Current Events > How did the UK Conservative Party become so strong? Wtf happened?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Labour was in power for a decade, and very strong for much of that time. Then the Conservatives got back into power and over time became increasingly strong. I don't understand how such a bad, unpleasant party have become so powerful. Year after year, large numbers of poor, disadvantaged people vote them into power, even though left wing parties are generallty considered to be looking out for the little guy. The disconnect from reality of these people scares me. And it should never be that any particular party becomes too strong, because it forces everybody else out. Really, I wouldn't want Labour, or the Lib Dems, or the Green Party to be overwhelmingly powerful. Politics should be more inclusive than that.

What do you think?

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Sunhawk posted...

Year after year, large numbers of poor, disadvantaged people vote them into power, even though left wing parties are generallty considered to be looking out for the little guy.

If you keep voting for these people, and you never see yourself get less disadvantaged, it's easy for someone to say "what have they really done for you?"

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I suppose that's true. Some people in the UK are always very poor. I guess it's easy for them to lose faith, whether that loss of faith be justified or not.

Of course, many people in the UK who are very poor have simply stopped voting, rather than now vote for right wing parties. There was something on the BBC recently about people in some very poor district who barely vote at all. And I don't really blame them.

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They embraced the far left under Corbyn and got absolutely shredded by the Tories.(as they did when they went socialist in the '83 election)Be thankful Sanders never won the nomination or that could well have happened here.

First past the post; the 2008 crash and being able to convince people of the necessity of austerity; Brexit and Labour's shit messaging on it; the collapse of Labour in Scotland (not that we can do much alone) and the north of England; Starmer being bland as fuck, reluctant to outline any policies and desperate to alienate the left of the party; internal fighting in Labour more generally and the anti-Semitism situation; and England being fairly pro-Tory historically. That's probably just the tip of the iceberg.

Murdoch media.

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Convincing people from areas that have always/usually vote for labour that they need to vote for change because their areas have been left behind. Change being voting for the party that has been in charge of the country for the last decade.

Simple messaging.

Repositioning themselves as a party for the working class (They aren't).

There's a few more, but these are some of the main reasons.

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Sunhawk posted...

I suppose that's true. Some people in the UK are always very poor. I guess it's easy for them to lose faith, whether that loss of faith be justified or not.

Of course, many people in the UK who are very poor have simply stopped voting, rather than now vote for right wing parties. There was something on the BBC recently about people in some very poor district who barely vote at all. And I don't really blame them.

Ah, yeah, if you feel neither side cares, it's easy to get disenfranchised. And if the people who stop voting were mostly for one party, then that party naturally suffers.

And just to circle back to your point on any party getting too powerful, I agree. Recently I've stopped viewing the US as a functional democracy and more a de facto oligarchy where two sides fight for how big their slice of the pie is, and little else.

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UK has more rednecks than US tbh

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pinky0926 posted...

Murdoch media.

Yeah, I suspect this is one of the main influences. After all, tabloids like The Sun are very easy to read with their large fonts, controversial headlines and many pictures. That way people won't have to read as much and the newspaper can do their thinking for them.

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pinky0926 posted...

Murdoch media.

At the risk of oversimplifying things, it's pretty much this.

The Sun (along with all other NewsMedia ran publications, but The Sun is the most influential due to its massive sales numbers and simplistic language) - which is pretty much exclusively read by the sort of people the Tories think are scum and that Labour always appealed to - publicly swapped from backing Labour to backing the Tories in 2010, and that was pretty much game over for Labour.

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the power of the redtop newspapers and Murdoch run tv news

and the stupidity of the voters

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Tom Clark posted...

At the risk of oversimplifying things, it's pretty much this.

The Sun (along with all other NewsMedia ran publications, but The Sun is the most influential due to its massive sales numbers and simplistic language) - which is pretty much exclusively read by the sort of people the Tories think are scum and that Labour always appealed to - publicly swapped from backing Labour to backing the Tories in 2010, and that was pretty much game over for Labour.

But also, one of the first things the Tories did when they got into power under Cameron was to restructure parts of the BBC and put Tory allies in charge.

It's obviously not been the same since. Very insidious stuff.

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Losing Scotland to the SNP kind of fucked them. It'd be like Democrats trying to win the presidency without New England or whatever.

Also the Labour party can't replace the working class voters they've lost with college educated voters like the Democrats have, because the Conservatives are far more moderate than the Republicans.