A report tonight by the former political journalist of the year, David Henke, says there’s been a huge reduction in Tory members since GE2017 and that the total is down to 100k. In an interview John Strafford, chairman of the Campaign for Conservative Democracy is quoted as saying “the real membership of the party has plummeted to around 100,000” a figure that is well below the 149,500 used by the party in 2013.
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Privatisation of utilities like electricity and the creation of an artificial 'market' has not been for the benefit of thr majority in this country.
Only kidding, of course, because what could possibly go wrong with a grandiose scheme dreamed up as make-work to keep the Quiet Man quiet?
Suggesting that the Tories won't have enough members to fight the next election sounds like hyperbole to me.
However, one aspect which is not mentioned in the header is the membership demographics - what is the age spread of the membership and (sorry to mention it) how fast are they dying off?
PS apols for cocking up the blockquote earlier!
Unless you want to be a councillor or MP most people join political parties because they are ideological and want a vehicle for it, whether socialist pacifism or anti EU social conservatism that does not mean the views of those members represent those of swing voters and often they are opposed. That does not mean membership is irrelevant, it helps to win council seats for example and to raise funds and can help in key marginals at general elections (Though even there activists can be sent from safe seats to marginals and phonebank used too).
Ultimately at general elections most voters vote on the policies of the parties, the state of the economy and who they judge to have the best leader to be PM, party members just help ensure those who have decided to back your side turn out to vote, they rarely change minds
If you borrowed £20 from a friend in the pub tonight, and agreed to pay him back the £20 and buy him a £3 pint (obviously not in central London!) next Friday - if you ignored him for a year (52 weeks, times the 15% weekly interest rate) you’d owe him £28,662 at an APR of around 140,000% thanks to compound interest.
If it really worked like that, then surely we would nationalise everything. Why not simply nationalise every business in Britain?
But, but - I should be re-starting at my old place of work in January, touch wood.
Meanwhile house prices in London have fallen today which while bad news for home owners is good news for first time buyers
They think it means: just like Expedia, but with no evil profits being made.
The kids of today need seriously educating about what state-run enterprises were actually like when they existed before.
https://twitter.com/TheScotsman/status/913847364703653888
https://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/politics/2012/07/how-tory-membership-has-collapsed-under-cameron
Is this just a UK phenomenon?
Or do similar numbers also think the same in other, say, West European countries?
If it's just the UK, the question then is why?
That does not excuse the failures but it is only by getting them into the workplace that they may consider moving to the Tories
With views like that, I am sure they will soon put all their troubles to right
Yougov has also recently showed more support for socialism in Germany than the UK albeit less support for capitalism in the UK than the USA
People want moderated capitalism not to end it completely
It also depends what part of Christianity, in terms of the support for marriage and the traditional family etc some Christians prefer the Tories, if redistribution to the poor is your priority you will obviously favour Labour
Are you confusing it with Saint Martin and the cloak?
John Macdonnell, for a start.
Austerity is less popular admittedly but that does not mean it was not necessary
Corbyn's speech may have won guarded praise, but let's face it that conference was a shambles and Macdonnell's cock-ups over PFI and economic collapse were the worst offenders.
In 2013 he predicted a disaster for the Tories at the 2015 general election because of the Tory membership figures.
https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/06/13/how-britain-voted-2017-general-election/
Overall the Tories won 42% to 40% for Labour
Universal Credit also covers those who are in employment.
However Miliband did in addition to proving an electoral cock up have two Balls.
It's Friday, so I'm not getting my coat but my (iPad) battery's flat so I'm off to bed. Have a good weekend.
However Labour only won full time workers 45% to 39% and part time workers 44% to 40% so still significantly less than the 54% to 28% they won unemployed people by thus the point still holds
The parable of the Good Samaritan is a particularly interesting and many layered one.
The problem is not of the Bad Samaritan (Samaritans were despised by the Jews as not recognizing the scriptures beyond the first 5 books) but rather of the Priest and Levite (temple assistant) who passed by on the other side. They professed Jewish religiosity, but had no inward understanding. The Samaritan however had rejected Jewish religiosity, but yet acted generously and at some personal loss.
The point is not that you have to have money to help (binding the wounds and carrying to a place of safety was a social rather than financial cost) but rather that real knowledge of the Spirit was not an outward profession but an inner one.
