Good article.
Whatās also repeatedly striking is how many Tory and Right Wing supporters fail to see the inherent contradictions in their philosophies that at some point they must honestly face. Some of this is simply unawareness. Some is a failure and unwillingness to engage with complexity. Some is the result of deliberate action by malign influence.
Most disappointing though is the abject failure to grapple with key deficiencies in UK economic and business culture – chronic under investment.
Chronic underinvestment is surely the problem in our economy. What do you think the solution should be? Itās a vast question in a sense as there are many causesā¦but at the risk of asking you to spend an entire afternoon writing the answer(!) how do you think it should be addressed?
Start with skills training and education, with the focus on skills.
Anecdote building on the ST undercover story last week … I teach at major university in London. This year’s flagship UG programme (faculty level) has 135 students. Ten of them are Britons.
Some elements are fairly straightforward – stability, good skill and training culture, well educated workforce, good infrastructure – on the latter the transport networks in far too many of our Cities (London aside) is dreadful and not a patch on other comparator Countries and a reason UK econ so London-centric and skewed.
However the biggest opportunity is in accessing private investment capital from the Ā£2.5 trillion pension market in Uk. Needs legislation to change incentives to invest that wealth more often in UK and in job creation industries. Itās a shocking missed opportunity of last 14yrs during which weāve repeatedly lost and given away National assets to boot
The middle class is currently sitting on somewhere between Ā£3-5 trillion in unearned property wealth which, as it is passed on to the next generation, is creating a class division wider than that the country experienced under Queen Victoria. This is entirely a consequence of the fiscal and monetary policies of successive governments of both stripes.
On top of that we have the depredation of the state by the professional classes that live off it: the unfunded pensions and other perks; the Ā£600 per hour lawyer’s fees and all the rest of it.
So long as we live in a financial system which taxes productive activity in order to reward the rent-seeking of the metropolitan class then none of the piecemeal remedies you propose will have any impact at all. To achieve prosperity you need to create an environment where small businesses can grow to become large ones. That no longer exists in this country.
Chronic underinvestment, excessive and complex taxation, excessive regulation.
All this could be addressed, perhaps, if we had far more businesspeople in parliament, and far fewer lawyers and PPE graduates.
Meanwhile, a bit more rational spending on defence, and a bit less irrational spending on Green cr@p, would also be worth considering.
The next time Rishi Sunak – or, let’s face it, Keir Starmer – phones me, I’ll be sure to mention all this.
Investment increases the productive capacity of the country or a business but the word has been captured by politicians to refer to any expenditure they think you might like.
One way of increasing investment would be to cut out all low paid immigration because it is that which allows businesses and the publ;ic sector to avoid investing in machines, IT or just better procedures. They do not need to re-invent themselves in any way because they can just tap into very low paid labour.
What comments seem to misunderstand is that the policies of the Conservative Party over the years since Thatcher have not been accidental. The leftwardness and big state is what their leaders wanted and their members went along with it. Voters were again taken in by their anger sink campaigning strategy; this entails mild criticisms of the things you know your support base does not like (inflation, EU, immigration, high tax, poor education and policing) and then persuades them the CP is the answer. Also they stress how dreadful the others would be.
The reality is there is almost no difference between what Major, Cameron or Sunak have done compared with (say) Starmer. Only Johnson did one thing which was to deliver half a Brexit when his own party MPs didn’t want it.
Chronic underinvestment arises because politicians are not businessmen and donāt recognise that investment involves expenditure that might be wasted and involves risk. If the risks of such investment are increased by bureaucracy and red tape and the rewards are siphoned off in excessive taxation to be distributed to those who take no risk then there will be chronic underinvestment.
Politicians and much of the public assume that investment is something obvious and straightforward because they see the results of successful investment and donāt focus on the unsuccessful investments that sink without trace or if they do then with the benefits of hindsight they simply assume the investment decisions were faulty.
Incentivise investment and it will happen. Instead the politicians promote immigration as the solution which might promote GDP but not per capita wealth and prosperity that can only arise through innovation and investment.
Of course my point was in reference to the absence of any mention of this issue in the Article- underlining the paucity of real reflection on the Right. The Right being most interested in scapegoats and blaming the already vulnerable.
Brevity then limited some initial signposting of whatās needed but youāll see Iāve chipped in above in response.
