generic 'opposition' party without any ideological cohesion AT ALL.

At the moment, yes. But then it's unfortunately the case in British politics that the opposition often oppose for the sake of, well, opposing. But the Tories are still to the right of Labour on many key issues such as privatisation of public services (including the health service, but even there they only support latent privatisation because the majority of the British public would not support it), the rate of general taxation, Britain's relationship with the EU, etc.

As for tuition fees, both parties agree that they should be implemented on principle (even though Tony Blair faced a HUGE revolt from within his own party on this issue, as he did over Iraq) but it's only the manner of implementation they argue over. The only mainstream parties in Britain which fundamentally oppose college fees are the Lib Dems and the Greens.

British politics is no longer as clear-cut as it was in the 1980s, when the Tories occupied the centre-right and Labour the centre-left. Labour have moved marginally to the right under Tony Blair and therefore firmly occupy the centre, sorry center Wink ground, which has resulted in the Conservative Party currently going through something of an identity crisis; they cannot move further to the right lest they wish to become unelectable (which is basically what happened at the last election under William Hague, in which key Tory policy proposals included lowering taxes, joining Nafta, tightening immigration quotas, etc, and the Tories lost by a landslide), but neither can they move too far towards the centre because by doing so they risk losing the support of the party base.
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