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The Tory Party’s Puzzling Indifference to the Benefits of Conservatism

by Sean Walsh
25 June 2024 1:03 PM

It’s getting to be like one of those England batting collapses – paradoxically both distressing and enjoyable in equal measure. Those of you that follow the noblest of sports will know that the catastrophe usually goes something like this: after the loss of an early wicket England will be moving along nicely at, say, 123-1 when Joe Root (for example) ‘throws away his wicket’ (as is true of all recreational activities, cricket conforms to its own language and internal grammar) and before you know it, they are 145-7 and unlikely to “avoid the follow on”.

At this point, even as an England supporter, it is difficult not to take a sort of perverse pleasure in the scale of the ineptitude unfolding before you. To paraphrase St. Augustine: there comes a moment when you just want it to be all over, but not quite yet.

Unaccountably, my thoughts turn to what I suppose we are obliged to call the ‘Tory election campaign’, which seems to bear more resemblance to a Heath Robinson-inspired contraption than to the well-oiled electoral machine of yore. Or one of those made-to-crash inventions put together by Compo in every episode of Last of the Summer Wine.

Some might argue that the Prime Minister threw away his wicket when, to the surprise of everyone outside the Downing Street betting syndicate, he called an early July election. In truth, the collapse predated this. The current Tory incarnation lost the room in March 2020 when, at the behest of a cadre of mediocre, Establishment ‘scientists’, its leadership confiscated our freedoms in service of some ‘precautionary principle’ – a chimerical scientific maxim which, in the Covid context at least, proved stubbornly resistant to definition.

The conservative instinct prefers liberty over tyranny and encourages scepticism when faced with a freshly emergent consensus. This instinct should be alive even (especially) when the consensus in question concerns a newly established ‘scientific’ orthodoxy which has been gifted the bully pulpit of the state to drown out any dissenting view.

The Johnson of March 2020 went somewhat in the other direction. The SAGE echo chamber was weaponised and used to propagandise and enforce a tyranny born of panic and questionable intent. The ‘nudge units’ and other dark mechanisms of the deeper state were deployed in an undeclared war against the people they are, supposedly, there to protect.

The consequent ‘non-pharmaceutical interventions’ might have been understandable as general exercises in arse-covering, but they were neither justifiable nor conservative. The abovementioned conservative instinct proved unable to find its voice.

This should have come as no surprise. It has long been the case that the Conservative Party has been puzzlingly indifferent to conservatism. Your typical Tory MP, with a handful of exceptions (Danny Kruger springs to mind), has shown himself to be intellectually incurious and historically ignorant. There is a rich tradition of literature, history and philosophy which is available for translation into practical policy. But that tradition seems of no interest to the Tory wannabe as he plans his ascent from special adviser to backbench MP.

What I unapologetically call the ‘genuine conservative’ would find in the writings which have shaped that tradition the linguistic resources necessary to resist the postmodernist lunacies which now define the contours of political discussion. Instead, language has been ceded to the Left, and whoever controls the language of the debate pretty much determines the outcome of that debate (think ‘Covid Inquiry’). Thus, when it comes to ‘Net Zero’ the language of apocalypse has overwhelmed the language of appropriate hesitancy; and when it comes to transgender lunacy the language of fantasy has drowned out that of common sense.

So, what to expect from the Starmer Government? Don’t look to the Labour manifesto for answers. A party manifesto is best viewed not as a collection of promises but as an expected manoeuvre in the electoral dance. It is of no more intrinsic significance than a single Knight move in a game of chess. The true Labour agenda is to be found in the background noise: the off-the-record briefings; the interview slip-ups; the gossip etc. (never underestimate the truths that are to be found in political gossip).     

Putting this together I suspect that we have nothing to worry about, apart from the following: the implementation of vindictive and irreversible constitutional vandalism; the continued marginalisation of the Christian faith; casual intrusions into our private savings accounts; the denunciation of the common law and its replacement with internationalist diktat; the press-ganging of our children into the political process; and the abolition of laughter.

Come to think of it, that list is far from exhaustive. Suffice to say that the Left’s vision for the U.K. is likely to be enacted: a Kierkegaardian revolution, one which ‘leaves the buildings intact’.

Peter Hitchens argues that the irreversibility of this dystopia is a sufficient reason to vote Tory next week. I’m not sure I agree. For reasons I have suggested it is far from clear that Tory conservatism flags up anything more than an oxymoron. And it’s hard to play the role of father in the parable of the prodigal son when the son who returns looks nothing like the one who left.

The Tories were never going to win this election but might have perhaps done better had they selected as Prime Minister someone with a less managerial, more adventurous worldview. But instead of Ben Stokes on an Oval belter, they offered the electorate an out of form Geoffrey Boycott on a wet morning at Headingly.

Tags: Boris JohnsonConservatismConservative PartyCOVID-19CricketGeneral Election 2024Keir StarmerLabour PartyLockdown

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16 Comments
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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
10 months ago

I don’t find it at all puzzling actually. Surely “conservatism” (I use the small “c” deliberately and note the article title uses a capital “C”) involves less – less politics, less government, fewer laws etc. That is surely not very appealing to someone who chooses to go into politics.

