Although demographic trends are not precise, they are far more predictable than voters switching between parties, and too often overlooked when comparing election results 4-5 years apart. The Conservatives have to win back lots of votes just to stand still.
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2024 Conservative Leadership Election
- Thread starter TheGuy77
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R
RailUK Forums
It’s very unlikely that Tories can recover as a force now. Completely empty of personality and talent, and endlessly flailing about culture wars and nonsense. An unattractive party run by dim people and a credulous and blinkered membership.
I’ve really enjoyed watching them get what they deserve.
They got the leader they deserve this time. Looking forward to seeing her crash and burn within a year too.
Traditionally, yes. But today? Not so sure.
What does the 2024 Conservative party actually stand for? Are they trying to unite the country, or scapegoat the most vulnerable? Are they more concerned about losing the centre ground to Labour, or the right to Reform?
All of these troubles go back to the EU referendum, and in particular the Boris Johnson purge of contradictory voices. The more central one-nation wing of the party was decimated, leading to the rapid rise and takeover of the party by it's right leaning elements. Now those elements are convinced the reason the public aren't voting for them is because they haven't been extreme enough.
It's going to be an interesting 12 months. It will either be the end of the party, or a conversation back to more traditional standings.
Personally I think there's a good chance of a split, with merges / defections to both the Lib Dems and Reform. It just remains to be seen which party names survive.
I hope you are right. Badenoch is making me feel a bit uneasy; perhaps it's what's going on in the USA where Trump seems to have an evens chance of becoming president, perhaps it's recent trends on the continent, and perhaps it's the sheer amount of hate dished out to Labour at the moment which might drive people towards the radical right. But I hope I am taking a naive view as a UK run by Badenoch and her ilk would be a truly nasty place to live.
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3141
Established Member
(1) That's the key question - or possibly in 2029 rather then 2024. Badenoch seems to be aware of it. Whether she can answer it in a way that attracts voters and maintains/restores party unity is uncertain.
(2) Appropriately, as we're on RailUKforums, that reminds me of some some right-wingers were saying around 20 years ago about rail privatisation, when it hadn't delivered the promised goods. It hadn't gone far enough, bidders should have been able to bid for individual slots, and that sort of thing. It illustrates the difficulty humans have in admitting that their policy might have been wrong. Applies at the other end of the political spectrum as well. And we like to think that there is some magical action - privatisation, re-nationalization, bus deregulation, bus franchising, or voting for Reform - that will solve all the problems.
Good grief. On an hourly clockface timetable, the 11.36 is run by SWT, the 12.36 by Virgin, the 13.36 by Global Banking Corp (Transport) Inc, the 14.36 by Armscorp plc (Rail) Ltd, the 15.36 by Unified Tobacco (Rail) Ltd, and the 16.36 back to some semblance of sanity, being operated by Connex. And with all tickets only being valid on a specific operator, no doubt, so if you travel on the Global Banking Corp service at 13.36 and the next Global Banking Corp-operated service back isn't until 21.48, tough. Obviously I'm not disagreeing with your premise but it shows how ridiculous such fundamentalist right-wing thinkiing is!
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A week can be a long time in politics never mind 4 years but whatever happens in the UK and the world so long as Labour can keep free of any wrongdoing ( gifts, tax evasion, partygate .... ) they can relatively safely plan for two terms in government. For the second they may well have a much smaller minority or even have to form a coalition.
Even if within 4 years because their support is so low there is a vote of no confidence and she is removed who would replace her and steer the party on a more traditional and popular course ? We have seen those who put themselves forward as candidates for this election. Others who potentially could have done this if those who vote chose them e.g. Penny Mordaunt lost their seat.
... or even if they voted Conservative will not. Lib Dem is perhaps the safe option while Green is another choice. How Reform might be is unknown but a big risk even if a significant number experienced politicians defect. The total number may well be reduced by voter apathy i.e. ' non of these '.
You are assuming “traditional” and “popular” are the same thing.
Badenoch was born here but views Britain through the lens so many Commonwealth immigrants share. One which heavily emphasises Christian supremacy and monoculture, as well as a healthy dose of bigotry which underpins both.
It’s not a viewpoint most people recognise. Reform have been a magnet for the most reactionary wing of the Tories so I’m unconvinced they can win those people back easily.
Falcon1200
Established Member
An utterly loony proposal, but when did it ever come anywhere near to actually happening?
ChrisC
Established Member
I don‘t disagree with the fact that Reform have been a magnet for the most reactionary right wing of the Tories, but I don‘t think that has been the main issue in many areas where they are doing well. In Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, Lee Anderson has been very popular with people who years ago were traditional working class Labour voters. People like ex miners and their families, who would never have voted anything but Labour, are the people who are voting for Reform. They first switched to the Conservatives with Boris and his promise of Brexit and now are moving more towards Reform. Labour began to fall out of favour for these people at the time of Tony Blair and they now have little trust in Keir Starmer.
It didn't, but was just commenting on @3141's comment that some privatisation fundamentalists might have suggested such a thing!
Nicholas Lewis
Established Member
Now they've changed the rules on numbers for a leadership challenge she may not crash and burn as quickly as we think. One has to wonder whether any of the One Nation group will switch to the liberals or not.
