Friday 9 June 2017

It's all gone horribly wrong!

So, I was wrong. Again. I was wrong about Brexit, wrong about 2015 and wrong to have underestimated the passion in some quarters for what they honestly think is doing the right thing. I admit it; I was wrong. Being a natural conservative – both big and small ‘c’s – I will do what we always do and get on with it. To be fair, very little in political life directly affects me anyway as, being as big a C as I have just declared, I have made it my life mission to look after my own affairs and never expect anybody else to care a fig. Long may that continue.

That said, where do we go from here? Theresa May has little option but to cling on, at least for a while and hope that when the clamour dies down she can carry on getting us out of the EU. The last thing anybody (except Labour) needs right now is a Tory leadership contest. But I’m fully prepared (and partially expect) to be proved wrong again. Unlike the rabid hordes of Momentum, however, I refuse to rip up the streets and threaten people with personal violence if that happens.

In the short term at least as far as my life is concerned, it makes little difference. I expect I’ll get by whatever system rules over us. In the longer term as well it won’t really affect me very much whether we’re in or out of the EU, whether we collectively pay 2p more or 2p less in tax. Whether or not our population is 80 million or 800 million, whether we join the German Army or become a caliphate etc, etc. But if this marks a shift towards a Corbyn-style of Marxist regime the people who will be adversely affected will be the children of the children who have just voted for a change they may not like very much when the money runs out.

Oh yes, a gentler kinder politics may be what’s on the masthead, but when you see how very, very angry the mobs can get even a newly minted Labour voter must, surely, have qualms about what sort of society we may become. Will the tendency to restrict freedom of speech intensify yet further? Will the ever-expanding and contradictory lexicon of human rights prevent us from actually having meaningful human rights? Will profligacy replace prudence, to the financial downfall of us all?

What of business confidence? Voting to pragmatically leave a restrictive union with 27 other squabbling nations might have been the very thing that would bring a new prosperity; will a new dawn of socialism bring about a return to the misery of the 1970s? The prospect of a future left wing Labour government is not likely to encourage investors to spend money in industries which could be swiftly nationalised. The drying up of tax revenues and the fleeing of the entrepreneurs will inevitably end in said government borrowing still more to fulfill promises made in opposition.

Theresa May adopts a new look... wrong.

Unless the Conservatives get their act together and shore up the breaches the future does not look very bright at all. The British, by their very nature, are conservative at heart; minor corrections, left and right, to a steady and unexciting course. But maybe we’re going to approach things in an increasingly less British manner over the next few decades? Has anybody taken the pulse of Venezuela lately? I really can’t see any of that going well at all, but I could be wrong. Please, let me be wrong.

9 comments:

  1. Theresa May has simply been told off by the electorate. She vainly decided that now was a great time to increase her majority by taking advantage of the discontent within the Labour party kicking a man when he was down. It failed because the British people still believe in fairness. As they always do, they backed the underdog. She was seen to be too arrogant and has been slapped down. Its a simple as that. A good warning to all politicians - don't get too big for your boots and get on with the job we elected you to do!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No, I still think they voted for free shit.
      No Tory would have voted for Corbyn and I don't think Mays is arrogant; she's just not big on people. I can't blame her for that, I've met people and we're rubbish!

      Delete
    2. You need to get out more. Graham is correct. Its sad you Tories can't see further than your own noses. One nation conservatism, don't make me laugh.

      Delete
    3. Careful, your blinkered prejudice is showing!

      Delete
  2. You made a good point about whoever is in government in the short term at least to you it does not matter a fig. Less so for me as I am retired and I have my pension and by the time the money runs out and it will when Labour forms a government I will probably be pushing up daisies. However I still feel badly that after I am gone those left behind are going suffer for supporting the likes of Corbyn and his loony left wing Marxism and loony ideas but then perhaps they will deserve to. Actually learn how stupid they have been. Probably not and even if they do it will too late.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The problem with the free shit brigade is once they get into power they never leave even when asked politely. Look at Venezuela.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This election, possibly more than just about every one of the twenty or so I have witnessed (Shit, it's called old age) hinged on some seats scraping in by a handful of votes. You know, the sort of margin of success that can be changed dramatically by a family moving house in six month's time.

    In the end, curious as this fiasco was it may simply be part of the normal cycle of politics. People vote Labour and then begin to wonder what possessed them to do so and, should the socialists actually form a government, quickly begin to actively regret doing so. Labour governments soon become unhappy affairs, even if you discount their love of sending our forces to war in dusty shitholes. I may be wrong, but I think if there is another 2017 election then Corbyns delusional hordes ("we did better than expected so we must have won and even with all the other lefties on board we cannot form a majority government but let us rule in a minority because, hey, that will get things done and anyway all lefty alliances fall apart sooner or later") will somewhat disappear.

    We will, for a time, get back to the normal state of the nation with conservatism with a small c but then the cycle kicks in again when people think we're rich enough for more free stuff. Actually, we are sort of permanently broke, as per Liam Byrne's famous departing note said.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't think the political calculus was wrong at the start, but Theresa May managed to spectacularly lose an apparently unassailable lead.
      Watch now as Labour's noisier and more volatile elements begin to argue over their own special interests. These 'interesting times' aren't ending any time soon.

      Delete
    2. Actually I see the next few years as the last gasp of conservatism. To start with, we haven't had real conservatism in ages i.e. smaller govt, less meddling, encouraging small businesses and trying to get people in to productive employment.

      Secondly, our schools and universities are full of people who are openly promoting a socialist agenda, even if it is not called this by name. They will be the storm troopers of the future. Add on the fact the fact that TV is mainly left wing, both from the BBC to basic popular culture e.g. comedians and the 'cool' people in society.
      Then add on the growing numbers of economic migrants and government entitlement claimants. Conservatism is on the way out.

      Delete