Vagaries Of Perception
I don’t believe for one moment that at the next General Election the Conservatives would take 49% of the vote while Labour only 23%.
It just is not going to happen. People can say whatever they want when answering opinion polls but when it actually counts many would still vote Labour having previously said otherwise.
The problem is that the Conservatives are still unpopular; perhaps less unpopular than Labour are currently, but nonetheless still unpopular. The opinion polls and statistics highlighted in the newspapers rarely tell the full story – that of declining turnouts and a fall in the number of people saying they are certain or likely to vote.
While the Conservatives may supposedly be set to take a higher percentage of the vote than Labour, the actual number of votes set to be cast at the next election will probably decline meaning that each party will receive fewer votes in total. Turnout may only increase slightly if the result appears to be particularly close, similar to the increased turnout in the recent Mayoral elections.
There is of course also the fact that opinion polls are based upon uniform swings and General Elections do not produce exact uniform swings from constituency to constituency. For example, the Conservatives poll very well in the South East but very poorly in Scotland. Overall polling figures often do not reflect such regional differences.
The upcoming Crewe and Nantwich by-election will almost undoubtedly represent another wake-up call for the party hierarchy and the small number of Cameron-fanatical members who seem to increasingly frequent ConservativeHome.
If the Conservatives fail to win the seat, then not only will it have been over twenty years since the party won a parliamentary by-election from any opposition, but stark proof that the much discussed opinion polls of bubble politics are almost worthless.
Your Comments:
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- Andrew Stone
Chris, if I didn’t know any better I’d say you’d relish a fifth Labour victory. Why all the negativity, Chris? Show some support for Cameron and lets get our team back into office. I’d hazard a guess that you yourself are looking to have a career in politics. Well you won’t get very far with your negative attitude! People will probably think you’re a secret Lib Dem. LOL!
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- Matthew Butler
Oh dear - the usual tribal politics strikes again. If you’re not Tory, you must be Labour (or Lib Dem). Why are people incapable of understanding that you can dislike both (or all three) of them? I refer you to Peter Hitchens’ column of 3rd May, which can be found here.
David Cameron has only achieved such ’success’ by ingratiating himself with the liberal elite, who realise that the future of their ideals is better preserved by Cameron (who is one of them) rather than by Gordon Brown.
And as for saying that you won’t get far in politics with Chris’ attitude, this is exactly the problem that prevents this situation from changing. Anyone with genuinely conservative beliefs will (with a few exceptions) be treated as a pariah and denied access to the upper echelons of the Tory party, which are in the grip of the 1968 mob whose legacy of destroying conservative values is the main reason for the decline of this country.
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Well Andrew, it’s just as well that you do know better because it is quite obvious (if you read my website) that I would not relish a fourth Labour term in office at all. But then neither do I particularly relish the potential prospect of (unless things dramatically change) a weak and ineffectual Blue-Labour-style Conservative Government led by David Cameron.
I don’t really see how it is negative to point out that opinion polls such as the one I mentioned do not reflect reality. Do you for example really believe that the Conservatives could gain almost 50% of the vote while Labour only 23% if a General Election was held tomorrow?
Similarly I cannot see the negativity in highlighting that electoral turnout is steadily declining – which is in part due to the convergence of the main parties on that meaningless area dubbed the ‘centre ground’. I acknowledge that turnout is falling and that contempt for our political leaders is on the rise and want to do something about it. I don’t just blindly ignore it or make token gestures towards apathy and still carry on regardless, which seems to be the case with others.
Also, I think it has been said before that ‘a pessimist is an optimist that knows what is going on’. This country is so clearly in obvious moral, social and economic decline with currently no sign of any potential reprieve. Both Labour and the Conservatives seem quite content to carry on with the same policies that have been failing for decades.
To use your analogy, if Team Blue are going to do pretty much what Team Red are currently doing, albeit with one or two minor policy alterations, then what exactly is the point of rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic? I am not content to watch my party pledge to manage decline more slowly.
What I want politically is that which Peter Hitchens summed up the other day as ‘national independence, serious welfare reform, good schools, strong families, punishment for criminals and other such beyond-the-pale ideas’. That’s really not much to ask is it?
