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The Tories should be further ahead in the opinion polls
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3139305.stm
At this stage in the current Parliament they really should..
At this stage in the current Parliament they really should..
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But then what can you expect? The party is about as inspiring as a child's funeral; there still are two polarised sides with opposite views on just about everything; issues such as the euro, Section 28, gay rights and others continue to split the party and create in-fighting; and the current leader of the party would drive sheep to suicide out of boredom.
If the tories were to win the next election it would only be out of mass public discontent with Labour. The Monster Raving Loony Party has more inspiring policies than the tories.
As for Hague having personality, well the Conservatives were never a truly strong opposition under him either. His 2001 election campaign focused on the wrong issues; keeping the pound seemed more important than the improvement of public services.
Still, there is a public dissatisfaction with New Labour. The Conservatives have failed to capitalise on that.
The trouble is that the public have moved on, people value public services a lot more now and while the Tories promise tax cuts the public knows that this will mean a reduced service. They also don't help themselves with their vision of Britain, a Daily Mail style happy 1950s style suburbia with nasty greedy people all out for themselves and sod the poor, most people know that we've moved on since those days and are more socially liberal and that world seems so ananchronistic even to the elderly. The trouble is as I said in another thread is that the Tories don't know how to deal with the 21st century and they think they can solve their problems by retreating further into their Thatcherite ideology and reliving the good old days.
Also the trouble is their lack of potential leaders - Portillo comes across as slimy, Clarke is too tainted with the Major years, IDS and Hague lack charisma and the rest are non-entities. They could do with someone like Boris Johnson or Ann Widdicombe as leader, people with charisma who know how to deliver a decent speech and keep their arguments simple and concise.
They're coming third in opinion polls of the 16-34 age group and relying ever more on their elderly supporters who are dying off - I think there was a statistic that says about 4% of the traditional Tory vote dies between each election. Therefore, it is essential for the Tories to properly reconnect with the voters and attract new young voters otherwise their supporters will die out. It's not inconcievable that in two elections time unless there is radical change for the Tories that we could see the Lib Dems as the main opposition party and once that happens it will be extremely difficult for them to get that role back.
Doing anything before will be seen as disloyal, a big no no in Conservative eyes.
The NHS and state school systems are in such disarray, that many people will vote for the Conservative Party on principle. Why pay so much tax for improved services, and then have the Government renage on it's promises?
if he'd have presented Have I Got News For You 4 years ago he'd be PM by now, or at least head of the tories still
Then their principles are deeply flawed.
Why do people continue to deny the history staring them in the face. 18 years of cuts and poor funding is what has left the NHS and Schooling with mountains to climb but they are making improvements.
Just because the media only want to report bad news doesn't mean that vast improvements haven't already been made.
Which of these headlines do you think you are more likely to see:
"No-one waits more than nine months for an operation"
or
"Man waits two years for his operation"
Yes the Tories made gains in the local elections but let's remember that they were at their lowest ebb in the previous local elections and were just winning back places in safe Tory areas they should never have lost in the first place. Also remember that no London councils were up for election nor I don't think were any metropolitan areas were either so really the election was held in traditionally Tory shires where they only had a 3% lead over Labour and the Lib Dems.
The NHS and state school systems are improving, let's not forget that most of the early investment put into public services was spent on paying off the debts ran up to try and keep a decent service going in the Conservative years. Now the NHS and schools are improving, not as quickly as I would like and not in the way I would like but they are improving. Hence why the Conservative polling figures are so low - people know that tax cuts won't get them the decent public services they want. The public can now see through the lie that you can have low taxes and good public services.