66
0
wokeman
wokeman
10 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

It’s essentially limited government under the rule of law.

45
0
JXB
JXB
10 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

Unsurprising when all our political class have been educated and conditioned in a Socialist education system.

53
-4
wokeman
wokeman
10 months ago

Totally disagree about Boycott, he was a sound cricketer through and through, I detect some anti Yorkshire bias in the writer! I must say the clue that the conservative party wasn’t a conservative party is when they passed gay marriage. I suppose adopting COVID and climate communism were giveaways also.

Last edited 10 months ago by wokeman
69
-2
10navigator
10navigator
10 months ago
Reply to  wokeman

A Bradford Curry house has named one of its speciality dishes as a tribute to Sir Geoff. You still get the runs, but much slower.

31
0
JXB
JXB
10 months ago

“In truth, the collapse predated this.”

The day they ousted Margaret Thatcher.

The crash has been slow, mesmerising, inevitable and total.

57
0
Arum
Arum
10 months ago
Reply to  JXB

Yes, John Major is surely one of the contenders for the worst Prime Minister ever – I would suggest that it was actually his adoption of Maastricht without public consultation which laid the foundations for the annihilation of the Conservative Party.

36
0
Norfolk-Sceptic
Norfolk-Sceptic
10 months ago
Reply to  Arum

And changing Polytechnics to Universities laid the groundwork for their current state today.

Last edited 10 months ago by Norfolk-Sceptic
6
0
Ron Smith
Ron Smith
10 months ago

I hear Cricket bats are made from Willow….”cracking the Willow”. Surely there are some other types of wood used. I used to go through bats fast as a kid until I had a more expensive one with a plastic film for support.

5
0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
10 months ago

The man in the photo looks like he might have other benefits on his mind

19
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john1T
john1T
10 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

And that’s where it all went wrong

20
0
Richard Austin
Richard Austin
10 months ago

To continue the cricket analogy Labour intend to ecologically burn the bats, balls, wickets and white trousers. Pull down Lords and replace the MCC with a hand-selected bunch of Judges who have never been near a cricket ground in their lives but know Blair, Brown and Starmer.
People seem to have forgotten about the New Wisden, called “A New Britain: Renewing Democracy and Rebuilding Our Economy” which will effectively abolish Umpires and rewrite the rules irreversibly. Blair and Starmer released it together.
With a majority Labour can do anything they like and they sure as hell will. Remember back when they got in last time and changed the country irreversibly within 3 months? This time it is way, way more serious.

This is labour’s own spin on the book, published in 2022. Note where it says:

“There is of course always going to be a role for government at the centre in ensuring an equitable allocation of resources throughout our country, without which we can never be a United Kingdom where all feel treated fairly. But that is not the same as the centre micro-managing and directing what happens in every community. That must change and the balance of power must be reversed.”

https://labour.org.uk/updates/stories/a-new-britain-renewing-our-democracy-and-rebuilding-our-economy/

Last edited 10 months ago by Richard Austin
16
0
john1T
john1T
10 months ago
Reply to  Richard Austin

And from that book
“Local government should be given more capacity to generate its own revenue with new fiscal powers.”
Expect Labour’s tax hikes to be mostly at local level, including re-rating and new local taxes. They will be hated within months of coming to office.

24
0
stewart
stewart
10 months ago

Puzzling only to someone who either doesn’t realise or refuses to see how the system actually works.

The political system is there to serve whichever interest groups manage to commandeer it.

The Conservative Party visibly serves Davos, the rapidly growing world government movement articulated through the WHO, UN etc, the climate change mafia, the vaccine industrial complex.

And then ultimately, the individuals serve whoever is able to offer them a really good post politics job and career.

39
-2
varmint
varmint
10 months ago

The entire political class have all forgotten. ——They now all swarm around the middle ground trying to sweep up votes and care nothing for principles. One minute it is “The Green Crap” and the next they are backing Net Zero. One minute they don’t know what a woman is and the next they are having a photo op with a bunch of women waving placards. One minute they accept the Brexit vote then the next they want “closer ties”.
We now a have squirming hand wringing, principle free career politicians that I would not trust to feed my hamster. But ofcourse for most people on the DS it is the morphing of Tories into Labour Lite that is the concern and when Reform kick their arses in the election will they morph back or is their self inflicted demise permanent?

13
0
RTSC
RTSC
10 months ago

“The current Tory incarnation lost the room in March 2020 when, at the behest of”…… I suspect, the American military complex, WEF (and Macron, who threatened to close the border) …. its leadership confiscated our freedoms to pursue The Great Reset and a mass human medical experiment.

25 March 2020 was when I vowed to never vote for the Not-a-Conservative-Party ever again, any more than I would vote for Putin if I lived in Russia.

I won’t vote for Tyrants.

15
-1

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