As for showing some support for Dave; he like any other person only deserves praise when it is warranted. I do not think that he has deserved any recently. In a similar manner I do not see why I should take some sort of rather sad sycophantic approach to the party hierarchy and leadership. There are plenty of other willing young Tories out there to perform that function.
Mindless optimism and political tribalism will not get us or this country anywhere. In fact it has probably caused us a great many problems over the previous few decades. There is no doubt that I want to see a strong and effective Conservative Government after the next election consisting of strong, conservative-minded individual MPs. From where I am standing, we do not seem to have reached that position yet – though I hope we do. Thanks for taking the time to comment.
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- Andrew Stone
Good God!
What have we here? A new Pete ‘Bonkers’ Hitchens in the making? (because that’s what everyone calls him). I get your point, we probably won’t win the next election, which I think is a real shame (shhh, I don’t believe all that ConservativeHome bollocks either). You’re obviously smarter that most of the tory blogger-boys out there so what do you propose to do about all this? Bonkers Hitchens wants to set up a new party. Don’t give me that dickhead idea, the Tory party isn’t just going to collapse like a pack of cards, its still got decades worth of life left in it, whatever he says. So what’s it to be ‘Bonkers’ Palmer? – I’m sure you won’t mind me calling you that LOL!!
Andy
PS – Btw, youre right Andrew Stone is just a pseudonym, I should really start to think of a better one LOL.
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- Andrew Stone
And Matthew Butler, are you a member of UKIP perchance?
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- Matthew Butler
No, I am not a member of UKIP. Although I involve myself to a limited extent with Bath CF, I am not a member of any political party at the moment. I used to be a card-carrying member of the Conservative party, but tore up my card when David Cameron started to turn it into the Blue Labour it is now. My frustration began with Cameron’s boneheaded environmentalism; the grammar schools row was the last straw.
As for Peter Hitchens, the “bonkers” insult is really quite disgusting. It is thrown around by mindless, sheep-like followers of the conventional wisdom who, because they never think for themselves, dismiss independent people like him by shouting insults. If they had proper arguments, they would use those. Because they haven’t, they resort to abuse.
Remember that Wilberforce, Gallileo and Luther were all called ‘bonkers’, or the equivalent thereof, in their day. Your calling Chris ‘bonkers’ is just another sign of the rampant conformism that is such a depressing characteristic of British politics.
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I thought it was just Private Eye that referred to Peter Hitchens as ‘bonkers’. David Cameron for example refers to him as a ‘maniac’, while Blair and Brown refuse to even speak to him at all lest he ask them an awkward question.
I think you are right about the Conservative party‘s collapse – or rather unlikelihood of it happening, for the moment at least. There have and will be again, no doubt, moments when the Conservative party could collapse. The last was probably when Iain Duncan-Smith was forced out as leader and Michael Howard quickly assumed charge; the next may be at the coming general election: if Cameron does incredibly poorly for example (seems unlikely now, but you never know).
I have been considering the arguments set out by Peter Hitchens on this for about four or so years now, but I just cannot see his methods working myself. They heavily rely on far too many factors coming to fruition at once to be viable.
Firstly, too many individuals have a vested interest in propping the Conservative party up, whether they be financial backers, employees, party activists and councillors or those in the media and on the Left who like having the Conservatives around because they are easy to beat due to long standing tribal political loyalties and party hatred.
What’s more, who for example would form his new party? If it was remnants of the Conservative party and others on the Right then the media would automatically label the new party as the Conservatives in new clothing. Such a label, if embedded deeply enough within the minds of the electorate would stick and be difficult if not impossible to shift – which puts us back to square one.
Furthermore, all those Conservative MPs, councillors and party activists who are not really conservative-minded (if in fact they believe in anything at all), where would they go? They would not just give up, go home and leave politics – they may even try and form their own upstart party in competition with Peter Hitchens’ apparent new pro-British party – if indeed this new party he wants actually follows the direction he sees fit, which is no guarantee.
