Tory Tattle

The Tory party conference has been all over the media in the past week, but no matter how hard anyone tries to make something of it, it just comes across as a woeful non event. In fairness so was the Labour party conference, behind the usual soundbites and tub thumping, nothing of any real worth was said. The difference, sadly for the Conservative Party, is that the Conservative Party is a woeful non event, heading for oblivion, a death that should have come a lot sooner.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm no rabid Labour supporter, I have been a member at various strategic points, I've voted for them, by and large and by and large I support their policies - by and large with some fairly notable by and large exceptions.

At the same time, I am more than happy to see the Tory party disappear. What they stand for I diametrically oppose, if indeed they know what they stand for. What actual function does it serve, except to prolonged the delusions of a group of old people who don't like the unalike? Or for whom mammon is their temple of choice? The problem is, that the Tory party, despite itself, is a terrible, messy contradiction. But I can't get angry about them anymore. Why:

Take the name - Conservative. What does it mean? That's a rhetorical question, you know what it means. We've heard plenty about new blood, youth, reconnecting with voters in the past few days and my favourite: Change. How can a conservative party change? Reconnection? A party that won't let its membership vote on the leader? There's been plenty of hot air from prospective leaders saying that the Tory way is still relevant but that the message isn't reaching the electorate. No, no no. The message IS reaching the electorate, but the problem is x number of the electorate are gay, or single parent families, or foreign! They got the message alright! The Britain, they talk of doesn't exist anymore, ironically, it was them who destroyed it. They are out of touch to the tune of 26 years and because they dislike people unlike themselves, they will never be fresh or reinvogorated. There will never be 'new blood'.

The problem is that the Tory party is exactly what it says on the tin, if you change that you cease to be Tory. Its stuck. Caught in the same cycle of 'reconnecting with its core values' over and over again, until all its members are dead.

And so, I look on the leadership contest with a certain amount of amusement. You have a collection of candidates who can broadly be split into 2 camps, not Anti EU/Pro EU, or Socially conservative/socially progressive as is sometimes claimed, but into Genuine Tory/Pretend Tory. Or, if you prefer Unelectable/Electable.

There are people in the leadership contest who, at a push, could be voted Prime Minister. They are not the people the Tories will make leader, because the people the Tories want as Prime Minister are not the people the electrorate want to be Prime Minsiter. There-in lies the crunch...