Outwardly, a contest dominated by women and people of colour might suggest a party in tune with modernity, but the arguments between the contenders have so far betrayed a telling mixture of fanaticism and political nostalgia.
John Harris wants the sort of diversity where everyone thinks like he does.
Fanaticism
‘Sright. All except Kemi support Net Zero, the second most insane policy after lockdowns and MMT ( damn, third most…. amongst the most insane policies are…)
The Conservatives have now lost any real presence in just about all of Britain’s big cities,
Funny that as England’s cities become less and less English, the Tories should lose support in them…
’There is across-the-board backing – even from Tom Tugendhat, the supposed representative of a more compassionate Conservatism – for sending refugees to Rwanda, surely the single most monstrous Tory policy of the past 12 years.’
I say, Harris, that’s a bit racist, isn’t it? What’s wrong with Rwanda?
A lot of this loss of presence is also due to the student populations often being so large. Canterbury is Labour thanks to the student vote ( two universities, both quite low down the league tables ).
It’s actually not the worst piece and far more coherent than most Guardian journos (even including obvious imbeciles like Owen Jones and Rhiannon Lucy- Coslett, for example) – but what I would say to Harris is:
– people were predicting that the Conservatives would cease to be relevant back in 2001. Again relentless left wing control of all aspects of the education system and publically assisted part colonization of the country were policies being heavily pursued by ‘the Blob’ – still hasn’t worked as yet.
– Jeremy Corbyn, the SNP and the Greens actually won a 600 plus seat landslide on Facebook. In the real world they slipped to the largest defeat in over 8 decades.
– It’s very true that the Conservative presence in certain cities (especially as Otto points out those with large student populations) has been reduced but I’m not 100% sure of the ‘durability’ of this ‘coalition of the woke’ or its wider desirability in less affluent towns. Net Zero is on course to be a disaster which makes even the response to COVID look minor. In the real world people might be browbeaten by supine corporations who are terrified of left wing Twitter warriors into accepting there are 273 genders and 350 personal pronouns but how many of these lunatics are there really?
In short, I think his confidence is unjustified….
People are so terrified of annoying a tiny minority of a tiny minority of a tiny minority who just happen to be able to shout loudly.
“a telling mixture of fanaticism and political nostalgia”
If you want black and brown people to steer clear of these qualities, John, they can always have recourse to Islamic fundamentalism, African tribalism, and BLM activism.
“A lot of this loss of presence is also due to the student populations often being so large”
It is said that whenever the General Election timing suits, many students vote both in their university city and in their home constituency. Naughty! Hereabouts it’s said that many students vote twice in Cambridge, once using the address they live at, and once using their College address. Say it ain’t so!
I remember one GE many decades ago when I could have voted many times just by harvesting the cards of the many students who had gone down for the vacation. In those days, though, we didn’t expect much cheating at elections except in Trade Union elections or in constituencies with lots of Irish voters.
That was before Toni Blair’s racist law to make it easier for Certain Ethnicities to cheat at elections. And the useless bloody Conservatives have never scrapped his changes.
“ There is across-the-board backing – even from Tom Tugendhat, the supposed representative of a more compassionate Conservatism – for sending refugees to Rwanda, surely the single most monstrous Tory policy of the past 12 years.’”
They’re illegal immigrants FFs, refugees and under 18s get to stay.
Elsewhere I read that MPs have said that the policy hasn’t worked. How do they know, it hasn’t been tried yet?
Doesn’t John Harris live somewhere in rural Somerset like Frome? Bet it’s really diverse down there…
Surely it’s not too late for one of the candidates to state that they will repeal every piece of legislation passed by Blair and Brown. They should win by a landslide
Kemi is the only one who seems to be an actual conservative, so she won’t win.
The choice between Sunak, Mordaunt and Truss is the grimmest I can remember. Spaffers, WEF-ers and dopey – yet strangely entitled – metropolitan posh cows in the mould of Amber Rudd. None of these people are capable of winning a general election, after 12 disastrous years of Blue Blairism they’re offering more of the same again.
Diogenes,
Plus a fair swathe of the legislation passed by Cameron, May and Boris, including all and every piece of legislation relating to the so-called climate crisis.