The point about how Pension wealth is invested has complexity but itās in here one starts to lift the lid on why the UK can have a successful financial sector yet chronic under-investment elsewhere. Itās worth reading up on what Aus, NZ and few others do to alter some of the incentives. And furthermore, and far be it from me to teach Right leaning folks how to suck eggs, in the US folks tend to take interest in where and how their pension wealth has been invested. Surely that was where the Right wanted to take the property owning democracy next?
And furthermore, and far be it from me to teach Right leaning folks how to suck eggs, in the US folks tend to take interest in where and how their pension wealth has been invested.
If straw men were soldiers you could rule the world. Please try to be a little less smug.
Not sure ‘smug’ quite the right adjective HB. ‘Pained’ a better descriptor I think. Not especially aided of course by your de rigeur’ ‘play the man not the ball’ response. I guess I take solace that you will have read the point conveyed and just perhaps ponder how it can so much of our pension wealth is invested elsewhere rather than here.
Itās not out of the ordinary compared to other comparator countries and generally not the main reason cited for lack of longer term investment. Criticism though on how it might be spent to boost skills, training and the workforce needed for the future certainly more oft cited.
Stability is the main thing though for any business. 8 years of Brexit psychodrama hardly helped has it.
0 0
9 months ago
Modern politicians are often big in all things small and small in all things big, Rishi is no acceptation, and so is Keir as well.
Rob N
9 months ago
It will be painful but I (previously a Tory activist) look forward to the total destruction of the Conservative Party. They have, probably, contributed more to our national decay and destruction than Blair.
Ridiculous nonsense. Blair is the fons et origo of all the problems which now beset us. The Tory party – of which, by the way, I am not a member – has merely retreated into the postures of cynicism and indifference inherited from Disraeli and Macmillan, when it should have fought from conviction in the manner of Peel and Thatcher.
Thanks to this repellent mistake, it has incubated the various Blairo-Marxist vipers now sinking their fangs into the country.
However, to imagine that the correct response to such a state of affairs is to take Britain back from the Tory-wet monkey and give it once again to the socialist organ grinder – and thanks to FPTP this is the only choice – then you have gone stark mad, in common with the ruck of formerly Conservative activists.
Why not recall some basic principles in tandem with a few facts? First, we are faced not with a choice but with an alternative. Second, the alternative is usually between evils so why squeal about this one? Third, Labour is always worse, because it reflects Tory developments, such that if the Tories decay then Labour rots. The drift of policy emanating from Labour carries the faecal stench of the hard left.
Do you really want that for our country? Really?
People generally vote against governments, not for oppositions. You are unable to name a single achievement worth anything of the incoherent rabble now in office. At least Labour are a left of centre party that actually generally believe the things they say. The Tories have tripled immigration – gross million and net 700,000 over anything Blair managed. I would say cynical at best, disgusting deceitful liars to the 2019 electorate at worst.
Believe the things they say? Starmer contradicts himself every five minutes. But the emerging theme from their policy prescription shows commitment, certainly – to hard left ideas. Better corrupt imbeciles than doctrinaire socialist malice.
At least Labour are a left of centre party that actually generally believe the things they say.
That may be so. Unfortunately, though, they are led by a cynical careerist who believes in nothing at all – as his record at the DPP and as an enabler of Corbyn unarguably illustrate. Quite apart from that, the current Labour front bench is almost certainly the weakest intellectually in the party’s history. Do you really want David Lammy conducting our foreign policy?
Albireo Double
9 months ago
For the Conservative party to succeed in the future, or even to continue in existence, it needs to have a strong electoral coalition, binding together differing opinions in pragmatic political unity.
This currently seems to be quite impossible to form, or to hold together as the Party now is.
We have seen the existing fault lines negate even an 80-seat majority, preventing the party from doing anything at all, so then what hope is there?
I cannot see a way forward for the Conservative party in the future. Although I have always supported them, I don’t feel particularly sorry about this, since I think they have brought it upon themselves.
The only replacement you will get is – in all likelihood – a liberal party of some kind. Finish the Tories now and the last prospects of any right wing revival are condemned – thanks to demographic, institutional and generational change.
But I’m still happy to drop them, because they can’t come back from where they are (deep into Blairite Labour territory). If they can’t do it with an 80 seat majority, they never will.
There are big differences between Labour in the 1980’s and the Tories now.Labour splits were based on genuine beliefs .Nearly all the leading Labour politicians were conviction politicians.The 2 big splits were over Defence and Europe.
