Tories’ Green Belt Flip
The Tories have decided that it’s a good idea to Concrete Over South-East England after all. What will their ‘traditional’ supporters, the ones who have been filling local newspapers’ letters pages with the ‘Prescott is trying to COSEE’ cliché for years, make of all this?
According to the Times online, the Conservatives have belatedly realised that not everyone benefits from the shortage of housing and the consequent upward spiralling of prices. Young people in particular often find it hard to afford decent homes near their work.
They need votes from young people (although, for most Tory activists, being under 60 counts as young (and I'm in no position to argue with that)).
Which New Labour policy will these flipping Conservatives attempt to pinch next?
posted by Hughes Views @ 2:32 pm
10 comments
10 Comments:
Q:Why do you think they ran out of their own?
A: That tea leaf, Blair, nicked 'em!
Yes but at least he's tempered them with a modicum of social justice (minimun wage, pension credits, investment in health and education etc. (Jenni nb fancy link - well fancy that!)
That's the third way in a nutshell for me, policies of Thatcher, face of Attlee...
Ah dear old Attlee - the Prime Minister to whom distance lends so much enchantment. The man who failed to capitalise on the post war spirit of consensus and optimism and whose government collapsed to near defeat after just five years and complete humiliation after six leading to 'thirteen years of Tory misrule' as Harold Wilson put it. What a fine lesson to all radicals is Mr A!
Aha! Very impressive. I don't really have anything intelligent to add, but I've finished reading that article I linked you to last week and heartily recommend it.
Most effective PM ever according to MORI-
http://www.mori.com/polls/2004/leeds.shtml
As a socialist, I will admit that he missed a few own goals in terms of his premiership, and could of gone much further. Still looks like a Trotskyite radical when compared to someone like Blair though, I'm afriad.
That's not unfair comment about Attlee, although most at fault was his poor health (if you really want someone to blame for Labour's loss in 1951, and subsequent 13 years in Opposition, Hugh Gaitskell is your man). But he achieved an awful lot in those six years. Blair has had almost nine, and three landslide victories, and in that time only one genuine achievement comparable to the reams of progressive achievements of the Attlee government - and that (the minimum wage) was allegedly forced through by Brown and Prescott against Blair's doubts. Considering his sometime startling failures in government, it's quite depressing that Attlee can be justifiably described as the best Labour leader and best British Prime Minister in history.
My point is that Attlee had it relatively easy - no really hostile press and a population not yet obsessed by low taxation. There was virtually all party support for the NHS and even the nationalisations were welcomed by the owners of the bankrupt and run down coal and rail industries (although they had to keep up a pretence to get a better price).
He was a good PM is difficult circumstances wrt the Party that was, as ever, trying to tear itself apart but he failed to bring on fresh talent to replace his worn out cabinet and he left the way clear for Churchill's return.
I'll post sometime on my views about Tony Blair - the first PM to be younger than I am......
Strange, I thought it was New Labour and Blair that stole many Conservative policies. Therefore, it's not the Conservatives pinching Labour policies, it's the Conservative party reclaiming their own.
Ah, you may want to look at my first comment, for such a view...
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