Steve,
Kemi would win if she gets through to the final 2, but the members aren’t like the rest of the party. From the activists upwards, they’re a bunch of wets. As I’ve said here before, I was only a member for a year because I sought out the Redwood/Baker/Thatcher types and found they barely exist. La Resistance was barely big enough for a game of bridge.
It’s why they’re all talking like they’re Mrs Thatch, having spent years blowing everyone’s money on daft choo-choos, failing to fix public services, failing to change the incentives towards a responsible society, ignoring illegal immigration. They know what sells to the daft cunts that keep throwing money at the Conservative Party.
BoM4 – Oh, I know.
There’s some genuinely unpleasant people in the local Conservative Party, who were FURIOUS at the Brexit referendum result. Lots of wailing and gnashing at how giving the plebs a say was a mistake. Strangely enough they all upper middle class bedwetters who hold political opinions that are difficult to distinguish from the Liberal Democrats.
But what if the people have decided that modern Britain is shit? Isn’t that kind of what Brexit was about?
Nothing pisses off a leftist more than seeing their pet minorities go off the script they’ve written for them.
I was just charged 60p for a plastic bag in Morrisons.
That’s bloody Ed Davey’s fault.
First thing, apart from his execution obvs, is to scrap this stupid levy that is going down the gullet of the supermarkets.
Calling off the third debate at such short notice is the clearest sign possible that the long-planned coronation of King Rishi the Good is not going according to plan.
Maybe the Whips/1922/whoever realise that a large number of MPs are dangerously close to leaving the reservation.
“John Harris wants the sort of diversity where everyone thinks like he does.”
They always have. Leftists are constantly shocked that their pet minorities are comprised of individual human beings with minds of their own.
“The Conservatives have now lost any real presence in just about all of Britain’s big cities“
The SNP, Labour, and LibDems used to say the same thing about the whole of Scotland. And it wasn’t very long ago. Nothing is forever.
BoM4: You stuck it out for longer than me. I went to one meeting and that was enough.
John: I’ve seen a small, but unmistakable, talking-up of Kemi in the (relatively sympathetic end of the) MSM over the last few days. Even though she’s technically in third place right now, maybe there’s still some hope. (“Hope” with the proviso that I’m acutely aware that politicians always disappoint. I’m sure if she wins there’s every chance I’ll be glad to see the back of her in five or six years’ time. But right now she’s the least objectionable of the bunch by a very large margin.)
@ BoM4 and Steve
You have only yourselves to blame. If you want to change the local party you have to join it and argue sense in the debates. You sound like bloody Guardianistas who want everyone else to change with one wave of their magic wand.
[Confession – I did leave Cities of London and Westminster Party because it appeared to be internally corrupt (not in a financial sense but in a management sense), but that was after five years of working to improve things. Half-a-dozen years later stuff blew up in Shirley Porter’s face.]
@JuliaM – “What’s wrong with Rwanda?”
There’s nothing wrong with Rwanda. What’s wrong is the deportations. They would be just as wrong if the deportations were to Canada, America, Australia, India, China, or any other country as it means we are shirking our responsibilities. It would be equally wrong if Rwanda were to deport its asylum seekers to the UK.
@Bloke in North Dorset – “refugees and under 18s get to stay.”
Under the Rwanda deportation policy, refugees do not get to stay. Everyone gets deported to Rwanda and legitimate refugees are required to stay in Rwanda as it is classified as a safe country.
Charles
Two dance records from the 1990’s (2 Unlimited’s ‘No Limit’ and Ultra Nate’s ‘Free’) aren’t a good basis for Asylum/ immigration policy or successful integration of those incomers into society. There is no spare space in the UK. We are already overrrun and have over a million people on social housing lists. The Rwandan model is heavily flawed and needs the accompaniment of the following:
– Reinstatement of the death penalty post HRA repeal and the inclusion of people trafficking as a capital offence
– Reintroduction of Bills of Attainder so that people traffickers immediate family are also liable for prosecution
What ‘responsibilities’ precisely are we shirking Here? A responsibility to people that have got through 4 or 5 countries deemed safe to get here?
