both parties are essentially without a unifying vision or a positive project. there’s no general platform they actually stand for at this point. there’s just an existential desire for self-preservation and all the nakedness of ambition and greed for power/emolument.
the conservative party at the moment is nothing more than a loose affiliation of property owners and board members who want to see their assets increase in value. and from the very top to the very base of their party membership, none of them are actually connected to or aware of what’s going on in the majority of the country, demographically or geographically.
the conservative party has been ‘split’ since the 70s/80s on the issue of europe. brexit obviously made that a central dividing feature of the modern party, a ‘with us or against us’ mentality. suddenly any dissension within the ranks, quite healthy and tolerated before, was an offence that could see an MP having the whip removed. a core of loyal, traditional tories unceremoniously kicked out of their own party. that was the beginning of the end.
now that their deluded/dishonest (pick one) brexit dreams have met with the brute facts of reality – economic self-harm, cratered growth, pathetic trade deals that don’t even begin to compensate for the trading losses, more red tape and bureaucracy rather than less, the inevitable talk of finding and encouraging immigrant labour from somewhere or other – the remaining party has fractured into even more factions.
what unites the political ideology and vision of the truss/kwarteng neo-hayekian libertarians, the ‘one nation’ moderate ‘nice’ conservatives, and the hardline post-UKIP european research group tories? they all have incommensurable views on key aspects of the economy and state. in another political system, like germany’s or the netherlands’s, they’d be 3 entirely separate parties.
the moral thing to do now would be to call a general election. the mandate they have is past its sell-by date and smelling like bad milk. boris campaigned on ‘getting brexit done’ and ‘levelling up’ the economy. he swayed key voters with promise of a boom in public spending and a special sop to neglected regions. but now the last standing tories after debacle after debacle, like jeremy cunt, are trying to serve up years more of reheated austerity, public cuts, and the same old focus on the south-east economic hub. levelling up the north has been abandoned. the entire swing demographic have been abandoned and their back gardens opened up to toxic fracking and seismic activity. how is this democratic?
the only thing uniting the conservatives now is a desire to not lose an election. 200+ MPs are looking shiftily at the recent polling and getting nervous about their plum salaries. that’s literally it. they haven’t been pursuing a positive vision for the country in years. they've done little really to remake the ground or take care of the details of 'getting brexit done'. they’re caught up in in-fighting.
dilbert talks about ‘anti-democratic’ leadership moves, but what is less democratic than a party that has drifted far away from its election manifesto and isn’t actually doing anything to tackle, inter alia, the ongoing pandemic, the cost-of-living crisis, or mass industrial disputes? not having a government that spends its time working for the people is anti-democratic.
Last edited by uziq (2022-10-20 19:24:12)