Additionally, what of all the liberals and those on the left in the media and elsewhere who Peter Hitchens regularly attacks? I suspect that they would not just sit around twiddling their thumbs while a new ‘popular’ party arises from the ashes to strike down their progressive social policies and agenda that they have spent decades slowly building. They would oppose it all the way.
There are a number of other reasons that I could point out about why his idea may not work, but I think that the above will suffice for the moment.
So, this means that if the Conservative party will not collapse then a new party of whatever shape or form cannot arise and take its place. On the other hand I think there is potentially another way.
If you consider for a moment that no democracy is really a democracy but simply a collection of small motivated groups of relatively like-minded individuals operating with differing agendas amongst the great swathes of largely meaningless and powerless (in this context) general public voters, then you can begin to build up a picture of how to try and go about changing society. Key individuals within these groups need to be influenced.
Looking at all revolutions throughout recent modern history, none can be said to have begun as popular mass revolutions or movements. They were instead, every single one of them, instigated in the beginning by small minorities in key positions of power and influence. They may have grown eventually into mass movements, but they all began in small highly motivated groups.
Indeed, some never grew beyond the smaller grouping stage. Take the rise of the European Union for example. Dreamt up and instigated in most part by Jean Monnet and those that he influenced along the way; the electorates of the European Union states have never been consulted on whether they actually wanted this Union to be constructed nor have they ever show any popular desire for it – yet here we are today, our lives to an ever increasing extent ruled and run by a number of undemocratic institutions residing in Brussels.
In light of the above I have slowly come to the conclusion that if a small group of like-minded people can seize power in the Conservative party and influence a few key decision makers in other areas of the media or society then this is the best method for implementing the kinds of reforms and changes I and others are looking for in this country. A mass movement is potentially unnecessary.
Of course none of this would be simple to achieve, but in the whole scheme of such an undertaking, controlling the Conservative party would possibly be the easiest and most key to such a venture. Difficult it would undoubtedly be to elect as party leader someone of likeminded thought, but not impossible.
Once in, the Leader of any British political party and those immediately around him hold an incredible amount of power in being able to control and shape party policy. The ‘views’ of the Conservative Parliamentary party are therefore nothing to concerned about. For example, were Dave Cameron to hold a press conference tomorrow and announce that the Conservatives new policy was to leave the European Union, then you can be almost sure that 95% of the Conservative Parliamentary party would suddenly agree, claim that they had been completely sceptical of the EU project all along and of course saw the inherent goodness of such a policy and were delighted that David Cameron was pursuing British interests, etc.
Parliamentary political parties are full of sheep-like MPs that will repeat the party line for fear of losing their seat or suffering punishment from the whips. Therefore, once you control the top, the rest will fall into line.
Then there is the electorate. Clearly they need to be persuaded to vote in the Conservative party. This would obviously be easier for the Conservatives if Labour have been in power for a prolonged period of time, three of four terms – such as is the case now. Much like in 1997, when the public had largely tired of the Conservatives, it didn’t matter what they said, they would have lost the election. Likewise, Labour could have said anything and would have been elected.
Peter Hitchens I think is looking from the wrong angle. I cannot think of one example where his mass movement approach has succeeded. Mine is a long-term strategy, with once again many different factors that must play out to be successful, but I think in total has a better chance of succeeding than Peter Hitchens. Unfortunately things will not change overnight. I believe we will be stuck with increasingly bad government for some years yet – but there is I suppose hope for the future.
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- Andrew Stone
Well in that case you’d better make sure that you reach the party leadership yourself or rather its “upper echelons” to use Matthew’s flowery phrase ((where are you from Barmy-Butler? Ancient Greece? And I think Chris can take a bit of jokey name-calling - call me Andy Pandy if you want!)) I suppose I’ll be voting Tory at the next election if I can be bothered. I figured there’s always a chance that Dave will die in office (maybe he’ll get crushed to death by a lorry while riding his bike). Then maybe David Davis will take over. You never know. But if a strong Tory leader doesn’t emerge within the next 15 years then I think I’ll pack my bags. By that stage I’ll have stopped caring, Throw England to the Islamicists! Perhaps they’ll have some use for it still.