In contrast there is no sense that most of todays leading Tory politicians believe in anything except their career.This started to be clear during the referendum when the 2 Tory politicians chosen to do the tv debates Boris and Leadsom had both been remainers 3 years before.Boris and Leadsom only embraced Brexit as career moves because they thought it would help them to become party leader.
The current Cabinet is full of snake oil sales people.
Anyone know what do Sunak,Shapps,Cleverly,Hunt ,Dowden,Barclay,,Donelan etc actually believe in?
James Wood
9 months ago
The conservative party is losing, and it deserves to lose. The only question at the coming election is whether Labour gets a significant majority or destroys the Tories completely as an electoral force.
The party’s fundamental issue is its inability to wrestle with the legacy of its own policies, to recognise what has worked and what has failed. Instead it has become a deflated Thatcherite tribute act, arguing for ‘lower taxes’ and ‘deregulation’ while failing to recognise either the UK’s current strategic situation or that the policy challenges of 2024 are different to 1984.
The UK – as has been mentioned – chronically under-invests in its own economy. This is seen both through direct subsidies (e.g. high levels of low-skilled immigration) and government ommissions (continued cutting of capital budgets rather than revenue spending). A government determined to fix this might recognise that capital spending is now essential in a host of areas – Power Generation, Transportation, Housing & Water – and that revenue spending must be held down to allow this to happen. Instead the Tory party continues to pretend that ‘tax cuts grow the economy’ – ignoring the truth that not all tax cuts are created equal, and not every tax cut is more likely to produce growth than every government spending programme. A sensible, grown-up party would be having this conversation. Instead we watch Hunt posturing about cutting a tax paid by around 5% of estates, which will generate no economic growth and overwhelmingly benefit those who are already doing well. It is the triumph of electoralism over government.
The Housing crisis must also be reckoned with, and while immigration is a cause of this it is not the sole cause, given that Baby Boomers and Millenials are the two largest population cohorts in this country’s history. More houses must be built, in places where people want to live and can work. Yet we see conservative MPs railing against building homes next to Tube stations, further denying young & aspirational voters the opportunity to get on the housing ladder. We cannot then be surprised when those people do not settle down, have children & become more conservative because the party has systematically denied them the opportunities to do so.
Council Housing must also return, both in recognition that in the most economically active areas the lowest skilled jobs will rarely pay sufficiently to allow such people the necessary opportunities in life, and because it provides a route for younger professionals to save money for a few years before they buy a home. This allows social mixing and ensures council estates do not become so-called ‘sink estates’ as the residents demand that they are maintained. Yet rather than acknowledge this the Conservatives would rather spend billions of pounds subsidising landlords, often to rent out properties the taxpayer paid to construct. The financial logic – that such homes are also government assets that provide a return for the taxpayer – is also ignored. In this it is obvious that Mrs Thatcher’s sell-off (and more crucially, failure to replace) council homes was woefully short-sighted – yet this appears to be unsayable in the modern conservative party.
Lastly, a truly conservative party would care about conserving the rule of law, our constitution and our international reputation. Yet government after government has trashed these things in pursuit of short-term political gain. Of course the prime minster does not have the power to suspend parliament because it might vote for something he does not like – parliament is sovereign, we do not elect a president. Those that make the law must follow it – and be punished if they break it, even if they are the leaders of our country. We are not an oligarchy, and the powerful are not above the law. And we have always been a country that keeps our word, and that makes agreements internationally in good faith. Yet we now have a government that has in the last few years signed agreements it had no intention of making, shut down the safe & legal routes for people to take refuge in this country despite this being a treaty obligation, and threatened to remove us from an international statute we wrote because it might hamper the power of the government of the day. It is shameful behaviour, and shows no desired to conserve anything other than today’s leaders political power.
I am a higher-rate taxpayer in the South East, about to marry & have children who will be brought up in a good area and go to good schools. And there is no way on earth I would vote for the Conservative Party, and the same is true for my friends & acquaintances in similar situations. While I have no great enthusiasm for Labour, they at least seem willing to tackle some of the problems above.
If the conservatives cannot do better on the most important issues our country faces than they are currently doing, they will likely cease to exist. And they will deserve to.
This is a rather long and confused analysis, dependent on several factoids. You seem to imply that the Conservatives sold off all council housing. There were over 4.4M council houses remaining in 1997 when New Labour took control. When New Labour were deposed in 2010, there were over 2M fewer such houses. Some were sold off, while others were sold off to housing associations and the rents thus jacked up. 100 thousand council houses were simply demolished on New Labour’s watch. Council houses are only a national asset if their upkeep is maintained. For much of their history, this was not the case.
