Conservatives win at Crewe

I just read an interesting post on another blog, that of John the Gambler, regarding politics. A few points he raised made me inclined to respond, so here you go - a slightly different post today, with nothing to do with BA or gambling!

Just a quick word to John before I start; please don't take any of this the wrong way or anything, this is purely intellectual discourse!

I'll just take a couple of snippets from John's blog (JB) and post them here, then respond:

JB: The Conservative Party will never defend the rights of working class people. No doubt Cameron and his fellow Etonians will win the next General Election. After a few months the working class will wake up and say "This Labour Party were pretty bad, but these Tories are even worse".

My response: As far as I'm aware, the working class have never really had any issues with aristocracy / Etonians and all that. This is demonstrated by the fact that Labour's campaign in Crewe failed (Labour supporters were dressing up in top hats and all that BS, as a way of trying to make people not vote Conservative). The people the working class do hate are big business owners etc, which is nothing to do with class / going to Eton.

JB: Back in the 1980's Norman Tebbitt was a Conservative Cabinet Minister. There were 3 million unemployed in the UK. His advice to the unemployed was to "Get on your bike".

My response: Prior to this, Labour had allowed the Unions to dominate them. People were working three-day weeks because everyone was striking. Thatcher had none of this. Some of the unemployed were saying that they couldn't get to work due to transport problems etc, so Norman Tebbit said that there were other ways of getting to work if you really wanted to (he himself rode a bike). So the 'get on your bike' quote is taken a bit out of context.

JB: You just have to laugh really. Young people seem to have no memory, or knowledge of politics before last week.

My response: It's not just young people voting Conservative. Also, the tendency to refer to days gone-by is a tool consistently used by Labour to try to cover up their failings of today. As David Cameron pointed out a couple of weeks ago, people don't care about the past, they care about the future, and Labour sure as hell don't look like they have one at the moment.

So there you go, a political blog. John I look forward to hearing your thoughts, I quite enjoy writing like this rather than the usual stuff about my gambling woes and boring job!