To be Conservative or conservative - that is the question. Whether 'tis better for your mental health to suffer the spin and untruths of outrageous Tory governments, or to take action against this sea of troubles, and by opposing end them?
To be conservative, is to find some change uncomfortable and to be passively resisted - at its heart our nation does not mind change, but we hate being changed. That is why the current Conservative government has gone too far for conservative Britain. First Brexit, and a very bad one at that, then the traducing of parliament, followed by attacks on our civil liberties, the destruction of our economy, the strangling of our NHS, the collapse of our care system, the imposition of more poverty, the dumping of asylum seekers on our towns, the trashing of our rivers and beaches, not to mention the visible evidence of decline - potholes, empty shops, petty vandalism, unsocial behaviour, and litter everywhere.
The conservatives are slow to anger and action, but when they do move against the Conservative government it will be a moment of catharsis for the country.
We are a small c moderately socially conservative country, but with a predominantly right wing (rabidly so) press, owned by too many non doms. This gives the Conservative Party an in built advantage. The fact that our left/liberal parties don’t like it each other and split the vote in a first past the post voting system, gives the Tories an in built advantage.
There is always flicker of irritation sparked each time the word ‘British’ was used when the subject is completely England. People in Scotland have become used to this - on most matters Britain means England and England means Britain.
To be pedantic, the island which contains Wales, Scotland and England is called “Great Britain”. The entity which is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a mere 100 years old. And very shaky. The cloudy notion of “Britain” and “British” is a political construct which seem to be viewed with increasing suspicion.
Scotland has an increasingly different view of society (even if the arch-Tory, Margaret Thatcher, claimed it didn’t exist). It is also keen to be back in Europe - until 1907, Scots were entitled to claim French citizenship. Some experts claim that right has never been properly rescinded.
Stop with the British or Britain. In Scotland we're a social democratic country, England is a Conservative country, Welsh, socialist and Irish, democratic nationalist.
Yes. The opposition, whatever it is, is adapt at shooting itself in the foot whenever the Tories weaken. Where are the Tory Michael Foot’s, Jeremy Corbyn’s, Neil Kinnock’s? They keep them for the periods Labour is in office. When the Tories are in office we have the McMillans, Thatchers, Cameron’s. When anyone wants to introduce PR of any kind we have the Labour opposition against it. With Brexit we have the socialist elite(Corbyn and Momentum )telling us that we are better off poor and hungry. Blair managed to win three elections and is barely tolerated in the Labour Party.
I think this claim is common among people who believe others should think as they do and have had time to discuss “ideology” with fellow students. Frequently, they are drawn to abstract ideas which vary from those of their parents.
They are disinclined to discuss with working people what their real and present concerns and hopes are or present their own ideas in a way that engages them.
It is a truism that older people become more “conservative” in the sense that they become more concerned about what they have to lose. It is not always appreciated that parents in, say, their forties may be supporting not only their children but the grandchildren and their own parents.
Personally, I prefer to judge a politician by the programme they propose and their track record of doing so. It’s not being too negative to say that, after a few decades, these criteria are not often met by any party politicians and it becomes necessary to vote for the “least bad” candidate, however much we would like to “vote with our hearts”. That probably looks like “conservatism” from some angles.
Yes, the more you have to conserve... but older people can see the mess they or their (mostly Tory) governments have created and seek something more radical - which is usually left of centre.
No, Britain is not a Tory nation. It suits both the Conservative Party and much of the commentariat to allow this contention to become a truism, based on the Tories’ high level of electoral success. However, the First Past The Post system means most British elections are won with less than 50% of the vote and all of the Tory wins since the Second World War have been. It is noteworthy that when the usually divided anti Tory majority gets its act together, the Conservatives lose badly - 1906; 1945; 1966; 1997. It could happen again next year. That said, the tendency of large numbers of the electorate to vote for a party that despises them and never delivers for them, remains a point of immense frustration and puzzlement for people on the left. The ability of the Right in this country to create a believable and persuasive political narrative the secures the Tories regular General Election success is second to none. This skill however currently appears to have deserted them.
All countries are extremely schizophrenic in this regard. America is more conservative than Britain and yet a Republican has only won the popular vote for the Presidency once since 1992 (2004). Our values are complex. People want less immigration, railway nationalisation, action on the cost of living but also tax cuts; are comfortable with gay marriage, legal abortion and (probably), the death penalty.
Please stop conflating England with Britain. The conservatives are not in power in any of the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland
The empiricist in me read: Is this socially-constructed polity the socially-constructed identity of a socially-construed ideology and my brain exploded.
Missing are all the imputed mechanisms to go from someone's idea of conservatism (whose?), located as it is in particular economic, demographic and geopolitical milieu, to someone's propagation of national identity (whose? how?) accepted by a diverse society for diverse reasons (what? why?) in order to support policy decisions for mainly identitarian reasons rather than pragmatics (which would otherwise refute their imputed identitarian basis.) In which case: which popular UK/GB policy decisions are more identitarian than pragmatic? Taken when? How can you tell if they are not?
Let's call a proposition empirically valid if you could nominate the minimum evidence which, if established, would refute it. Let's call it constructive when, if were it shown to be probably true or false, you would significantly change your behaviour.
So for example, the origin of Covid, while controversial and still uncertain, is both empirically valid and constructive.
Yet how is this question empirically valid? Isn't it just begging for readers to project their own non-sequiturs onto an unfalsifiable proposition?
And how is it constructive? What behaviour would you change if it were true? If it were not? Would you advocate that New Statesman readers emigrate if it were proven true?
Finally, regarding liberals vs left: I've previously suggested that the left needs to stop blaming the world for not being as it wishes. Would an empirically invalid, unconstructive question qualify as an example of the sort of world-blaming to stop?