You worry greatly about the UK breaking international agreements about refugees and immigrants, yet the fact remains that these agreements were never designed to allow for hundreds of thousands of new arrivals every year. In the 1990s, net immigration into the UK was in the tens of thousands (and thus feasible), but now it is a three quarters of a million people per annum. How can housing and development of infrastructure keep pace with that? There is a lot of duplicity and self-delusion within the entire political class. The cognitive dissonance of many (particularly centrist) politicians is astonishing. How the Lib Dems can press for unlimited immigration, and yet forbid new housing developments and infrastructure (including reservoirs), is symptomatic of a broader problem of incompetence, cowardice and stupidity among our self-proclaimed rulers and failed technocrats. Presumably they expect the large numbers of new arrivals to be housed instead in the apparently capacious space between Layla Moran’s ears?
Starmer’s Labour tries to be all things to all people to get elected, but they too will be revealed as charlatans, unable to make tough decisions.
Yes, the problems with Council Housing cover both Conservative and Labour governments. But the current conservative government have been in power for 14 years and have not only done nothing so solve the problem, but have made it significantly worse through their underfunding of local government and forced sell-offs of council estates to allow Councils to maintain cashflow, exchanging long-term pain for short-term gain.
On international agreements it is your analysis that is confused, as you fail to differentiate between illegal migration (tens of thousands in small boats due to the complete closure of safe & legal routes) and legal migration (hundreds of thousands, because the government refuses to have an honest debate about the economic needs of the country).
All of which elides the point – the Tories are in government and have been for over a decade. And they have done absolutely nothing with that, except watch the country stagnate and shrug.
You aren’t much of a conservative, I’d say. Your views being essentially identical to many in the Liberal or Labour parties. I would agree with you on some of this. But on your support of people traffickers (which is what it amounts to) I certainly do not. The whole asylum system is a complete scam – rather made clear that France accepts a far lower proportion of claims than we do. “Safe and legal routes” would simply add to the numbers already crossing the channel, as should be stunningly obvious. Why would the people smugglers care – there is almost an inexhaustible demand from Africa and poorer Asian countries.
The rising powers of the world, China, India, Saudi even Japan – do not allow a vast swarm of people with absolutely no cultural connection with their countries. It is utterly idiotic that we are allowing a gross million and net 700,000 such people, per annum, with no infrastructure plan – we never achieve the housing targets even without this – and certainly no chance at all of integrating such numbers. This is transforming our country radically and without the consent of the vast majority of the population – of all races. Whatever that is it most certainly isn’t “conservative”.
You’re correct, I’m not. That’s the point. I’m a top-rate taxpayer, soon to be married with children in my mid 30s. And I wouldn’t go near the Conservatives, because they’ve been working against my economic interests for the last decade. The Tories are pursuing an almost entirely retiree voter base due to their fear of losing a handful of seats to Reform, blinded to the big picture – that in 20 years all of those voters will be dead, and nobody is currently replacing them. If that trend continues, in 20 years the Conservative Party will have ceased to exist.
As for immigration – of course we need a sensible conversation about numbers. But the Conservatives – in government for the last 14 years – have never wanted to have it, or to invest the money in education and housing that would be necessary to reverse it. That’s the problem.
Bret Larson
9 months ago
A lot can change in a month. I agree, the conservatives need to agree on a narrative. I think dumping global warming could get it done. Hold onto power by bastardizing what they believe wonāt do. Course the other side of the coin is electorates get what they vote for. What does the British electorate deserve?
To say “the conservatives need to agree on a narrative” is like saying “Iran just needs to embrace the Jews”. It’s not going to happen old lad. 120 of their MPs are Left wing liberal progressives.
Frying pan into the fire sound good? Something the best change is no change. The electorate needs to tell them what they want.
Anna Bramwell
9 months ago
You dont think the rise in civil service and other bureaucracy has something to do with the problem? 400 HR staff for the Cabinet alone? 25% rise in civil service numbers? The quangos, increasing every year? It has to be cut back. The Tories did the opposite, and Labour is unlikely to be lean and mean either.
Main Edition
US
FR
Good article.
Whatās also repeatedly striking is how many Tory and Right Wing supporters fail to see the inherent contradictions in their philosophies that at some point they must honestly face. Some of this is simply unawareness. Some is a failure and unwillingness to engage with complexity. Some is the result of deliberate action by malign influence.
