The Tories and Leadership.
I think David Cameron’s a good egg. I trust him and, by and large, I think he’s got my back in the great councils of the world. Furthermore, I think the Coalition are making the big calls right, though I wish they were a bit more aggressive on deficit reduction and spending cuts, I understand the caution. Certainly increasing private-sector involvement in Hospitals and Schools is a policy I can get behind, and the changes to the Benefits system seem Reasonable. Gove’s education policies are genuinely radical and will leave the education of British children vastly better than it was before, and (not un-related) the Teaching unions will be weakened.
Eastleigh votes today in a by-election, and if the Tories lose, it’s in part because of Tory-inclined voters voting UKIP and in-part because Lib-Dems are harder to shift than Herpes when they get dug in, in the political trench-warfare of a ‘Get-out-the-vote’ campaign.
The problem is that the Tories look like Labour in the 80’s. They are unwilling to consider the compromises of Government, preferring the masturbatory pleasure of idealogical purity, against which no leader stacks up. Witness Tory MP after Tory MP discomfiting the (mainly Tory) Government over taxes, Europe, and (absurdly) Gay Marriage. Contrast with the disciplined array of Labour drones asking co-ordinated questions about the “Bedroom tax”. You could argue that this is a positive display of free-thinking from our legislature. Or you could argue it’s adolescent posturing from people who owe their position to Cameron, who, it should be noted remains VASTLY more popular than his party.
But Tories from MPs down to Grass-roots don’t want to be led, and seem to prefer opposition to Government. They’re unwilling to compromise, unwilling to work for the common good, and will openly consider voting for a bunch of Poujadiste nincompoops who’re prepared to stroke the innate prejudices of the Tory voter.
UKIP is the Tories Militant tendency. Until this is purged, and the Conservative party rediscover the discipline that used to be their secret weapon, the Tories will look leaderless, rudderless and frankly unelectable as they have between since 1990.
If you’re broadly Tory-inclined, and you’re thinking “Cameron’s a traitor, I’ll vote UKIP”, he’s not a traitor, you’re just a cock. Do you WANT Ed Miliband to let his Union-funded myrmidons run the country with their hand up his bum? Do you WANT more state spending? Do you WANT to abandon the country to Ed Balls’ economic head-bangery? Then fucking well grow up, hold your nose if necessary and vote Conservative, you dick-head.
The business of Government is compromise. Tories used to know this. Eventually the habit of Government will return to it’s rightful place and the nation will be much happier as the people mastering the art of achieving the possible will not be the economic lunatics of the Labour party. But Labour, having abandoned idealogical purity looks like the practical party even as they lay waste the nation’s finances. Labour are wrong of course, but effective because in politics appearance is everything.
While I agree with you that the Government are broadly on the right track, with welfare reform and education. And are at least pointing in the right direction on Tax and Spending. I would argue that it's David Cameron's lack of ability to communicate his philosophy, ideology, ideals or what every you want to call it, and the lack of coherent narrative that is as much a problem as uperty backbenchers.
David Cameron comes across as a (quite competent) administrator, rather than a Leader.
I'd rather be a cock and vote UKIP, than have to look in the mirror later and face the person who voted for a spineless sly deceitful wanker like Cameron who is determined to see the UK out to Europe.
ooops, …. run by Europe
And UKIP are welcome to you. You're the type of people who make conservatives unelectable.
He's promised an in-out referendum. What more do you want?
Zanu Tory have offered a 'solution' to long term unemployment in the form of the 'Work Programme'.
They set up a quango with £millions to oversee job and training for the long term unemployed. They continue to fund these quangos as long as they can show that more than 5% of their clientèle have gained full-time employment [regardless of whether the quango did anything to secure said job].
For every full-time equivalent job gained, the quango receives about £13.5k.
So unemployment now costs more, since for the money they have spent, they could have paid for the creation of more than 5% [of the total long term job seekers] work placements, by simply offering the jobs exclusively to the long term unemployed, without the need to create expensive quangos.
Further, Zanu Tory have failed to repeal Harriet Harman's equality bill of 2010, in which job applications by white men are to be considered second choice in any publicly sponsored job position, behind feminists and sodomites.
…Oh, and not to mention a little sleaze:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9113458/David-Cameron-orders-A4e-investigation-across-Government.html
"He's promised an in-out referendum. What more do you want?"
He promised this as a sop to voters considering UKIP, and it's dependant upon winning the next election (which he won't)
Look right now he's leading the Tories into a beating in the next election because he seems to want to please the Islington chattering classes more than the mainstream voters or his party base..
To sum it up he's a backbone free zone, and apart from some notable successes in education, there will be sod all to mark the passing of his five year term bar a national debt that doubled under his watch.
His notable failures are:
No bonfire of the quangoes
No serious attempt to curb spending
The stupidity of ringfencing DFID
Backing gay marriage whilst doing zero in support of traditional marriage
No boundary reform
NHS Reform that will fail because the NHS simply can't change as fast as he wants (and doesn't want to anyway)
You could go on and on…
Some conservative he is….
One could vote for the 'working class' hating Labour Party Marxists, the non-Liberal, non-Democratic LibDem Marxists or the non-conservative Conservative Marxists.
Not that it will make a shred of difference as they are all jumping to the command of the EU Commission Marxists.
“I think David Cameron's a good egg. I trust him and, by and large”
I thought you were being ironic at first. Can I perhaps gently suggest such trust puts you in the minority?
