In every Tory leadership election since Thatcher, the bookies’ favourite has lost. And while you cannot easily discern where the winner would come from on the economic left/right scale, the authoritarian/libertarian scale is absolutely significant. In every single case the winner has been the Tory of the most authoritarian views, and the losers – think Ted Heath, David Davies, Ken Clarke, Michael Portillo – have been on the socially liberal side of conservatism.
Our political “journalists” only think left/right. So Cameron’s victory was a Tory move to the “left”. In fact it was not about that at all. David Davies, the favourite defeated by Cameron, has described the new Tory anti-trade union bill as “Francoist”. He opposed control orders, stop and search, detention without trial and the banning of protest from around Westminster. That is why he lost – the Tories have a dog whistle reaction to follow authoritarian figures. Cameron’s Old Etonian patrician authoritarianism is what they wanted.
That is why Theresa May is going today to give a bloodcurdling speech attempting to stir up racism against immigrants by saying they are making us poor and making our society less cohesive. She will even pander to the ludicrous notion that an economy is of a fixed size no matter how many people are in it, with a fixed number of jobs, so “they” are taking “our” jobs. Doubtless she will also outline yet more definitions of thought crime and new reasons to lock up young Muslims.
She may be vicious and dangerous to our society, but she is not stupid. It is the way to become Tory leader.
Nobody ever lost money overestimating the viciousness of the Tories. In fact the arms and security industries and the bankers, the private health companies, the hedge funds and the private agencies enforcing government policy make fortunes out of it every day.
Very true Craig, the lamentable facts going unreported are indicative of a pernicious racism promoted by the current batch of our dear leaders and co, is translating to attacks on the immigrants that are going largely unreported.
Immigrants becoming the frustrated publics punch bags effectively is defusing and diverting the publics rage and anger from our dear leaders.
And she was the one who called them out as the Nasty party a few years ago. Of course that was when they were out of power and needed to ‘move back to the centre ground’ and appeal to the wider electorate. Will there be any mention of Trojan Horse ? The disgusting hoax they manipulated to further attack the Muslim community ?
Whenever David Cameron is asked a question he has to mentally load the software that you describe – the power-keeping software of authoritarianism and selective racism.
Selective because neither he nor his ilk have any bones about Zionists, i.e. fanatical-political Israelis or Takfiri Jihadists, i.e. fanatical-political Muslims.
Their racism is drinking from bowl of populist UKIP racism. while specifically targeting the victims of fanatical-political agencies he supports.
That’s why Steve Bell portrays Cameron in a condom, because of this highly infectious STD of racism against the victims of their sadist proxies.
Zed:
“The disgusting hoax they manipulated to further attack the Muslim community ?”
That’s exactly what it was, a disgusting hoax mounted by the Asian Muslim community, which Gove manipulated to the Tories advantage. You can’t fool all of the people all of the time.
This Tory attack dog is doing exactly as Craig outlines. Today we will hear a well trailed speech steering the Tories to the right. Appealing to the worst in their organisation and reinforcing myths and lies. Then we will have Johnson acting the clown with his own pernicious take on the world through a Tory lens. What a sickening spectacle we will be subjected to today report faithfully by the MSM and in particular the BBC bowing to their masters voice. No doubt May will use the tragic murder of a copper in Liverpool to reinforce her law and order message whilst cutting the size and effectiveness of the service. She will use whatever it takes to get to the top.
Well, you have to get those UKIP voters back, don’t you, Teresa? It’s almost funny. After five years being told how foreign labour boosts our economy, and how we are all racists for objecting to a flexible workforce which will live 12 to a room and accept zero-hours contracts – or none – suddenly we’re right all along and Johnny Foreigner must go. I guess this ties in with the minimum-wage scam.
Pass the popcorn.
Glad to see you link to Political Compass, Craig. Every single time I’ve persuaded a friend or relation to do their quiz, it’s resulted in them reassessing their voting behaviour.
Really important to get people to distinguish between left/right and authoritarianism/libertarianism.