Most disappointing though is the abject failure to grapple with key deficiencies in UK economic and business culture – chronic under investment.
Chronic underinvestment is surely the problem in our economy. What do you think the solution should be? Itās a vast question in a sense as there are many causesā¦but at the risk of asking you to spend an entire afternoon writing the answer(!) how do you think it should be addressed?
Start with skills training and education, with the focus on skills.
Anecdote building on the ST undercover story last week … I teach at major university in London. This year’s flagship UG programme (faculty level) has 135 students. Ten of them are Britons.
Our universities have ceased to be part of the education of our nation. They have become, in large part, businesses educating foreigners.
Some elements are fairly straightforward – stability, good skill and training culture, well educated workforce, good infrastructure – on the latter the transport networks in far too many of our Cities (London aside) is dreadful and not a patch on other comparator Countries and a reason UK econ so London-centric and skewed.
However the biggest opportunity is in accessing private investment capital from the Ā£2.5 trillion pension market in Uk. Needs legislation to change incentives to invest that wealth more often in UK and in job creation industries. Itās a shocking missed opportunity of last 14yrs during which weāve repeatedly lost and given away National assets to boot
The middle class is currently sitting on somewhere between Ā£3-5 trillion in unearned property wealth which, as it is passed on to the next generation, is creating a class division wider than that the country experienced under Queen Victoria. This is entirely a consequence of the fiscal and monetary policies of successive governments of both stripes.
On top of that we have the depredation of the state by the professional classes that live off it: the unfunded pensions and other perks; the Ā£600 per hour lawyer’s fees and all the rest of it.
So long as we live in a financial system which taxes productive activity in order to reward the rent-seeking of the metropolitan class then none of the piecemeal remedies you propose will have any impact at all. To achieve prosperity you need to create an environment where small businesses can grow to become large ones. That no longer exists in this country.
Chronic underinvestment, excessive and complex taxation, excessive regulation.
All this could be addressed, perhaps, if we had far more businesspeople in parliament, and far fewer lawyers and PPE graduates.
Meanwhile, a bit more rational spending on defence, and a bit less irrational spending on Green cr@p, would also be worth considering.
The next time Rishi Sunak – or, let’s face it, Keir Starmer – phones me, I’ll be sure to mention all this.
Investment increases the productive capacity of the country or a business but the word has been captured by politicians to refer to any expenditure they think you might like.
One way of increasing investment would be to cut out all low paid immigration because it is that which allows businesses and the publ;ic sector to avoid investing in machines, IT or just better procedures. They do not need to re-invent themselves in any way because they can just tap into very low paid labour.
What comments seem to misunderstand is that the policies of the Conservative Party over the years since Thatcher have not been accidental. The leftwardness and big state is what their leaders wanted and their members went along with it. Voters were again taken in by their anger sink campaigning strategy; this entails mild criticisms of the things you know your support base does not like (inflation, EU, immigration, high tax, poor education and policing) and then persuades them the CP is the answer. Also they stress how dreadful the others would be.
The reality is there is almost no difference between what Major, Cameron or Sunak have done compared with (say) Starmer. Only Johnson did one thing which was to deliver half a Brexit when his own party MPs didn’t want it.
Chronic underinvestment arises because politicians are not businessmen and donāt recognise that investment involves expenditure that might be wasted and involves risk. If the risks of such investment are increased by bureaucracy and red tape and the rewards are siphoned off in excessive taxation to be distributed to those who take no risk then there will be chronic underinvestment.
Politicians and much of the public assume that investment is something obvious and straightforward because they see the results of successful investment and donāt focus on the unsuccessful investments that sink without trace or if they do then with the benefits of hindsight they simply assume the investment decisions were faulty.
Incentivise investment and it will happen. Instead the politicians promote immigration as the solution which might promote GDP but not per capita wealth and prosperity that can only arise through innovation and investment.
Good response to j watson’s oversimplification. Lack of understanding of complexities indeed!
Of course my point was in reference to the absence of any mention of this issue in the Article- underlining the paucity of real reflection on the Right. The Right being most interested in scapegoats and blaming the already vulnerable.
Brevity then limited some initial signposting of whatās needed but youāll see Iāve chipped in above in response.
