Sunday Jukebox – The Tory Conference

I thought we should have something appropriate given the Tory Conference has been underway this last week.

If there’s one thing that’s obvious from died-in-the-wool Tory supporters on the web it’s that they’d love to see Thatcher doctrine applied far and wide, which kind of begs the question why they haven’t been supporting the Labour government for the last 12 years.

I recently read someone complaining about David Cameron, labelling him as ’son of Thatcher’, no doubt a soundbite that we’ll be hearing more of in the build-up to the election.  It’s probably best though if we remember that Thatcher actually had Triplets some time ago, she named them, Tony, Gordon and Peter.  A threesome who continued Thatcher economic policy, continued privatisation, further developed private investment in public infrastructure (something that will cost the taxpayer X millions in the coming decades).

As if this wasn’t bad enough they also frittered away public money, took us into illegal wars, persued a regulatory programme that allowed the banking sector to implode all the while rewarding those who they would later accuse of causing the problems that they themselves had laid the groundwork for.

Anyway, this song was written in 1996, it seems strange now that it could be applied to either of the leading Westminster parties.  Billy Bragg – Thatcherites:

drip … drip … drip … it’s not raining. It’s The Sun.

Much has been made of the news today that The Sun newspaper has withdrawn it’s support for the Labour Party and the New Labour project generally, since clearly our democracy is based on the musings of one australian/american by name of Rupert Murdoch.

The Sun splash image

On the one hand some are insinuating that the fact that The Sun now supports David Cameron’s Conservative over the alternatives will mean that Labour supporters (both of them) will flock to the party in blue and send Labour out into the cold for another 20 years.

On the other hand Labour ministers are down-playing the papers move as being irrelevant and pointing out that they have more respect for The Sun readers than they do for The Sun itself and that they’re sure that Sun readers are quite capable of making up their own minds on the issue.

The truth probably lies somewhere in between.  Although, to be honest, I’m not sure how much faith I have in people who get their political commentary from The Sun (or any ‘red-top’ for that matter).

The simple fact is that this move will not instantly convert thousands of Labour supporters to Conservatives, but what it will mean is that the drip-drip-drip of pro-Conservative propoganda will niggle away at those who may have either become disaffected with Labour and are on the verge of realising that they aren’t the ‘working mans party’ that they once were … the fact that they are arguably further to the right than the Tories on some issues though should have highlighted this for them before now!

It’s the drip-drip-drip that’s important though.  By continuously repeating ‘facts’ ad nauseum and supporting a particular party by reporting events through a particular lens then readers can be nudged in a particular direction, a tactic employed by the Labour party in Scotland in relation to the SNP.

It’s interesting that the Scottish edition of the paper isn’t following head offices lead on this one though, I imagine since they’d like to retain some sort of readership in Scotland.  Which raises the specter that the whole thing is merely a cynical ploy to sell papers … although one does wonder if some backroom deal has been made with the Tories in order to secure what amounts to turning the former ‘newspaper’ into little more than a propoganda rag … if it wasn’t this before.

The Editor of the Scottish edition was highly ambiguous about where his edition stands on the matter, acknowledging that Labour had failed yet refusing to support any of the other parties fighting it out in Scotland, it’s true that The Sun briefly supported independence during the 90’s and so it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that the paper could yet support the SNP in Scotland which would set up an interesting dichotomy where the English edition supports the most pro-union party whilst supporting the main pro-independence party in Scotland … I’m not sure how they could explain this away to their readership so I’ll not hold my breath.

Under that soft inviting exterior …

The Conservatives have done much to reinvent themselves in the post Major years, attempting to put some distance between themselves and Thatcher.  Following their disastrous showing in Scotland in the years since they were removed from power (and dare I say before) the upper echelons of the party have done their utmost to present a nice fluffy image.  Largely they seem to have been succesful in these efforts so much so that the party is now considered by many to be slightly to the Left of the Labour party … strange buy true.

David Cameron certainly seems a very personable chap, with his carefully styled hair and his open neck shirt he attempts to be the epitome of ‘cool’ reaching out to a young and largely ignorant youth he’s managed to make a twat of himself without even having to bother about tweeting, cause you know, hoodie’s need love too.

While the rest of the world seems to be making some efforts to move out of the current economic difficulties our two main parties jostle each other with talk of which will make the biggest most damaging cuts and put as many public sector staff out of work as possible … thereby one might imagine potentially pro-longing the economic pain, this however is not the point of my post today.

By a peculiar quirk of fate a disproportionate number of my ‘facebook friends’ are Conservative, and by Conservative I mean utterly blood-bloodied CONSERVATIVE!  It’s curious how many of them are utterly opposed to Obama’s healthcare plans, as if it really matters to people in the UK, yet this fascination that they have belies what many of these core Conservative nutters voters really believe about the future (or lack thereof) of our own NHS and the cost that this institution places on the public purse.

Whilst the decimation of the nations favourite whipping-horse may not be stated clearly in any forth-coming Conservative manifesto I can’t help but feeling that there are elements in any potential Conservative government that would see the whole thing put out to tender, an entirely privatised system probably rolled out over a number of years and ultimately supported by the more Tory than Tory Labour party.

I’ve no doubt that this sort of plan would be rolled out initially under the guise of providing more choice for patients and incentivizing particular health boards / hospitals / hospital departments to improve by taking money away from them in the same fashion as the Conservatives in Scotland wish to do to Scotland’s schools.

Their mask is slipping, and with a GE due in the next year not too soon either.