“I wish they were a bit more aggressive on deficit reduction and spending cuts”
You maybe understating the case somewhat here. The debt will go up from about £1.1Trillion to about £1.6T by 2015. He will have added about half a trillion quid to our already staggering debts, so yes, I also wish he was a bit more aggressive on deficit reduction and spending cuts. Quite a bit more aggressive.
“Do you WANT more state spending?”
No, but I’m getting it anyway, half a trillion quid more debt, so what’s the point in endorsing this madness at the polls?
“vote Conservative, you dick-head”
Delete the comma and insert a question mark in its place and we can agree.
"if the Tories lose, it's in part because of Tory-inclined voters voting UKIP"
The Tories did lose – they came in third place, behind both UKIP and the LibDems.
Which rather proves that if the Tories want to win, they need to win back the UKIP voters.
Your solution? "Purge" the UKIP tendency from the Tory party!
Kill it with fire and magnets!!!!
Have you heard the saying about how one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different outcome…?
UKIP do fine in elections that don't matter. The mistake they make is they mistake votes in a by election as something other than "a plague on all your houses". Governments don't make gains in by-elections, ever.
Sure UKIP are a vote to thumb the nose at Europe in the Euros, but your "breakthrough" will vanish like rain on a desert come the GE.
UKIP is not a credible party of Government. Pandering to the populists will ensure Tories are not seen as such either.
"Pandering to the populists…"
The democracy that dare not speak its name!?
Substance of main article: "If you vote UKIP, you'll let in Labour!"
Substance of Jackart's last comment: "If you vote UKIP, you won't achieve anything!"
Consistency fail, much?
"If you vote UKIP, you won't achieve anything!" because by definition you will not get a UKIP government come hell or high water.
In a by-election people can protest, but come the 2015 election, if you vote UKIP, you will get Labour.
Is that what you want? Because I'm fucked if I do. UKIP has served it's purpose. The Tories are committed to an in-out vote on Europe after 2015.
UKIP could best achieve it's own ends by announcing they will only fight UK Parliamentary seats where the Tory candidate DOES NOT support the EU In/Out vote OR where UKIP is more likely to win than the Tory's.
At the end of the day UKIP is nothing more than a group of disaffected Tories who are anti-EU and anti-Immigration. Once the Tory party tackles these two issues UKIP will be an irrelevance.
@John Galt: You seem to be suffering from the delusion that just because Mr. Cameron has said that he will hold an in/out referendum after the next election, he will actually do so.
@Simon Jester:
Lets face facts, UKIP can't even get a single elected MP, so there chances of becoming part of of government in the future are the square root of fuck all.
Only a government can make changes to our relationship with the EU and only David Cameron and the Tory's have made it a declared policy to do so.
Yes, he's backtracked before, but that was when the position was already lost against Lisbon.
I'm a libertarian, but also a realist. I want the UK to transition out of a federal Europe before it becomes a reality. The Lib Dems and Labour would drag us into a Federal Europe and therefore anyone with any anti-EU feelings most wear a clothes-peg and vote Tory.
Tactical voting for UKIP should be left to by-elections, Euro elections and non-Tory safe seats.
Personally, I think David Cameron is a dick, but he's the only one that might stop us being dragged further into the Federal EU.
@John Galt:
I'm well aware of the tactical voting arguments against voting UKIP, but you seem to be overlooking the fact that new parties can, over time, gain enough votes to get elected. For example, within living memory (just), the Labour party went from having no MPs to being the elected government.
And while UKIP are far from perfect, they are a vast improvement on the two-and-a-half main parties we have at the moment.
There are also a couple of tactical arguments for voting UKIP:
1. If UKIP replace the LibDems as the third party, the triangulation pressures of politics will force the Tories in a more anti-EU direction.
2. If you are convinced (as I am) that Cameron's actual behaviour on Europe will be more or less identical to Labour's, then the one chance of getting a Eurosceptic government elected is to ensure that he loses the next election, so the Tory party will replace him with someone less pro-EU. True, under such a scenario the 2015 election will be lost to a pro-EU candidate; but then, that's going to happen anyway (barring an outright UKIP victory).
Thankfully I no longer live in the UK and don't have to decide but if I did I could not vote for Cameron. I'm not convinced he really stands for anything but whatever it is it doesn't seem to coincide with my libertarian values. In particular, he is a complete prat when it comes to energy policy and climate change. I'd rather a term of real Labour so the Tories can elect a true Tory than a second term of Labour-lite Cameron.
Doc Bud:
You think Cameron is "not a true Tory" who "doesn't stand for anything" because moron UKIP-inclined unreconcilables tell you he is. The fact you believe them supports my view that the Tory party is uninterested in government preferring the masturbatory politics of opposition.
Cuts, euro-vetos and a promise of a referendum, free schools, taking on the NHS, benefit cuts and accross the board cuts to discretionary spending. All achieved in coalition with the Lib-Dems. What the fuck more do you want from him?
I cannot think of a more stupid, ignorant and insane idea that "it would be good for the country" to get rid of a mildly Eurosceptic, centrish Tory who's cutting the discretionary state spending as fast as possible, in favour of the Union myrmidon, Ed Miliband who'll govern with Ed Balls' hand right up his bum.
Fucking insanity from the Tory-inclined population. No desire to be led, preferring petty squabbles over stupid totemic policies like whether gays can marry and enless ranting about 'yurp.
Get behind the second best PM since the war (Major being the best).
Vote tory or labour get in.
Seriously, we are still pulling this shit after a 100 years?