The point about how Pension wealth is invested has complexity but itās in here one starts to lift the lid on why the UK can have a successful financial sector yet chronic under-investment elsewhere. Itās worth reading up on what Aus, NZ and few others do to alter some of the incentives. And furthermore, and far be it from me to teach Right leaning folks how to suck eggs, in the US folks tend to take interest in where and how their pension wealth has been invested. Surely that was where the Right wanted to take the property owning democracy next?
If straw men were soldiers you could rule the world. Please try to be a little less smug.
Not sure ‘smug’ quite the right adjective HB. ‘Pained’ a better descriptor I think. Not especially aided of course by your de rigeur’ ‘play the man not the ball’ response. I guess I take solace that you will have read the point conveyed and just perhaps ponder how it can so much of our pension wealth is invested elsewhere rather than here.
Also Hunt thinks that productivity is something that the public sector must do better.
Investment is greatly encouraged by the 35% rise in corporation tax. Sunak is so odd: weak yet terribly stubborn.
Itās not out of the ordinary compared to other comparator countries and generally not the main reason cited for lack of longer term investment. Criticism though on how it might be spent to boost skills, training and the workforce needed for the future certainly more oft cited.
Stability is the main thing though for any business. 8 years of Brexit psychodrama hardly helped has it.
Modern politicians are often big in all things small and small in all things big, Rishi is no acceptation, and so is Keir as well.
It will be painful but I (previously a Tory activist) look forward to the total destruction of the Conservative Party. They have, probably, contributed more to our national decay and destruction than Blair.
Ridiculous nonsense. Blair is the fons et origo of all the problems which now beset us. The Tory party – of which, by the way, I am not a member – has merely retreated into the postures of cynicism and indifference inherited from Disraeli and Macmillan, when it should have fought from conviction in the manner of Peel and Thatcher.
Thanks to this repellent mistake, it has incubated the various Blairo-Marxist vipers now sinking their fangs into the country.
However, to imagine that the correct response to such a state of affairs is to take Britain back from the Tory-wet monkey and give it once again to the socialist organ grinder – and thanks to FPTP this is the only choice – then you have gone stark mad, in common with the ruck of formerly Conservative activists.
Why not recall some basic principles in tandem with a few facts? First, we are faced not with a choice but with an alternative. Second, the alternative is usually between evils so why squeal about this one? Third, Labour is always worse, because it reflects Tory developments, such that if the Tories decay then Labour rots. The drift of policy emanating from Labour carries the faecal stench of the hard left.
Do you really want that for our country? Really?
People generally vote against governments, not for oppositions. You are unable to name a single achievement worth anything of the incoherent rabble now in office. At least Labour are a left of centre party that actually generally believe the things they say. The Tories have tripled immigration – gross million and net 700,000 over anything Blair managed. I would say cynical at best, disgusting deceitful liars to the 2019 electorate at worst.
Believe the things they say? Starmer contradicts himself every five minutes. But the emerging theme from their policy prescription shows commitment, certainly – to hard left ideas. Better corrupt imbeciles than doctrinaire socialist malice.
That may be so. Unfortunately, though, they are led by a cynical careerist who believes in nothing at all – as his record at the DPP and as an enabler of Corbyn unarguably illustrate. Quite apart from that, the current Labour front bench is almost certainly the weakest intellectually in the party’s history. Do you really want David Lammy conducting our foreign policy?
For the Conservative party to succeed in the future, or even to continue in existence, it needs to have a strong electoral coalition, binding together differing opinions in pragmatic political unity.
This currently seems to be quite impossible to form, or to hold together as the Party now is.
We have seen the existing fault lines negate even an 80-seat majority, preventing the party from doing anything at all, so then what hope is there?
I cannot see a way forward for the Conservative party in the future. Although I have always supported them, I don’t feel particularly sorry about this, since I think they have brought it upon themselves.
It’s time for a replacement party.
The only replacement you will get is – in all likelihood – a liberal party of some kind. Finish the Tories now and the last prospects of any right wing revival are condemned – thanks to demographic, institutional and generational change.
Could be right, I agree.
But I’m still happy to drop them, because they can’t come back from where they are (deep into Blairite Labour territory). If they can’t do it with an 80 seat majority, they never will.
Sorry. Too many betrayals. Better they go.
Nothing can save the Tories. They are finished. Not even their ill thought through Rwanda scheme. An entertaining look at the nonsense here. https://open.substack.com/pub/lowstatus/p/out-of-africa?r=evzeq&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
There are big differences between Labour in the 1980’s and the Tories now.Labour splits were based on genuine beliefs .Nearly all the leading Labour politicians were conviction politicians.The 2 big splits were over Defence and Europe.