Osborne versus Ms. May, what a contest… Osborne started well yesterday appropriating public sector pension debts, oh hang on he does not want the debts, he wants the pensions which are still available, to finance his Chinese workers over here, undertaking nuclear and HS2 work. Its an ‘investment opportunity’ and it would guarantee that these facilities run badly under public finance, so at the last stage he can call upon private companies to come in and bail out the failing public sector projects.
Lord Adonis, only one of the club of 790, safe forever in his smug seat should realise that he has no cloth on, that he is being used to bait Labour.
http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/politics/chancellor_to_announce_local_council_pensions_to_be_pooled_as_investment_tool_1_4258569
Mrs May should be asked what she has in mind for Shaker Aamer, whether she wants to continue his detention without charge after 14 years.
Bagram and Guantanamo are still in use,sic, so what is going to happen in 14 days time when/if he arrives in Northolt.
Giyane
That was completely unacceptable. Deleted.
Craig
Accusing Islam of lying about the revelation of the Qur’an is acceptable?
I hate the Muslims who secretly collaborate with the enemies of Islam.
Re-instated:
Muslims who engage in political alliances with the enemies of Islam, i.e. the Jews and Christians, i.e. sheep-shaggers, should not be surprised if they end up with bollocks-ticks on their balls.
Giyane
Firstly, I made no such accusation. I said the divine origin of the Koran is a matter of belief, and as far as I could see not affected one way or the other by the fact that the Koran has antecedents. Muslim theologians would of course accept that the Koran has antecedents, of which the Bible and Torah are examples. I respect everybody’s religious belief. Nobody claims Mohammed as the only prophet.
But what you posted about associating with Jews and Christians is hate speech. I warned you about it and deleted it, and you reposted it. You are no longer welcome on this blog.
Oh you who believe, do not take the Jews and Christians as your protectors. Holy Qur’an.
This does not mean taking Jews and Christians as personal friends, or engaging with them in discussion and argument. It means making the kind of political alliance that USUKIS has made with Al Qaida and Islamic State, which has ended up wrecking Libya completely and di-placing 14 million innocent people in and around Syria and Iraq from their homes.
They are currently getting bombed by Russia. They are the dogs of Hell and they deserve to be killed. They are running away to supposedly Islamic Erdogan, whom the Turkish people now want to oust, but they have to wait another month to get rid of him.
I am wondering here: Michael Portillo was not particularly on the socially liberal wing of the Tories when he was being touted as a future Tory leader. I seem to remember a disastrous conference speech in the early noughties when he was shadow defence minister, and then he lost his seat at the next election. And then he became a TV pundit and personality -when he seemed to soften his approach and manner which I suspect was an adaptation to making a living on TV. When he was a ‘player’ he projected a tough as nails hardline approach, which may have been an act, of course.
Ted heath had a considerable spell as Tory leader ,but was supplanted by Thatcher after the disastrous early seventies coal strikes and three day week.
A replacement of Ted Heath was somewhat inevitable (with hindsight) and for that to be a hardline replacement also now seems inevitable, given the political tone of the times. Was her opponent Willie Whitelaw?-after Heath had been eliminated. My reading from long ago led me to think that Thatcher had been subtly groomed for Tory leadership for a very long time – as far back as the fifties. She was an attractive figure for Tories at the time because she, like Heath had a background that would have fitted well with what was seen as electable at the time i.e made her way from a common lower middle class class, very English, origin.(her appeal in scotland was in negative territory).
So my sense of Thatcher was that she was ‘made to measure to fit the times-which was generally much more ‘left’ than now and the ‘patrician grandee’ type was considered very much out of favour, and unelectable, since the debacle of Alec Douglas Home in the sixties when Wilson had run circles round him . Whitelaw was more of that ‘patrician’ type. But it is impossible to know these things.
