tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post2516891871736484730..comments2024-03-27T09:14:27.496+00:00Comments on All That Is Solid ...: Thoughts on the Tory CrisisPhilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-33557680480399190622018-11-14T15:05:16.885+00:002018-11-14T15:05:16.885+00:00Well I agree with Phil on one thing. Those of us g...Well I agree with Phil on one thing. Those of us growing older are not getting "less conservative". Most of my peers have moved to the right over the years as have I. Howard Fullerhttps://howiescorner.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-51614522595895009872018-11-14T12:44:04.297+00:002018-11-14T12:44:04.297+00:00"Still, if Brexit has hastened their demise i..."Still, if Brexit has hastened their demise it will have all been worth it."<br /><br />Not if you happen to live on the island of Ireland. Corbyn's insistence on Britland's right to unilaterally withdraw from a backstop designed to protect the Good Friday Agreement and an open border makes me nervous.<br /><br />This deal seems to be designed by the EU and Oliver Robbins to appeal to the Lexiteers in Corbyn, MacDonnell & Milne. Customs union, protection of workers and environmental rights.<br /><br />If the PLP was to fall into this trap it would be a double victory for the EPP - effective continuance of the UK in the EU's economic orbit without political input and the melting away of remainer support from British Labour.<br /><br />The PLP need to go hard to vote this down, followed by going hard for a three-way people’s vote. That’s the wedge that will finally split the Tories and bring about a general election.<br /><br />And a British government sympathetic to the majority in the North of Ireland rather than representing a diminishing minority of hard-line unionists would be good for Ireland.<br />GWnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-82757429891675726722018-11-14T11:04:06.417+00:002018-11-14T11:04:06.417+00:00This seems exceptionally complacent to me. Intern...This seems exceptionally complacent to me. International finance is mobile and will move abroad as Brexit progresses, taking their tax payments elsewhere, so they don't care what happens to the UK or the Tories. The Tories are in the process of losing the business vote, but do they still need it? Largely in thrall (or perhaps even financed by) shady billionaires and multinational interests, their only interest is profiting from international capital and not paying any tax. The don't need support from small and medium sized enterprises, car factories, farmers, builders or any of the traditional Tory voting sectors any more. They've sold nearly every part of the UK public sector and appear to have every intention of handing over the NHS to US investors. All sorts of Brexit will make workers poorer and dissent will be pointless. The media largely represents foreign/multinational interests, either directly or via the 9 "think tanks" who appear to have taken over BBC News and current affairs. The UK and its people are no longer of any interest to them. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-12658298184922286072018-11-14T09:20:24.510+00:002018-11-14T09:20:24.510+00:00Surely the Tory voters of the future will be the p...Surely the Tory voters of the future will be the people who inherited the expensive houses currently owned by the baby boomer generation?George Cartyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12170378024031141482noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-8923067302066207422018-11-14T08:40:26.202+00:002018-11-14T08:40:26.202+00:00Good grief. Older people are increasing but the co...Good grief. Older people are increasing but the conservatising effects of age *are declining*.Philhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-33644828100876308692018-11-14T08:18:36.637+00:002018-11-14T08:18:36.637+00:00How long before someone has a go at you for your v...How long before someone has a go at you for your violent image of May with a dagger stuck in her chest, suggesting that you are encouraging acts of violence against her? After all, the sensibilities of politicians and others are such nowadays that metaphors about "killing zones", "bringing nooses to meetings", "the knives being out", and so on are just too upsetting, aren't they?Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-80568846064622026632018-11-14T03:13:37.612+00:002018-11-14T03:13:37.612+00:00"The only thing that concerns me is the rate ..."The only thing that concerns me is the rate things are going, there might not even be a Tory party left as we now know it when the writing begins."<br /><br />Be careful what you wish for.<br /><br />"Still, if Brexit has hastened their demise it will have all been worth it."<br /><br />No, it won't. <br /><br />"The problem is an authoritarian populism mk II appeals to declining cross sections of the voting population - older people, older workers in declining occupations, the usual petit bourgeois mix of landlords, small business people, and pleased-with-themselves upwardly mobile middle class people."<br /><br />Older people are not declining, they are increasing. <br /><br />"The growth in population size is partly because the population is ageing. The percentage of the population that is 65 years or older is growing. It increased between 1975 and 2015, from 14.1% of the population to 17.8%. It is projected to continue to grow to nearly a quarter of the population by 2045. This is an important consideration for the provision of health and social care services and pensions."<br /><br />https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/overviewoftheukpopulation/mar2017<br /><br />"We therefore conclude that the differences we see in the electorate are due to ageing, and not<br />due to generational effects. The question of whether future Conservative support is threatened by generational replacement can therefore be answered with some confidence in the negative. Moreover the ageing effects that we see do not appear to result from compositional differences between the old and the young. Holding constant levels of income, employment status and so on makes no difference to our findings."<br /><br />http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/56280/1/democraticaudit.com-Age_significantly_impacts_on_the_choices_that_voters_make_at_elections.pdf<br /><br />Small business declining?<br /><br />"There were a record 5.7 million private sector businesses at the start of 2017.<br />This is an increase of 197,000 since 2016, and 2.2 million more than in 2000.<br />The number of employing businesses increased by 41,000 (+3%) since 2016, and the number of non-employing businesses by 155,000 (+4%)."<br /><br />https://www.fsb.org.uk/media-centre/small-business-statistics<br /><br />"Authoritarian populism" is only half of the story, too. Selling off council homes wasn't just populism, Thatcher restructured the very meaning of the right. Her recalibration of the UK economy away from heavy industry toward services was visionary. You don't have to like it to respect it, as Owen Jones recently pointed out. <br /><br />"As innumerable polls show, socially liberal attitudes are more prevalent the further down the age profiles you go. This is because of the immaterial, relationship-based work younger cohorts are socialised into and do, and proliferation of one's networks thanks to social media - to put it crudely (more here). This straight away puts them at cross purposes to the Tory party"<br /><br />Which introduced gay marriage. <br /><br />You have rehearsed these arguments, which plainly have some merit, here before. I recall an interesting point you made about home ownership. But it is worth recalling that the Tories even managed to stay in power during the Depression, which featured mass organised industrial labour and hunger marches. Talk of their demise may be somewhat premature. Speedynoreply@blogger.com