In contrast there is no sense that most of todays leading Tory politicians believe in anything except their career.This started to be clear during the referendum when the 2 Tory politicians chosen to do the tv debates Boris and Leadsom had both been remainers 3 years before.Boris and Leadsom only embraced Brexit as career moves because they thought it would help them to become party leader.
The current Cabinet is full of snake oil sales people.
Anyone know what do Sunak,Shapps,Cleverly,Hunt ,Dowden,Barclay,,Donelan etc actually believe in?
The conservative party is losing, and it deserves to lose. The only question at the coming election is whether Labour gets a significant majority or destroys the Tories completely as an electoral force.
The party’s fundamental issue is its inability to wrestle with the legacy of its own policies, to recognise what has worked and what has failed. Instead it has become a deflated Thatcherite tribute act, arguing for ‘lower taxes’ and ‘deregulation’ while failing to recognise either the UK’s current strategic situation or that the policy challenges of 2024 are different to 1984.
The UK – as has been mentioned – chronically under-invests in its own economy. This is seen both through direct subsidies (e.g. high levels of low-skilled immigration) and government ommissions (continued cutting of capital budgets rather than revenue spending). A government determined to fix this might recognise that capital spending is now essential in a host of areas – Power Generation, Transportation, Housing & Water – and that revenue spending must be held down to allow this to happen. Instead the Tory party continues to pretend that ‘tax cuts grow the economy’ – ignoring the truth that not all tax cuts are created equal, and not every tax cut is more likely to produce growth than every government spending programme. A sensible, grown-up party would be having this conversation. Instead we watch Hunt posturing about cutting a tax paid by around 5% of estates, which will generate no economic growth and overwhelmingly benefit those who are already doing well. It is the triumph of electoralism over government.
The Housing crisis must also be reckoned with, and while immigration is a cause of this it is not the sole cause, given that Baby Boomers and Millenials are the two largest population cohorts in this country’s history. More houses must be built, in places where people want to live and can work. Yet we see conservative MPs railing against building homes next to Tube stations, further denying young & aspirational voters the opportunity to get on the housing ladder. We cannot then be surprised when those people do not settle down, have children & become more conservative because the party has systematically denied them the opportunities to do so.
Council Housing must also return, both in recognition that in the most economically active areas the lowest skilled jobs will rarely pay sufficiently to allow such people the necessary opportunities in life, and because it provides a route for younger professionals to save money for a few years before they buy a home. This allows social mixing and ensures council estates do not become so-called ‘sink estates’ as the residents demand that they are maintained. Yet rather than acknowledge this the Conservatives would rather spend billions of pounds subsidising landlords, often to rent out properties the taxpayer paid to construct. The financial logic – that such homes are also government assets that provide a return for the taxpayer – is also ignored. In this it is obvious that Mrs Thatcher’s sell-off (and more crucially, failure to replace) council homes was woefully short-sighted – yet this appears to be unsayable in the modern conservative party.
Lastly, a truly conservative party would care about conserving the rule of law, our constitution and our international reputation. Yet government after government has trashed these things in pursuit of short-term political gain. Of course the prime minster does not have the power to suspend parliament because it might vote for something he does not like – parliament is sovereign, we do not elect a president. Those that make the law must follow it – and be punished if they break it, even if they are the leaders of our country. We are not an oligarchy, and the powerful are not above the law. And we have always been a country that keeps our word, and that makes agreements internationally in good faith. Yet we now have a government that has in the last few years signed agreements it had no intention of making, shut down the safe & legal routes for people to take refuge in this country despite this being a treaty obligation, and threatened to remove us from an international statute we wrote because it might hamper the power of the government of the day. It is shameful behaviour, and shows no desired to conserve anything other than today’s leaders political power.
I am a higher-rate taxpayer in the South East, about to marry & have children who will be brought up in a good area and go to good schools. And there is no way on earth I would vote for the Conservative Party, and the same is true for my friends & acquaintances in similar situations. While I have no great enthusiasm for Labour, they at least seem willing to tackle some of the problems above.
If the conservatives cannot do better on the most important issues our country faces than they are currently doing, they will likely cease to exist. And they will deserve to.
I wish we had at least one politician who would stand up and all of the above, then perhaps there would be someone I could vote for.
