Matthew d'Ancona has an article worth reading in the Guardian. As a former Spectator editor he is naturally a right winger. And as he puts it (amongst several exceptionally well crafted paragraphs):
The whole point of Conservatism is not to submit to the siren call of teleology: the belief that history has an implacable direction. In a crisis of this nature, the proper role of Tories should be to cut through the infantile rhetoric, robotic platitudes and Vogon insistence that “resistance is useless!”, and show true statesmanship. Instead, we see — with some outstanding exceptions — a party cravenly fetishising the 2016 referendum as if no further expression of popular opinion on Brexit were possible; behaving as if the only thing that matters is to get out of the EU by 29 March, regardless of the overwhelming empirical evidence that there is no viable deal, and that a no-deal exit would be a total catastrophe (necessitating, among many other unpleasant measures, a framework for martial law).
His argument is straightforward. Whoever and whatever drives the Tories now it is not the sentiment and philosophy that drove it for decades and even centuries. This is a party at odds with itself, dying as to what it was from within. At cost to us all.
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I think the Conservative party has been moving in this direction since at least 1975 when Margaret Thatcher became the leader, sadly. I can see what Matthew d’Ancona is saying here – there’s an authoritarian and xenophobic element to the far right of the Tory party which is not shared by some of the centre-right. But all factions of the modern Tory party are pro-austerity and anti-welfare state – the old social democratic post-war Toryism of Harold MacMillan (for example) is completely gone, and d’Ancona agrees with people like Rees-Mogg on economic policy more than he’s letting on here. There are important policy differences between the centre-right and the hard-right but they share many of the same failings – both are very neoliberal, despite d’Ancona’s protestations to the contrary. And the inevitable outcome of austerity is to “maximise suffering and despair” – that’s the unavoidable outcome of the policies pursued since 2010. Cameron and Clegg were just as bad as Theresa May in this regard.
I was not being pro-Tory Howard, as you might expect
Rather I was seeking to point out that there may be divisions in Toryland, which may be costly for them
d’Ancona rarely writes anything on policy of any merit
“Whoever and whatever drives the Tories now……….” – you answered that in a previous blog – power. As you noted the only thing the tories are interested in is power – that is their raison d’etre – the positive use of power to help Uk serfs/citizens is irrelevant, the only thing that matters is to retain power. If nothing else this is the dividing line between Labour and perhaps the Lib-Dems and the Tories. The latter two see political power as something to use to help citizen. The tories, for the most part, see political power in much the same way as Smaug the dragon saw gold etc – something to covet & hoard.
While it’s true that manifest incompetence is their acchiles heel, they are still the dangerous agents for the corporate seizure of our democracy. Their imbecilic behaviour will be tolerated as long as they are still the useful idiots for the oligarchs, demagogues, and assorted corporate fascists in whose interests they serve.
Hi Richard,
Have stopped receiving your blog for whatever reason.
Regards
I have checked – I am still getting them
Might you unsubscribe and resubscribe?
Sorry – I do not control that software
We are witnessing the end of the Great Conservative Experiment of Thatcherism, or neoliberal as we also know it. It was ever destined to end in disaster and farce, being based on prejudice, assertion and just plain ideological nonsense.
The absolute certainty of the true believer, however, dies with the greatest of difficulty, and this is, perhaps, from their perspective, the beginning of the end, but that they were aware enough to see it.
The regular cycle of British politics is reasserting itself, but on potentially very dangerous foundations.
We need a Labour government to fulfil its usual role of rescuing us from Conservative incompetence.
Interesting times indeed.
But first we need a press that represents all opinions not just the neoliberal one. The US, UK, Europe and Russia are in deep trouble in their own backyards and their response seems to be to interfere somewhere else, like Venezuela. As usual we seem to be marching towards war because we can’t sort our own problems out. Oh, there’s Climate Change too!
Something I picked up on elsewhere is that, essentially, when neo-liberalism reopened the two nations divide (between rich and poor), the middle class associated themselves with the rich, hence Conservatives/Republicans (depending on side of Atlantic), but are now coming to realise that they’re in the other nation (and feeling miffed at being pushed out/excluded from the rich) – with consequences for politics.
For Jeremy GH:
I would like very much of you could remember where you picked up the idea of this concept. It fits almost perfectly with my own experience and understanding of where we’ve been and where we may be going (politically). It also seems that our once-proud middle-class are now realizing that they have truly become one with the poor – even if most have not yet hit poverty levels. I’m sure it has come as a rude shock to discover one is no longer part of the “rich” and that this title is truly for a very small and shrinking number of people. Their “middle class” has disappeared.
For Ric Testori
The main pointer was I think
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/05/opinion/sunday/middle-class-shame-american-politics.html , but I think there was another similar piece about the same time.
