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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The Conservatives must join and win the battle of ideas
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The Conservatives must join and win the battle of ideas
In full, the United States’ Declaration of Independence is not a very good document. It bears the classic mark of the composite motion, being too long overall and unbalanced in its structure: very nearly half of it is a list of twenty-seven grievances. Fortunately, for history and for the revolutionaries, it was drafted by someone who knew not only how to turn a phrase but where to place it. There may have been more than a smidgen of dishonesty in Jefferson’s assertion (abridged here) that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, with the unalienable rights of life and liberty; that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed; and that it is the Right of the People to abolish unjust forms of government”, but that’s not the point. The point is that he defined what the war was about in words that were inspiring, simple and righteous, and did so at the outset of the document, before people lost interest amid the detail. It is the masterpiece in political framing.
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I don't see that the Tories are up to it - with Brexit and a decade in office, assuming they make it that far, I would expect them to be tired and lacking the will for new ideas even if they can come up with some, and instead will probably throw out a few voter bribes to key demos in the manifesto and hope negative campaigning against the opposition does the rest, the tried and tested way.
LAB: 40% (-1)
CON: 39% (-2)
LDEM: 9% (+2)
UKIP: 5% (+2)
GRN: 2% (-1)
via @ComRes, 26 - 27 Sep
Chgs. w/ 19 May
Man of the people (not)
The point is that Labour needs to win under FPTP by being attractive to just enough voters to win seats. If you have a bunch of independent Labour MPs around the country each taking 5-20% of the vote with them... Bang! There goes your majority.
Much better to realise that the people you're calling Tories are Labour too, just a different strand, and the fact they might think differently is a strength. They can reach people that Labour needs that Corbyn can't.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/09/kavanaugh-confirmation/571021/
My own view is that if this guy had been applying for a teaching post, there is no way you would or could have appointed him without further investigation. Why the bar should be set lower for an SC Justices, whose decisions will affect (for example) the abortion rights across every US state, is beyond me.
(Note, in the article I cited, the author knows and likes Kavanaugh, and predicted the deleterious consequences for him, and the Court, if his nomination wasn’t withdrawn.)
The Tories have only won a 4th consecutive term, which they will need to repeat to keep Corbyn out, once in the last 100 years in 1992.
At that election the dull grey administrator John Major's biggest ideas were the "the Citizens Charter' and the council tax which had replaced Thatcher's poll tax, Labour on the other hand was led by Neil Kinnock who like Corbyn ran a firebrand populist campaign promising more spending on the NHS etc funded by higher taxes on the rich.
In the end Major's Tories largely won that election because of a ruthlessly effective negative campaign hammering Kinnock and John Smith over 'Labour's tax bombshell' not because of many great inspiring new ideas in the Tories manifesto.
Chris Leslie is not a strength, he is not a difference of opinion or someone adding to the mixture, he is someone who actively does not want the party to succeed with the leader its members want it to have.
Edit: Good article David.
This is the critical point:
Those people need to be able to buy their own house and put down roots; they need to know that their investment in education is worth-while; they need to believe that the thrifty will not be disadvantaged in their old age as against the reckless.
The problem with housing is that the powers that be pander to those on the housing ladder at the expense of those seeking to get on it. That's how we end up with Help to Buy.
Again, the higher education system is storing up serious problems for the future. For many, it isn't really an investment as they won't be paying off their debt. What might happen is that those who have been subject to £9,000 per year tuition fees might tell their own children not to bother with university - but that is some way off.
And as for elderly care, the system does punish those who have bought their own home. What the Tories were proposing in 2017 seemed quite sensible. Sadly, what did for it was that people don't actually understand how the current system works. Perhaps some media types need to experience it before it starts to get the attention it deserves.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45690002?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cwlw3xz0lvvt/brexit&link_location=live-reporting-story
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45690898
like this as one of many
@BurnBanksy
12h12 hours ago
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Jacob Rees-Mogg says most people in the uk will be able to offset any adverse negative brexit effects with their savings, shares, bonds, inheritance and work expenses.
I cant find a link to a JRM statement so i apologise
Fleetwood Mac - Landslide
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_PQ4fRQ5Kc
You might find the ideas in this interesting:
https://policyexchange.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Brexit-and-the-British-Growth-Model.pdf
The 1/3 of the membership that did not back Corbyn are the secret to turning another defeat into a victory. If you push them away so they are sitting on their hands or, your preference, actively campaigning against you - you will not prosper.
The Conservatives are doing nothing because Brexit and Who Is The Next Leader is consuming all their attention, the country being forgotten in the midst of their obsessions.
And that is where we are. Labour has a clear field to get its "New Communism" message out to the oppressed proletariat....
In short the Conservatives forgot about aspiration and became the party of privilege campaigning with repeated Project Fears.
At least we're getting more houses built now.
I think you overlook the contribution of May.
