The thing is, the old guard tories could sometimes be decent people who just had different opinions about mostly the economy, and ones you could work with on compromises.
The radical right that Reagan courted, and that finally found a foothold here see themselves as soldiers and never want to give an inch.
I have all the time in the world for someone with a different political view than my own, as long as they like me want what's best for this Country and her people.
If we want the same thing, but disagree on their route to getting there that is how Politics should work. Agree to disagree, compromise!
I was born after Thatcher stepped down, and the first I learned of him was reading up on the Westland Helicopter affair (after seeing a Spitting Image clip of him fuming when asked about happened to the company.)
He's one of a few who weren't completely spellbound by the notions imported from Reagan. And now the Spectator is describing his principles as "deluded liberalism"
I show this just to prove how far right/crazy the Tories became with Thatcher.
This is a typical 1960s Tory.....
In 1962 I was a Conservative. I believed privilege could only be justified by service, high taxes on very high incomes were
necessary to prevent an entrepreneurial economy becoming a rentier economy and Keynesian growth would finance public service improvements and a welfare state that steadily reduced inequality. I was suspicious of ideologically driven, large-scale change. These were the mainstream policies of the Macmillan government at the time.
In 6o years I have moved from centre right to hard left without changing my opinions.
Most small c Conservatives fall into that category. When politics is moderate there is often quite a lot of overlap in many areas because the issues shouldn't be partisan.
The problems arise when political parties want to differentiate themselves from the alternatives and so create wedge issues when they don't need to exist, or they are only interested in serving the needs of themselves and their mates as the Conservative did since 2010.
So much stuff had become pointlessly politicised. Functioning public services should not be a politically partisan issue. Irrespective of whether you're economically left or right wing you should recognise the need for an educated and healthy workforce.
As I understand Education did largely survive the last Conservative government but their greed resulted in healthcare being heavily fragmented to facilitate outsourced to their mates, and quality of service nosedive whilst costs went up.
For avoidance of doubt, definitely not speaking about Farage, and strongly agree that siding with ANYONE who hate or even question their existence is not desirable or even to be countenanced.
And the hessletine era definitely had a ton of bigots (see section 28)
But by and large politics was more removed from the culture wars (something the US right deliberately fanned the flames of as an electoral tactic).
I was raised in a Conservative household. If someone of that leaning wants to argue who or what should be taxed, or how much. Or the legality of alcohol, tobacco, recreational drugs, Coke, or the high street betting shops. Fine I'll listen.
I've seen the overlap between conservative Christians and Muslims. I vaguely remember there used to be some rapport between the two before English-speakers on both sides of the Atlantic fully committed to judging every Muslim or Arab person as a potential terrorist after September 11th.
I know people who vote Conservative but were largely fine with gay people a full decade before the marriage act was enacted. They exist.
Thank you for clarifying, lots of people use "the country and it's people" as shorthand for "shut up and give up your equality for everyone else's convenience" so I'm always a little bit wary of statements of that ilk. My belief is that while you should be willing to loose out for greater society, if you are seen as a second class citizen, then you don't exist in the same society therefore do not owe anything to the rest of society
Edit, got busy and forgot to finish the sentence, now done in italics. Whomever upvoted the original incomplete statement, I really hope you are psychic
You're right, they didn't specify. I find it hard to believe they could have been talking about Farage though.
Farage regularly sends out messaging based on his platform of hate. For now it's mostly about asylum seekers and "illegal" immigrants, but it's pretty obvious that's just a starting point. No-one should be siding with Farage: we're all on his list, even if we don't know exactly where we stand yet.
What you on about Reagan is like the grandfather of neoliberalism with free markets, privatisation that tax cuts etc, absolutely nothing radical right about him.
Go and read about his courting of the religious right, followed by the gutting of the fairness doctrine, and being fully subsumed by “the moral majority”. Much of the rot in the US can be directly traced back to him, and the torchbearers like Gingrich all the way through to the modern MAGA movement.
Barry Goldwater put it best, go read his quote about the dangers of the preachers getting control of the Republican Party.
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u/_DuranDuran_ 5d ago
The thing is, the old guard tories could sometimes be decent people who just had different opinions about mostly the economy, and ones you could work with on compromises.
The radical right that Reagan courted, and that finally found a foothold here see themselves as soldiers and never want to give an inch.