And another longer term reflection on the Mrs T’s (alleged) view ‘Sell them their council houses and they’ll vote Tory’ – what now when can’t even rent one?
Watch any of the excellent lectures by Chris Hedges on YouTube. American centric but the analysis of the rise of the corporate racy is equally relevant here. Like Herbert Marcuse wrote in One Dimensional Man, the British were the masters of the sleight of hand, institutionalised democracy and repressive tolerance, the problem the modern Tory party has is that they are so incompetent they have let the mask slip big time. Boris Johnson at JCB etc. The problem the rest of us have is that our atrophied system has no way of bringing them to account. They break the rules with impunity but now we see them breaking the rules, in the past they were far cleverer. Perfidious Albion.
Jeremy GH
“Interesting observation.”
Margaret Thatcher conned a lot of people that when she was explaining how privatisation and her various other divisive policies were going to benefit ‘us’, she didn’t mean you ….. She meant ‘people like us’. A term I believe she was quite happy to use when asking if such and such a person or organisation was ‘one of ‘us’.
It’s taken a lot of people a very long time to come to terms with this, and of course a great many are in denial and are prepared to pretend that things have just gone a bit wrong. Not so. The plan is perfectly on track. So much so that Blair and Brown saw no reason to deviate from it in any significant way.
I persist in believing that even Thatcher had little idea of where she was taking us, but the idea that she was a deeply stupid person is not popular. As one might expect. Which of us, after all, would be happy to have to concede we have been conned so completely by a dimwit ?
D’Ancona, writing as an intelligent Conservative, is spot on in his portrayal of where his wretched party is now. When you’ve got to the point where anti EU fanatics in the party like the grotesque Mark Francois, are furiously telling the leaders of big business that they don’t know how to run their own businesses, they really are facing well deserved oblivion.
Pity the rest of us who never voted for this madness are going to suffer so much as a result of their lunacy. And a shame that Labour are complicit in this by so feebly opposing a referendum result brought about by lying, fraud, racism and English exceptionalism.
And what will replace them? Will it split into a far right neo fascist nationalist party and a more pragmatic centre right party that might make common ground with the LD’s and centre left Labour MP’s who reject Corbyn?
I read this and was frankly gob-smacked when he over-looks the effects of the Neo-liberalism that has ripped his party apart. Not very clever. But I read on and then realised that I did not even recognise the ‘values’ he spoke of from the Tory past.
What planet has he been on?
The tension between the one nation Tory and the Thatcherite Tory has been one sided for a long time with the latter winning. The key text is Ian Gilmour’s ‘Dancing with Dogma’.
Has d’ Ancona read it? He should have.
But as a man who apparently does not care to find out what Neo-liberalism is, it would not be a surprise because to me d’ Ancona sums up the modern Tory perfectly. He is a typical modern Tory reactionary who is too fond of his opinion and ‘conviction’ and whose grasp of British history stops at convenient time without realising that history moves on. He also – and this is a Tory trait second to none – has very little grasp of detail.
The Tory problem is very simple. This is a party with hardly any grass roots to speak of but still clings on because it is (and has always been I’m afraid) backed by money.
The latest generation of Tory MPs seem to me to be dominated by those with rich Mummy’s and Daddy’s – people who have been born into affluence and are therefore a bit lazy when it comes to learning how the real world works because the wealth they are born into is enough to get them by.
And the glee with which that generation has set about this country since 2010! Glee I tell you!
But the real problem of modern Toryism is its own inherent self destructive approach to social mobility. Being the only member of my family to go to university, all I can say is that the Tories have put up every possible barrier to stop my own journey – whether it was cutting my support grant at Uni by 10% every year when I was a student, or even now using austerity and BREXIT to retard my very modest attempts at wealth creation for the benefit my children’s life chances.
Trying to run a country, a political party or even firm with such homogeneity in the ranks (rather than heterogeneity) does not work. There is no new blood, new ideas, an internal mono culture etc. The Tories are in the process of being undone by the very embedded wealth that they like to maintain.
I’d be happy to see the Tory party are all dead and gone.
I for one, will not mourn them.
As for ‘Duh- Ancona’ (sic) – he only has himself to blame for his own self delusion.
You say that @PSR but I have the misfortune to live in Chope’s constituency with his 15k majority. I had a ticket but didn’t go to a meeting he held but reports say the crowd cheered to the rafters the idea of leaving the EU without a deal. On Twitter, Femi’s videos of him discussing Brexit encapsulate all that is wrong with Tory party supporters.
Depressing fail to cover the despair at all this.
The issue Ian is not whether or not they are supported, it is about the nature of the party that has changed and at least did take its responsibilities to society a little more seriously.
