The Tories can’t change this country to make it work for the many not the few because they themselves haven’t changed.
The Tories can’t change this country to make it work for the many not the few because they themselves haven’t changed
Despite the economic recovery, polls show the Tories are still struggling to attract more than a third of voters.
As parliament begins its Christmas recess, it’s worth taking a moment to consider why this is. Clearly the rise of UKIP has hampered their electoral prospects, but much of the damage has been self-inflicted.
Back in 2006, amid scenes of huskies and hoodies, David Cameron launched his modernisation project.
‘Compassionate Conservatism’ was an attempt to de-toxify the Tories and shake off perceptions that they were out of touch – a party for the rich, ignorant of and indifferent to the concerns of ordinary people.
However, since taking power, the Tories have regularly vacated the centre ground, adopting more extreme stances on immigration and welfare in a bid to counter the UKIP threat and placate many of their own back-benchers.
The notorious ‘Go Home or Face Arrest’ vans, and (father of four) Iain Duncan Smith’s latest idea – that child benefit should be limited to two children to encourage ‘behavioural change’, spring to mind.
The Tories could have used their time in government to broaden their appeal by challenging their toxic brand. Instead, they seem to have done everything possible to reinforce it.
In the past few weeks alone we’ve seen a judge rule that former chief whip Andrew Mitchell probably did call police officers ‘plebs’, welfare reform Minister Lord Freud suggest that disabled people are ‘not worth’ the minimum wage, and Tory peer Baroness Jenkin argue that ‘poor people don’t know how to cook’when trying to account for rising food poverty.
While some voters will be willing to overlook these flaws in character if they believe the Tories’ ability to take ‘tough decisions’ is what matters most, this only holds if they are perceived to be competent. And this government’s competence has been called into question with alarming regularity over the last four years.
Take their record on the economy. Despite making it their defining mission in government, the Tories have failed to eradicate the deficit and are nowhere near to balancing the books. As a result, chancellor George Osborne has borrowed in this parliament a staggering £219bn more than he planned in 2010.
And while the economy is finally growing, many are yet to feel the benefits; we are certainly not, as the chancellor would have us believe, ‘all in this together’.
On Cameron’s watch living standards have collapsed. Wages have stagnated, and food banks and zero hour contracts have seemingly become permanent features of our economic landscape.
But it’s not only on the economy that the government has failed to meet its own targets. Cameron pledged to get net migration down to the ‘tens of thousands’ – a target he now admits can’t be met.
And 600 pages rather than the 600 words contained here would be required to do justice to the extent of the chaos that has occurred at the Department for Work and Pensions under Iain Duncan Smith. The amount wasted on IT systems for Universal Credit – incredibly, a project that still hasn’t even been signed off by the Treasury – is now being counted in the hundreds of millions.
Meanwhile, because of the lack of action on the root causes of welfare spending (low pay and high housing costs), the housing benefit bill is rising despite the government’s attempts to bring it down.
The Tories can’t change this country to make it work for the many not the few because they themselves haven’t changed. They are still the same old nasty party.
Their lack of compassion and common decency has been matched only by their incompetence in government. For those of us who care about fairness, social justice and the future of our country, the election can’t come soon enough.
Matthew Whittley is a recent graduate and Labour party member and works as a researcher for a Midlands-based housing association
56 Responses to “Why the Tories won’t win a majority at the election”
RogerMcC
If the Tories are doing this shit it is because they have spent a lot of money on polling that tells them it works.
The lesson both main parties have drawn from the 2010 election is that thanks to our wonderful electoral system you can win with just a third of the vote (and that the Lib Dems are such political whores that if that doesn’t get you a proper majority they will supply it).
And the Tories know that between a quarter and a third of the people who tell pollsters they are UKIP now will vote Tory on the day – so a 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 point Labour lead is entirely illusory,
As for their being the nasty party why on earth should that cost them an election when there are so many millions of our fellow citizens who are every bit as vicious as they are stupid?
No, they probably will win (and because and not despite of almost everything you list) – the only question is whether they can get a majority of their own and if not whether there will be enough Lib Dems left to sustain them in govt.
robertcp
The Tories will almost certainly not get a majority in 2015 but I will not be surprised if there is another Conservative-led government. It could be argued that a coalition of conservatives and right-wing liberals has been the typical government in British politics. The Tories have only been unelectable on their own since they stopped being a liberal and conservative party during the 1990s. That is why they needed the support of people like Clegg and Laws in 2010.
A site like Left Foot Forward should be discussing what Labour can do to ensure that Labour leads a coalition or minority government in 2015.
ForeignRedTory
To your regret, but to the delight of the vast majority of voters, Militant Tendency is dead, gone, rotten, forgotten. Have a good day.
ForeignRedTory
In most European countries these days, Defence really is just another Civil Service branch, as well it should under current conditions. The Cold War IS over, and MoD’s are more janitors of a capacity that will be required in the distant future than Firebreathers in charge of assembling and outfitting huge forces.
And obviously, it shows in the officials running MoDs..Do you think that Mrs Hennis-Plaschaert or Mr Le Drian impress anyone? Both of them appear to have more of a Civil Service background than a Military background. And probably that is more relevant to their tasks at hand than astute wonkery of gadgets and deathrays.
David Lindsay
Labour is seven points ahead. Seven. The Lib Dems are on five per cent. Five.
The party led by the Deputy Prime Minister has an entire showing of two less than the Labour lead over the Conservatives.