Under the Rwanda deportation policy, refugees do not get to stay
Ah well. I can see that might annoy. Luckily, not one in 1,000 is actually a refugee.
It’s not an ideal system. I’d just sink the boats, but imagine the fuss….
@ Charles
Rearrange these words – soppy you off twat Fuck soft.
These are in no way refugees, they are economic migrants.
Charles,
We have responsibilities to asylum seekers, people who flee their country because of a genuine fear of being persecuted or killed. Countries have absolutely no responsibility to economic migrants. The only way to stop such people coming is to guarantee, as Australia has done, that anyone arriving illegally by boat will never be allowed to settle in the UK.
john77 – I don’t think the Conservative Party can be reformed, and surprisingly (lol) I’m not welcome there anyway.
MC – True. I feel sure our responsibility towards invaders begins and ends with the first warning shot across the bow. One of the reasons I’m not welcome at the local Conservative Party, though I feel sure Sir Francis Drake would be on my side.
The argument for accepting those who cross the channel in small boats is that France is not a safe country for refugees.
The arguments for accepting genuine refugees are overwhelming and appeal to our self-interest as well as to our sense of justice and/or compassion.
So I discriminate.
Charles,
Would somewhere in the South Atlantic work in that case? With a UK flag on a pole? Same as what Oz does? Simply to process the claims; and then differentiate (refugees/other) as the Government of the day might see fit?
J77
“@ BoM4 and Steve
You have only yourselves to blame. If you want to change the local party you have to join it and argue sense in the debates. You sound like bloody Guardianistas who want everyone else to change with one wave of their magic wand.”
I can see their perspective. An analogy might be joining the (real) Lib Dems and then attempting, through debate, to turn it into something half plausible. The fact it’s notionally called Tory or Lib Dem doesn’t change the challenge they faced?
john77,
“You have only yourselves to blame. If you want to change the local party you have to join it and argue sense in the debates. You sound like bloody Guardianistas who want everyone else to change with one wave of their magic wand.”
Or, you just look at the situation and realise its a desolate wasteland where you’re going to spend years, decades of work getting senior enough in the party, walking miles and miles to help get some wet elected who will fuck everything up in the slim hope of getting change.
And I realised something. That actually, doing a UKIP is what works. Look at how little they did about Europe over the decades. It was only when UKIP fucked up their seats that they got scared and gave the country a referendum. All those Conservatives who spent years trying to change it within, and it was Farage’s bunch of pirates who got it done.
So, that’s why I’m supporting Reform now. My aim is to help a candidate take enough votes in my seat that the Tory gets kicked out. And yes, that means getting a Labour MP for a few years, but the Tories will have to change if they want the seat back.
@Van _Patten
I am amazed at the level of stupidity which fails to see that there is something between “no limit” and zero.
Passing through safe countries is irrelevant. That is the deliberate choice of the UN agreement as otherwise it would mean that a safe country which borders on an unsafe one would have to take a grossly disproportionate number of refugees.
@DocBud in West Yorkshire
If the only way is to block all illegal arrivals, then we cannot fulfil our responibilities, so your position is illogical.
@john77 – “The argument for accepting those who cross the channel in small boats is that France is not a safe country for refugees.”
That is no part of the argument.
@PF – “Would somewhere in the South Atlantic work in that case? With a UK flag on a pole?”
If it’s part of the UK, probably. But note that if it’s part of the UK, then anyone lawfully there is entitled to move to any other part of the UK. (And if you’re thinking of the Falkland islands, they’re not part of the UK).
Charles,
No, they are not lawfully there, obviously, they are simply being processed.
No genuine asylum seeker needs to pay people smuggling scum to get to the UK. If you are genuinely fearful of your life, you’ll be happy to get to any safe country, but if you do arrive in the UK, it will happily grant you asylum.
If, however, you do pay people smuggling scum to arrive illegally by boat, it is important, in order to break the people smuggler’s business model, that you never have the option of settling in the UK. And if that means you end up in Rwanda, so be it.
Australia has demonstrated that such an approach is successful in stopping the boats.