This is a rather long and confused analysis, dependent on several factoids. You seem to imply that the Conservatives sold off all council housing. There were over 4.4M council houses remaining in 1997 when New Labour took control. When New Labour were deposed in 2010, there were over 2M fewer such houses. Some were sold off, while others were sold off to housing associations and the rents thus jacked up. 100 thousand council houses were simply demolished on New Labour’s watch. Council houses are only a national asset if their upkeep is maintained. For much of their history, this was not the case.
You worry greatly about the UK breaking international agreements about refugees and immigrants, yet the fact remains that these agreements were never designed to allow for hundreds of thousands of new arrivals every year. In the 1990s, net immigration into the UK was in the tens of thousands (and thus feasible), but now it is a three quarters of a million people per annum. How can housing and development of infrastructure keep pace with that? There is a lot of duplicity and self-delusion within the entire political class. The cognitive dissonance of many (particularly centrist) politicians is astonishing. How the Lib Dems can press for unlimited immigration, and yet forbid new housing developments and infrastructure (including reservoirs), is symptomatic of a broader problem of incompetence, cowardice and stupidity among our self-proclaimed rulers and failed technocrats. Presumably they expect the large numbers of new arrivals to be housed instead in the apparently capacious space between Layla Moran’s ears?
Starmer’s Labour tries to be all things to all people to get elected, but they too will be revealed as charlatans, unable to make tough decisions.
Yes, the problems with Council Housing cover both Conservative and Labour governments. But the current conservative government have been in power for 14 years and have not only done nothing so solve the problem, but have made it significantly worse through their underfunding of local government and forced sell-offs of council estates to allow Councils to maintain cashflow, exchanging long-term pain for short-term gain.
On international agreements it is your analysis that is confused, as you fail to differentiate between illegal migration (tens of thousands in small boats due to the complete closure of safe & legal routes) and legal migration (hundreds of thousands, because the government refuses to have an honest debate about the economic needs of the country).
All of which elides the point – the Tories are in government and have been for over a decade. And they have done absolutely nothing with that, except watch the country stagnate and shrug.
You aren’t much of a conservative, I’d say. Your views being essentially identical to many in the Liberal or Labour parties. I would agree with you on some of this. But on your support of people traffickers (which is what it amounts to) I certainly do not. The whole asylum system is a complete scam – rather made clear that France accepts a far lower proportion of claims than we do. “Safe and legal routes” would simply add to the numbers already crossing the channel, as should be stunningly obvious. Why would the people smugglers care – there is almost an inexhaustible demand from Africa and poorer Asian countries.
The rising powers of the world, China, India, Saudi even Japan – do not allow a vast swarm of people with absolutely no cultural connection with their countries. It is utterly idiotic that we are allowing a gross million and net 700,000 such people, per annum, with no infrastructure plan – we never achieve the housing targets even without this – and certainly no chance at all of integrating such numbers. This is transforming our country radically and without the consent of the vast majority of the population – of all races. Whatever that is it most certainly isn’t “conservative”.
You’re correct, I’m not. That’s the point. I’m a top-rate taxpayer, soon to be married with children in my mid 30s. And I wouldn’t go near the Conservatives, because they’ve been working against my economic interests for the last decade. The Tories are pursuing an almost entirely retiree voter base due to their fear of losing a handful of seats to Reform, blinded to the big picture – that in 20 years all of those voters will be dead, and nobody is currently replacing them. If that trend continues, in 20 years the Conservative Party will have ceased to exist.
As for immigration – of course we need a sensible conversation about numbers. But the Conservatives – in government for the last 14 years – have never wanted to have it, or to invest the money in education and housing that would be necessary to reverse it. That’s the problem.
A lot can change in a month. I agree, the conservatives need to agree on a narrative. I think dumping global warming could get it done. Hold onto power by bastardizing what they believe wonāt do. Course the other side of the coin is electorates get what they vote for. What does the British electorate deserve?
Bret.
To say “the conservatives need to agree on a narrative” is like saying “Iran just needs to embrace the Jews”. It’s not going to happen old lad. 120 of their MPs are Left wing liberal progressives.
It’s over. Time for a replacement.
Frying pan into the fire sound good? Something the best change is no change. The electorate needs to tell them what they want.
You dont think the rise in civil service and other bureaucracy has something to do with the problem? 400 HR staff for the Cabinet alone? 25% rise in civil service numbers? The quangos, increasing every year? It has to be cut back. The Tories did the opposite, and Labour is unlikely to be lean and mean either.