Lab beats Tories from those in work
You have to keep winning arguments and be willing to make the case for your cause constantly and at every possible opportunity. Taking it for granted that the argument is won or self-evident is utter complacency.
Similarly, that Tory member vote suggesting that Corbyn was unlikely to be PM was the epitome of complacency. The world will be different in a few years and the sort of leader is not someone who beat a tired Livingstone a decade earlier but a fighter: a passionate, eloquent fighter, able to speak to people in a way which resonates, and with a real desire to make things better for the country above all, not primarily concerned about their ego.
https://theoutline.com/post/2348/what-isn-t-telegram-saying-about-its-connections-to-the-kremlin
Labour did indeed narrowly beat the Tories amongst workers but nowhere near as much as they beat the Tories by amongst the unemployed dependent on benefits
Jesus was pretty clear about how earthly riches are a spiritual trap. It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.
When approached by a rich young man who was seeking salvation, Jesus advised him to give away all his possessions to the poor.
Similarly, when he sent his followers out into the world he told them not to take any money or spare clothes:
Matthew 10 v9-13
Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give. Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses,
Nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves: for the workman is worthy of his meat. And into whatsoever city or town ye shall enter, enquire who in it is worthy; and there abide till ye go thence.
And when ye come into an house, salute it. And if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it: but if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you.
Tory-ism is alive and, well, well.
After all, May tells us it's the only way to go.
The state pension is paid for by national insurance contributions, which come from the wages of people working today. Effectively, each working generation pays for the older generation above them. However, NI is also used to pay other benefits, such as to the unemployed.
https://twitter.com/SkyNewsBreak/status/913867343184515073
Writing off the difficulties of those being caught in the wheels of bureaucracy as not mattering because they mostly vote Labour would be a fatal error for the Tories, and rightly so.
If UB works as intended it has a lot of plusses, if the rollout is bodged and incompetent then there will be a lot of righteous anger, and particularly amongst those new found Tory CDE voters. They cannot eat Brexit.
The New Testament was certainly a bit more leftwing than the Old Testament but even he was clear in the parable of the talents that those who fail to make the most of their abilities and are slothful were not approved of either
'But his master answered him
You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 30'
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25:14-30&version=ESV
The New Testament also makes clear that it is love of money rather than money itself which is the problem
'For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.'
http://biblehub.com/1_timothy/6-10.htm
Of course most pensioners nowadays have workplace pension schemes too not just the state pension
I just pointed out the simple fact that those in work, including part time work, are far more likely to vote Tory than those on unemployment benefits and universal credit is vital for helping more people get off benefits and into work which while being good for them also makes them more likely to vote Tory.
As I have pointed out Corbyn won the unemployed heavily and DEs heavily so there while there may be teething problems to be sorted out regarding benefits payments that will not make much difference to the Tory vote, what will is getting some of those unemployed into work, even if only part time
I'm sitting here trying to visualise how to thread Trump through the eye of a needle.
@Cyclefree said:
Absolutely right. And those in favour of it have forgotten how to argue for it - and in a way which resonates with people. Assertion is not argument.
You have to keep winning arguments and be willing to make the case for your cause constantly and at every possible opportunity. Taking it for granted that the argument is won or self-evident is utter complacency.
Similarly, that Tory member vote suggesting that Corbyn was unlikely to be PM was the epitome of complacency. The world will be different in a few years and the sort of leader is not someone who beat a tired Livingstone a decade earlier but a fighter: a passionate, eloquent fighter, able to speak to people in a way which resonates, and with a real desire to make things better for the country above all, not primarily concerned about their ego.
@Dixiedean said:
There is a problem here though. The argument for the status quo needs to explain why there have been falling real wages for 10 years. Is that because of too much or too little liberal capitalism? And did the GFC happen because of too much regulation or not enough?
The Conservatives have not really begun to even ask these questions, let alone answer them. They have not had a full leadership election for 12 years where such problems could be hammered out.
The last one indeed was won by, we are going to be quiet about Europe and be nice to gays, ethnic minorities and single mothers, and if you don't agree please shut up, 'cos we are sick of losing. (Simplified, but you get my drift. It was a very different time).
That is why, if May goes, a coronation or stitch-up won't be good enough.
You can't win a battle of ideas if you do't know or aren't sure what your ideas are.
It's one option he has.