tories

are they a dead party?
you have to say that they are pretty much.
is this a good thing? there is a part of me that says yes (it's the part of me that remembers thatcher....), but there is another part of me that says no it is not.
why isn't it pat (i can hear you cry) why are you saying the demise of the party of the fox hunter (no not them again!) is a bad thing.
firstly and mainly it means that there is no real opposition to the madcap schemes of new labour. the problem of being in opposition and with no real chance of getting into power you spout nonsense and make stupid plans and policy because you know you have no chance of being voted in to make those ideas realities. it is why the liberal party can always go on about increasing tax to fund education (it's not a bad idea) and why they can go on about increasing tax on the super wealthy (even better idea), we know they won't get in and they know they won't get in but we all feel much better that the ideas are out in the open so we can pay them lip service. but then we will vote for one of the two serious parties.
the problem is that more and more there is only one serious party and that is new labour. the conservative party has found itself moved more and more to right, appealing more and more to a hardcore votership and being less and less in touch with the common people.
part of the reason has been mismanagement - the internecine fighting over europe which has dragged on and on, the election of frankly unelectable leaders (hague, duncan-smith and now howard) and the fact that they have no one on the front bench who is, how to put this .... well frankly likeable....
the other reason has been the incredible skill at which blair and the new labour project has stolen all the jewels that used to belong to the conservative party. you want low taxes - well new labour will offer them to you, you want private enterprises in the public services - new labour, you want tough law and order - see new labour, you want harsh immigration laws - check out new labour, you want ID cards, you want wars, you want to allow big business to get away with tax evasions, you want a little bit of sleaze... all can be done by new labour.
so the tory party has to move to the right. it has had to learn to almost goosestep, it's got to dust down it's brown shirts or else there will be no clear blue water between them and new labour.
oh the tories can bang on about having to speak the unspeakable in order to prevent extremist parties from getting the vote, they are not scared of the BNP getting a vote or two - they are worried that they are losing votes to the BNP.
so what do the tories do - they think of ways of cutting government, they think of ways of cutting red tape for businesses, they think of ways of cutting taxes and all the while preaching the mantra that our services will not be cut (and they expect us to believe them).
but in the course of looking for smaller government they support the ID card bill - lets see how that works and interferes with the average persons liberty.
in the course of cutting taxes they are expecting the market to provide but look at how well the market has done with building schools and hospitals (say hi jarvis - or is that bye jarvis because you have not done a good job of it?). look at how well the market has done with sorting out transport in this country - oh not well at all.
the tories solution? more of the same......

still they will be cutting back on the numbers of mps that will be in parliament. (which is a little bit of irony while they talk about brussels being a place where we are governed by the faceless they actually want to reduce the numbers of mps - that means more of us are represented by fewer of them.... it should be the other way round. they should be able to hear our voices and they should be dependent on each and every vote!)
the irony of it is that it will be a bit of vote winner for them. not because we want less representation it's just that those people who do represent us we don't trust.

and the ones i don't trust the most (well aside from galloway of respect) are the tory party. hell they can't even keep their most electable mps in position of power.

heres to an interesting 2005 as howard and the tories try to convince us that they really care.