That's because, in her own words, "to all intents and purposes, [she is] a first-generation immigrant" as she left the UK shortly after her birth and only returned for A-levels.
Although I would have thought the "lens she views Britain through" would continue to develop at least until her mid-20s which were spent in the UK.
As someone married to a Commonwealth immigrant and who’s plugged into the expat network of South African and Zimbabwean expats, I can say one’s perception doesn’t really change that much. My wife has been here for seven years now and still gets surprised that churches are empty on Sundays, for example. A lot of Commonwealth countries' perceptions of us are moulded by our cultural exports; Badenoch still thinks of the British ideal as being similar to an Enid Blyton book.
See also Goodness Gracious Me, a (now dated) TV show about first and second generation Indian immigrants and the recurring sketch "The Coopers", showing how hackneyed overseas perceptions of Britishness can be. The joke is of course that they have fully bought into caricatured turbo-Britishness while New Labour and multiculturalism had left that behind. Excellently observed comedy IMO.
Donny Dave
Established Member
Not this one! While I am a Conservative supporter, I am moderate in my views, and all the division and disharmony, not to mention the hard right ideas and policies has left me disillusioned with the party (sorry, gathering (in the words of BoJo)) currently, to the point where I didn't vote in the general election.
As a Commonwealth immigrant/expat myself I both agree and disagree. I have now lived in the UK for a total of 14 years and some things I don't think I will ever be able to come to terms with (such as how people put up with poor quality of housing).
But from my 7th-8th year in the UK onwards I would say that I gradually came to view other countries, including the other countries that are home to me, from the additional perspective of a UK resident.
Coincidentally that was also when, apropos to this forum, I started travelling around the UK by rail in earnest. In response to your last point, I also held the notion of the "Enid Blyton ideal" before I had stepped foot in the UK, but visiting a large part of the UK by rail helped to fully dispell that notion.
Snow1964
Established Member
Kemi Badenoch has appointed Orpington MP Gareth Bacon as shadow Minister for Transport
Gloster
Established Member
He is believed to be a member of the Common Sense Group, which is a fairly hard-right, traditionalist, anti-woke group; his wife works or worked for Badenoch. No obvious connection with or knowledge of transport, but in the small pool of Conservative MPs that was always likely. So is he there to deal with transport or to help Badenoch push her agenda?
(Wikipedia’s page on the group has ‘Not to be confused with Common sense’ at the top of the entry.)
Given Orpington is presumably the kind of seat where liberal conservatism would be the dominant ideology (if it's anything like many of the other seats on the southern fringes of London) I'm surprised someone who probably has that profile has got in there.
Gloster
Established Member
Because it takes a lot to put off many Conservative voters from voting for the party. As long as he didn’t go full on Badenoch or Lee Anderson style hard-right culture wars, most people will still vote for the party and put up with any odd opinions he has. The Conservative vote in Orpington seems to mostly be over 50%, even over 60%, so it holds up pretty well in the most trying circumstances: it seems to have become more and more solidly Blue in recent years. It shows just how bad things were in the last election that he got 38%, down from 63.4% (notional 61.9%) in 2019.
Her shadow cabinet will have more ‘Who?’s than a certain long-running BBC programme.
I was under the impression that Orpington is actually the most socially conservative part of Bromley (even though it's had a strong Liberal vote in the past). It was quite stunning how badly the Tories did in Outer London (given they held the old Bexley and Uxbridge by elections) even though most of their lost votes went to Reform. The Tories are possibly facing an existential crisis if Reform gets their act together on the Essex and Kent fringes plus some of their other seats in the South being lost to the LDs.
Yes, looking at the constituency's boundaries on the Ordnance Survey map, I quite agree about Orpington's politics. (I think that famous Liberal vote, as well as being nearly 60 years ago, was a one-off, and there has been a certain amount of demographic change - although perhaps rather less than in other outer suburbs of Greater London - since then). South of the town centre, you have the closest thing you can find to deeply rural areas in Greater London (including the village in which a certain Mr Farage resides), and north of the town centre you have a big 1920s LCC overspill housing estate that, in common with some of the newer estates on the other side of the River Cray, tends to lean more towards Reform more than the Lib Dems). Reform or old-school Labour are the opposition to the Tories there, not so much the Lib Dems. And there is a lot of historic hostility (perhaps even more than in Havering) to the area being included in Greater London in the first place, and the ULEZ has brought that to the fore again recently.
I'm not convinced Reform will get their act together - UKIP were great at getting the vote out, above all at European Parliament elections, but much less good at forming a meaningful local infrastructure or base. Nothing I've seen of Reform makes me think that will change very much, even in those areas of the country (especially the East Coast of England) where they would have a lot of natural supporters
317 forever
Established Member
I feel that at least with her we have a better idea where we are, even if we disagree with her. He just bent over to the right in the hope of appeasing the right, a bit like Liz Truss did.
A straw poll indicates that I like most if not all James Cleverly supporters, possibly half Kemi Badenoch's supporters but only a minority of Robert Jenrick's supporters. Perhaps not surprising, because I prefer Cleverly to Badenock to Jenrick.