Ken Clarke is also an interesting figure. In many ways I thought he was the person who prepared the ground for Blair.i.e. Blair and Brown were the beneficiaries of Clarke’s chancellorship, which was a corrective of the ERM debacle.
davd Davies is also an interesting type who reminds me a little of Rand Paul in the US. Libertarian and liberal at the same time.
I suppose you are saying that Teresa May is the person you think will succeed Cameron rather than Osbourne or Johnson. Not sure that either of these are much more socially liberal than Teresa May. Also Teresa May may be making a miscalculation with the hardline immigration stance. I know the tone of the discourse in this country is quite polarised at the moment but there is still potential for moments of sanity. However May is certainly banking on the widespread perception that the borders should be closed off from Europe due to the scale of the refugee crisis. I am not sure we will be able to take this approach even if the prevailing ‘popular’ sentiment is for that. Practicalities (and events) may yet intervene.
But it is interesting to see the utterly ruthless power play that is going on in the Tories just now. May is pandering to the lowest common denominator at the moment.
Craig
It has become very obvious that you supported the crushing of Soviet power over Europe and you support the current crushing of Islam in the Middle East.
leave the gatekeeper tantrums to David Cameron
I meant to say that when Portillo made his conference speech, which was just plain badly executed and badly prepared – support was withdrawn because he was no longer seen as a safe pair of hands. I don’t think he expressed liberal views in the speech. That was not the issue. It was his ‘steadiness’ that was the issue The speed that he disappeared off the political radar was notable at the time.
Giyane,
I shall accept your 9.22 comment as a retraction. Count up to ten and look at your comments a second time before clicking submit!
I do indeed regard the end of the Soviet empire as on balance a good thing. It was an empire. The current global extension of extremely aggressive western neo-liberalism is not a good thing.
I honestly don’t see how you can accuse me of supporting western policy in the Middle East. You baffled me there.
It has become very obvious that you supported the crushing of Soviet power over Europe
Nothing wrong with that, if you are a European.
and you support the current crushing of Islam in the Middle East.
Less obvious, that. Is your position that Islam should not be resisted when Islam is used as a justification for barbarity? Just how far does your mild and occasional condemnation of takfiris go? Not as far as your poisonous hatred of non-Muslims, I’ll be bound.
Pot. Kettle.
Deepgreenpuddock,
Thanks that was thoughtful. I think Thatcher and her supporters were undoubtedly more authoritarian than Heath and his supporters. The Tory racists (who were open about it in the 1970s) were with Thatcher. Relative aristocracy is a red herring. I think Portillo’s softening came a bit earlier than you suggest; his leadership bid was after his Enfield defeat which he himself says triggered his softening. And the winner was IDS, who I would argue was more authoritarian. So I stand by my thesis. 🙂
We have had a basinful of Smoothface this morning attempting to row back on Mr Unt’s ‘work like the Chinese’ pratfall.
These are the odds for Tory partei ‘leadership’. It will be decided by the gangsters-in-charge whatever the betting.
http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/next-conservative-leader
the abiding impression of politics as i reflect over the years is that it not a matter of logic or substance or finding the best or optimal solution to human problems. It is possibly horrifying that we humans conduct our political affairs dominated by such personalised and irrational emotional underpinnings. Politics has become nakedly PR, manipulation and gangsterism, but in truth when i think back to Wilson and Heath and those apparently purer days and simpler times, all that has changed is perception.
Nothing wrong with your thesis Craig, the whole MSM banks on it.
Was Portillo rejected due to his past? was he a PM candidate that is unsafe from stories that might have been leveled at him?
It is possibly horrifying that we humans conduct our political affairs dominated by such personalised and irrational emotional underpinnings.
Good point, though I would delete ‘possibly’, myself. However, is democracy even compatible with a rigorously rational approach? When decisions are taken without factoring in the poorly-informed, irrational and emotional response of those affected, or the wider electorate? Let alone the bloody media? Hmmm.
It’s a pity we can’t upgrade the software between our ears, which was developed for very different circumstances. Though Windows 8 would not be the system of choice either…
DGP – I think of the day Wilson welcomed the Beatles to Number 10 as being when politics became a branch of show business; we’ve never looked back!