May is not an administrator. May is arguably a key architect of the modern socially liberal Tory party, her nasty party speech predates Cameron. It was people like her and Portillo who did the hard work when the Tories were still looking to Thatcher. Sometimes we forget that. She suffers now because Brexit puts her in a straightjacket.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/jeremy-corbyn-aides-get-bumper-pay-awards-of-up-to-26-per-cent-a3948291.html
Put it another way then, I don't mind as much having the Corbyn types remaining as MPs opposing Labour to some degree, it is the George Galloway types after Iraq. From the opposite ideological angle but does that make more sense now?
[1] "A more serious problem is how to engineer a sterling depreciation by as much as
about 30% from its present level of about $1.35 to the pound", see https://policyexchange.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Brexit-and-the-British-Growth-Model.pdf , page 83.
No! No! A thousand times no!
The message needs careful and thorough preparation (“rolling the pitch”), then presentation (the big speech), then repeated reinforcement. “Say what you’re going to say. Say it. Then say what you’ve said.” New Labour were particularly good at this - and despite their opponents repeated complaints about “re-announcenent” “nothing new” and “no new money” they were absolutely right. The public are not paying attention - only when you’ve got the anoraks running screaming from the room have you done your job.
Polls show Remain would win by at least 10% if No Deal, No Deal is not sustainable for the country or a Tory Party that wants to stay in government
1) Start living within its means
2) A lower value for its currency
3) Flog its assets to foreigners to 'pay' for its current overspending
Your choice.
Note that if you flog too many of your own assets then you reach the stage when you need to run a big balance of trade surplus just to have a zero current account deficit. The UK seems to have reached that stage.
If you are against deselections, why then oppose the return of people who were -- effectively -- deselected ?
It seems for you if the Right de-select someone (as in fact happened in Nottingham East with Sharon Atkin) that is good, but if the Left de-select someone (as may be happening thirty years later in the same constituency) that is bad.
There is no underlying logic to your position.
So, it is Labour or the fringe, fruitcake parties...
Part of me really does feel for Theresa May. You do see how badly she really needed that majority. Enough to isolate 20 of the New Bastards on the wet EUphile Left and about 40 of the Old Bastards on the no-deal ultra-hard Brexit right.
As it stands her parliamentary arithmetic is built on sand. My view now is that the EU will play for time, May won’t compromise (she never does once she’s made up her mind, and she has on Chequers) and the EU will hope the imminent prospect of no deal in January will force the clause in the EU Withdrawal Act for parliament to direct the negotiations and call for a second referendum and a choice to Remain.
I think that’s reckless, foolish and wrong but that will be how the EU think because it always concludes the most europhile course of any course of action regardless of the facts and only listens to those with which it already agrees.
As @another_richard points out above by referring to the Policy Exchange document, the future may be coercive and anti-choice: you don't engineer a huge currency devaluation without market interference and casualties. Much of the mood music over the past ten years has been anti-choice, anti-business ("fuck business": Boris Johnson).
So although I agree with your article in the sense that it is what you should be doing, I don't agree that it is what you will be doing, or if you do, I think you will lose, because the principles are not gutfelt and are contradicted by other impulses.
No-one brings the UK to heel. No-one.
Personally I have come round to the idea of No-Deal, partly for the sheer entertainment value it will provide, but mostly because I hope No-Deal will terminate the careers of the swivel-eyed brigade. British politics needs cleansing. Is political-cleansing an acceptable thing? I could ask JC I suppose
So I'll put you down as a "no", then shall I...
As per Nigel Farage and his lot in the Parliament and, it seems, the Government’s behaviour ever since 2015.
FPT: F1 pre-qualifying ramble here:
http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2018/09/russia-pre-qualifying-2018.html
Backed Bottas to 'win' qualifying at 5.5 (5.75 with boost) each way. Pays out if top 2.
Make no mistake.
It says a lot really...
Oh well, time to go and do non-politics things.
And this is a Tory seat with a Tory council.
The message may not connect. Most people aren't paying attention, or thinking about politics.
But at least it is out there.
However, they won’t do that. Because they have zero self awareness, aren’t capable of any form of magnanimity and are only fixated on overplaying their hand.
But I see no willingness from British governments, British politicians or the British people to chose that.
So its either option 2 or option 3 or what we've had for the last two decades a combination of both.
If you think overturning democracy will be good for the country then you are clearly wrong.
Politicians come and politicians go as governments rise and governments fall.
But what we always have is the gaggle of self-satisfied Sir Humphreys.
And are any of them actually any good ?
Whether it works is another question. But I doubt it harms.
The sense of drift from the Tories is terrible.
See https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blunders-Our-Governments-Anthony-King/dp/1780742665 , and cross-reference it to this: https://quarterly.blog.gov.uk/2014/07/15/the-blunders-of-our-governments-review-by-sir-david-normington-gcb/