‘The Tories could do almost anything and I would never vote for them’ said a friend of mine the other day. Continuing on a theme from last week’s post, this is a huge problem for the Tories: the fact that there is a significant proportion of the electorate who, no matter what the Conservatives say or do will not bring themselves to vote for them. I have had a number of conversations with like-minded people to my friend that I quote above. Many of them, as is the case with this particular friend, have political views of the right and many of them would agree with the policies of the Conservatives if they did not know they were policies of the Tory party. This supports the research carried out by the Cameroon conservatives during the 2005 election campaign. Which noted that people agreed with the immigration policy of the Conservatives until they realised it was the policy of the Conservatives at which point they disassociated themselves with it, referenced by Daniel Finkelstein’s excellent article in the Times last week.
We all know that this is has been a huge problem for the Tories and therefore they have embarked on a strategy of ‘detoxifying’ or ‘decontaminating’ the Tory brand which means the Tories must do the unexpected. My great frustration is that this results in no serious political party talking about what I am interested in or care about. As part of the decontaminating the brand the Cameroon strategy refuses to focus on European Union membership, immigration, taxation, grammar schools, the break up of the NHS etc. The list goes on. The great irony of this, is that quite often you find, as in my friend above, people are very much interested in these issues. They care about them deeply. They care about immigration of the last 10 years or so that has rocketed. They care about ceding sovereignty to the European Union on which they have not been consulted on (even when they were promised they would be). They care about the fact that grammar schools are off the agenda even though they are the most effective way to aid social mobility.
It is not that I don’t accept the Finkelstein analysis. I absolutely do. The Tories have to continue to change their brand if they are ever to be successful again. But because people have such immovable, entrenched preconceptions about the parties, it is stifling real debate about ironically the issues that a lot of people truly care about! Where does this leave us? When will we ever have an honest debate about these issues without preconceptions playing their part? This is not something we can solely blame politicians for. We have to take responsibility for our hang-ups. Stop being prejudiced. The decontamination of political brands only goes so far, it is the people who must decontaminate their prejudices also.
We all know that this is has been a huge problem for the Tories and therefore they have embarked on a strategy of ‘detoxifying’ or ‘decontaminating’ the Tory brand which means the Tories must do the unexpected. My great frustration is that this results in no serious political party talking about what I am interested in or care about. As part of the decontaminating the brand the Cameroon strategy refuses to focus on European Union membership, immigration, taxation, grammar schools, the break up of the NHS etc. The list goes on. The great irony of this, is that quite often you find, as in my friend above, people are very much interested in these issues. They care about them deeply. They care about immigration of the last 10 years or so that has rocketed. They care about ceding sovereignty to the European Union on which they have not been consulted on (even when they were promised they would be). They care about the fact that grammar schools are off the agenda even though they are the most effective way to aid social mobility.
It is not that I don’t accept the Finkelstein analysis. I absolutely do. The Tories have to continue to change their brand if they are ever to be successful again. But because people have such immovable, entrenched preconceptions about the parties, it is stifling real debate about ironically the issues that a lot of people truly care about! Where does this leave us? When will we ever have an honest debate about these issues without preconceptions playing their part? This is not something we can solely blame politicians for. We have to take responsibility for our hang-ups. Stop being prejudiced. The decontamination of political brands only goes so far, it is the people who must decontaminate their prejudices also.
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