And do not forget the BREXIT effect. The Tories have said that they want BREXIT, they are in power so they will attract support for that alone from our divided nation. What you saw in Chope seem to be about BREXIT – not the Tory party itself.
But if they do not carry out BREXIT – what then? I think that the party is still at risk of breaking up. And ‘good thing’ is all I can say.
Ian, presumably the idiots cheering on Chope were part of his 15k majority. Sounds like they all have a death wish.
Ian says:
“…. but I have the misfortune to live in Chope’s constituency …”
You sure you have the name right, Ian?
You didn’t mean ‘Chode’ did you ? Greater in thickness than in height.
Seems to apply to 15K or more of his constituents too 🙂
I liked his article. It’s always interesting to get a glimpse inside someone else’s head! Especially when they seem so different to you.
Tories – the self professed party of “law and order” who are “respecting” the result of illegality ie the referendum, are disrespectful of parliament, and have closed half the magestrates courts inside 10years.
The party is definitely in crisis yet they are looking ok in the polls so it’s also the nation that is in crisis.
I’m glad that the Tories are self-destructing. It has to happen.
The most notable things, whether D’Ancona mentions it or not are
1. Demographic oblivion – they are relying on the over ’60s older demographic to get elected and those people are the first to die off. The young, for the most part, blame them for being priced out of housing or just generally can’t relate to them. That trend has set in now.
2. Declining party membership. Chronic, set in and seemingly irreversible.
I despise the Tories yet the Labour Party can’t lay a glove on them. That’s the fault of the labour leadership, absolutely hopeless.
Not strictly – it is also to do with the Labour party’s Right wing not accepting Corbyn’s tenure.
This is the same Right wing Labourism that chases Tory swing voters and abandoned traditional Labour heartland voters who walked into the arms of UKIP.
Thanx!
“can’t lay a glove on them”
Which must be why they are relying on the DUP to survive.
Two things – he didn’t seem to know or at least pretended not to know – what neo liberalism is/was; and to add a number 3 to Marco Fante – we read that subscriptions from business are falling fast too. They have a very expensive machine to run. Losing the backing of business will not help.
Do you think the Conservative and Unionist Party is in financial difficulty (or rather, not doing as well now)? I suspected the ferry (lack of) debacle might have been a nice little earner for the party to line its pockets, then there was the bizarre £65 charge to EU citizens to apply to stay (now dropped), and the party has less members than the SNP! Are businesses perhaps losing confidence in them and their big donors starting to dry up,,, ?
Maybe…
I would be
I saw this and thought to post it to a more relevant blog entry, but that’s a bit older and closed to comments…
But herewith : Something New – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adngTOz55SA
My view – and its been mooted here before too – is that the Neo-lib tendencies in the Tory party see a hard BREXIT (perhaps even any BREXIT) as an opportunity to to further justify austerity and then rid themselves of the remaining vestiges of the post war state.
The Tory piranha’s smell blood in the water as a result of BREXIT. It is now just a tool to further their aims.
I find it hard to justify May’s / ERG intransigence as anything but a mens rea for further destruction of our society.
And again, I find no mention of that in duh-Ancona’s ‘analysis’. He’s thinks that the Tories are just stupid. They are not. They are worse than that. Think about the FTPA – an act of Parliament that has enabled an effective coup.
@ Pilgrim Slight Return
Couldn’t agree more with you about the “Fixed Term Parliament Act”, which I have elsewhere – on Twitter, I think – given its correct name, namely:
“The Abolition of the No Confidence Vote Rule Act”.
The fact that airhead Clegg allowed the blandishments of the title of Deputy Prime Minister and the comforts of a Government limo to seduce him into leading his Class of 2010 Lib-Dem numpties into supporting this – as you correctly term it – “Act of Parliament that has enabled an effective coup” only reinforces my view that it was a tragedy, not just for the Lib-Dems, but for the whole country, that Charles Kennedy was an alcoholic drunk.
Kennedy would NOT, I feel fairly sure, have gone into a full coalition, but would have offered only a “Confidence and Supply” arrangement (blandishments had little effect on his thinking), would NOT, I am sure, have supported the inclusion of the abolition of the No Confidence Vote in the destructive FTPA, and would have had no compunction in bringing about a General Election if Cameron had refused a Referendum on REAL PR – STV, preferably – and not the ludicrous AV offer.
For AV is NOT PR, but a mechanism for ensuring that anyone elected has at least 50% of the ballots cast in their favour, even if those may be 2nd, 3rd, even 4th and beyond choices, while the palsied and baleful influence of FPTP continues to operate over the final outcome. Clegg has SO much to answer for.
The price of booze….
“The price of booze….”
Hmmm….in Scotland I’m afraid we have to blame the SNP for minimum pricing.
They do get some things badly wrong I’m afraid.