The Wee Ginger Dug on the Throwing of an Egg.
https://weegingerdug.wordpress.com/2015/10/05/going-to-work-on-an-egg/
I seem to have positioned myself two points below Gandhi on the political compass.
Though Windows 8 would not be the system of choice either… -it would allow access to your thoughts through the back-door Ba’al…
Mark Golding 10:14 am
That’s about where I am. The thing is, when you persuade people to take that quiz, vast numbers of them come out in the left/libertarian quadrant. Even those who left Labour for UKIP. And when you show them the clustering of the main parties at the various GEs, they are shocked.
I find it an extremely useful tool to illustrate to people how limited – and misleading – the political debate is in Britain. And from there, it’s less of a step for them to see how the media gatekeeps the acceptable range of opinion.
Rose -you make a very good point. Did Blair not welcome Oasis at the party after the win. Were Oasis not some kind of re-imagining of the Beatles for the nineties?
How very predictable and managed it all now seems.
Wilson and Brown both now seem to be people who were very good at harnessing peoples emotional energy to their personal ambitions.
I think i would like to think about ‘charisma’. Obama is hugely charismatic-as was Bill Clinton.( i defy anyone , even the most avid anti-US polemicists here to resist the opportunity to have an audience with either f these people.
I have a memory of reading that a meeting with Blair was an ‘experience’ as he had a fantastic ability for recall and very strong personal charm and social skills. He made people feel he was interested in them and had gone to some trouble to become informed about them.
I also had a long conversation once with someone who had met royalty several times, and he reported this feeling of being charmed by the way that he was made to feel important and valued, but , being quite astute, he also suggested that the whole purpose of these events (where royalty come into contact with their ‘subjects’ ) was achieved by fantastic attention to detail and a great deal of preparation and hard work, mainly by many clever palace flunkies . i.e royalty are in effect ‘trained’ and supported to be ‘charismatic’. They have refined their role and purpose to a huge degree.
The original meaning of the word charism is the property of ‘grace’ which has religious origins and relates I think, to a state of elevated consciousness ‘granted’ to people who have exercised great piety and religious devotion to an exceptional degree. (It is arguably a delusional condition-although also highly desirable and enlightening).
It is an interesting topic.In this time of materialism and apparently logical or scientific understandings of our world, a huge proportion of the human population seem to automatically defer to such ancient ritualistic properties as ‘charisma’ and accept the ludicrous notion that charisma is ‘inherited’. I have not the slightest doubt that the sycophancy and acceptance of this condition is related to a social structure where interests are more served by the deference, regardless of the awareness or its absence of this condition in the individual.
Wealth is inevitably impressive to the relatively poor and the way that our royalty ‘understate’ their style also rather emphasises the social gulf while creating the appearance of a bridge between the highly elevated and the common hoi polloi.
I am reminded somewhat of the value of diamonds (in jewellery) which is a wonderful set of artificial constructs such as carat,cut, clarity and colour which supports a vast industry pandering to the devotion of one individual for another= as a sublime rarity, The diamonds colour and clarity supports this symbolically, by the rarity of the diamond based on these artifices. The devotion and love is fine, and inescapable for so many people, but one cannot escape the feeling that the jewellery industry has inflated the farcical, if highly refined and complex artificialities of diamond supply, to a ludicrous degree. As with diamonds, so too with royalty, where the supply of charisma is as carefully managed as the sparkle of a diamond , and as with royalty, so too with our charismatic leaders.
The QUESTION is why do WE keep electing them then? Are people of the United Kingdom stupid? Or is this “Old Etonian patrician authoritarianism” not just Tory thing? May be majority (sufficient majority to elect the government) are racists and selfish? All these NIMBYs come to my mind.
I am afraid,Craig,that I think your point is silly you could say all of the above about Labour pre- Corbyn,and I am afraid, soon will be able to post Corbyn.