To be Conservative or conservative - that is the question. Whether 'tis better for your mental health to suffer the spin and untruths of outrageous Tory governments, or to take action against this sea of troubles, and by opposing end them?
To be conservative, is to find some change uncomfortable and to be passively resisted - at its heart our nation does not mind change, but we hate being changed. That is why the current Conservative government has gone too far for conservative Britain. First Brexit, and a very bad one at that, then the traducing of parliament, followed by attacks on our civil liberties, the destruction of our economy, the strangling of our NHS, the collapse of our care system, the imposition of more poverty, the dumping of asylum seekers on our towns, the trashing of our rivers and beaches, not to mention the visible evidence of decline - potholes, empty shops, petty vandalism, unsocial behaviour, and litter everywhere.
The conservatives are slow to anger and action, but when they do move against the Conservative government it will be a moment of catharsis for the country.
We are a small c moderately socially conservative country, but with a predominantly right wing (rabidly so) press, owned by too many non doms. This gives the Conservative Party an in built advantage. The fact that our left/liberal parties don’t like it each other and split the vote in a first past the post voting system, gives the Tories an in built advantage.
There is always flicker of irritation sparked each time the word ‘British’ was used when the subject is completely England. People in Scotland have become used to this - on most matters Britain means England and England means Britain.
To be pedantic, the island which contains Wales, Scotland and England is called “Great Britain”. The entity which is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a mere 100 years old. And very shaky. The cloudy notion of “Britain” and “British” is a political construct which seem to be viewed with increasing suspicion.
Scotland has an increasingly different view of society (even if the arch-Tory, Margaret Thatcher, claimed it didn’t exist). It is also keen to be back in Europe - until 1907, Scots were entitled to claim French citizenship. Some experts claim that right has never been properly rescinded.
Stop with the British or Britain. In Scotland we're a social democratic country, England is a Conservative country, Welsh, socialist and Irish, democratic nationalist.
Yes. The opposition, whatever it is, is adapt at shooting itself in the foot whenever the Tories weaken. Where are the Tory Michael Foot’s, Jeremy Corbyn’s, Neil Kinnock’s? They keep them for the periods Labour is in office. When the Tories are in office we have the McMillans, Thatchers, Cameron’s. When anyone wants to introduce PR of any kind we have the Labour opposition against it. With Brexit we have the socialist elite(Corbyn and Momentum )telling us that we are better off poor and hungry. Blair managed to win three elections and is barely tolerated in the Labour Party.
I think this claim is common among people who believe others should think as they do and have had time to discuss “ideology” with fellow students. Frequently, they are drawn to abstract ideas which vary from those of their parents.
They are disinclined to discuss with working people what their real and present concerns and hopes are or present their own ideas in a way that engages them.
It is a truism that older people become more “conservative” in the sense that they become more concerned about what they have to lose. It is not always appreciated that parents in, say, their forties may be supporting not only their children but the grandchildren and their own parents.
Personally, I prefer to judge a politician by the programme they propose and their track record of doing so. It’s not being too negative to say that, after a few decades, these criteria are not often met by any party politicians and it becomes necessary to vote for the “least bad” candidate, however much we would like to “vote with our hearts”. That probably looks like “conservatism” from some angles.
Yes, the more you have to conserve... but older people can see the mess they or their (mostly Tory) governments have created and seek something more radical - which is usually left of centre.
No, Britain is not a Tory nation. It suits both the Conservative Party and much of the commentariat to allow this contention to become a truism, based on the Tories’ high level of electoral success. However, the First Past The Post system means most British elections are won with less than 50% of the vote and all of the Tory wins since the Second World War have been. It is noteworthy that when the usually divided anti Tory majority gets its act together, the Conservatives lose badly - 1906; 1945; 1966; 1997. It could happen again next year. That said, the tendency of large numbers of the electorate to vote for a party that despises them and never delivers for them, remains a point of immense frustration and puzzlement for people on the left. The ability of the Right in this country to create a believable and persuasive political narrative the secures the Tories regular General Election success is second to none. This skill however currently appears to have deserted them.
All countries are extremely schizophrenic in this regard. America is more conservative than Britain and yet a Republican has only won the popular vote for the Presidency once since 1992 (2004). Our values are complex. People want less immigration, railway nationalisation, action on the cost of living but also tax cuts; are comfortable with gay marriage, legal abortion and (probably), the death penalty.
Please stop conflating England with Britain. The conservatives are not in power in any of the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland
The empiricist in me read: Is this socially-constructed polity the socially-constructed identity of a socially-construed ideology and my brain exploded.
Missing are all the imputed mechanisms to go from someone's idea of conservatism (whose?), located as it is in particular economic, demographic and geopolitical milieu, to someone's propagation of national identity (whose? how?) accepted by a diverse society for diverse reasons (what? why?) in order to support policy decisions for mainly identitarian reasons rather than pragmatics (which would otherwise refute their imputed identitarian basis.) In which case: which popular UK/GB policy decisions are more identitarian than pragmatic? Taken when? How can you tell if they are not?
Let's call a proposition empirically valid if you could nominate the minimum evidence which, if established, would refute it. Let's call it constructive when, if were it shown to be probably true or false, you would significantly change your behaviour.
So for example, the origin of Covid, while controversial and still uncertain, is both empirically valid and constructive.
Yet how is this question empirically valid? Isn't it just begging for readers to project their own non-sequiturs onto an unfalsifiable proposition?
And how is it constructive? What behaviour would you change if it were true? If it were not? Would you advocate that New Statesman readers emigrate if it were proven true?
Finally, regarding liberals vs left: I've previously suggested that the left needs to stop blaming the world for not being as it wishes. Would an empirically invalid, unconstructive question qualify as an example of the sort of world-blaming to stop?