On Brexit, about a third were unchangeable Leave, a third were unchangeable Remain, and the other third were uncertain and/or clueless.
Brexit won by winning more of that nebulous third.
The same applies now. The Tories tactic is to battle the third of those who vote with Reform, while neglecting the other two thirds. Of that huge chunk of voters, one third they will never conquer. The other third.... well, we'll never know now, will we?
I think you view this picture very much in the short term, as in the next election rather than how some like myself see this going. I don't know if you're a boomer age wise or not but I tend to find this kind of thinking centres very much on the short term.
You think the Tory's best bet was a centrist like old Tugboat, whereas I say, look at who is voting Tory today.....it's house price boomers....fifties and up who own their homes and obsess over anything negative happening in their own area. I'm saying you are thinking that the future of conservative voters will look much the same as the past and I'm saying it's already changing. I'm saying look at the trends, the future for those younger people likely to be right wing is just radically different......like all politics it's just going to get more sectarian.
So that's my position.....I just think this perspective that the Torys will succeed by trying to win left wing votes is outdated and parochial.....the point about Thatcher was well made. She came to power because the left made a mess of the country and only an optimist would think it's going to be any different.
I say look at the trends apparent all over Europe. When you look at the ages of who is voting Reform for example, just as you look at who is voting Freedom Party and AfD in Austria and Germany it's the younger demographic. It's not just the Germanosphere either it's happening in the Scandinavian countries as well and no one needs to be informed of how well Le Penn is doing in France. The penny is dropping with the younger European demographic who don't like the future the left/neoliberals are offering....frankly I don't blame them, they have mismanaged it very badly.
Let's be frank.....the problem with the Conservative party is that they are whores for power and full of Blairite careerists who will sell out every conservative principle so that boomers can worry less about their house prices.
I say the only way back to actual conservativism is to let the progressives rule. The right only come back if a figure like Thatcher is there who stands against everything progressivism pushes....that's how she won power and now is the ideal time for a figure like that to emerge. Over these next few years everyone is going to see the double standards, authoritarianism, social and cohesion degeneration, economic failure and all the rest of it that is inevitable with progressivism.
People voted for Starmer, they deserve a taste of having the Owen Jones types in power. My sister voted for him and she already regrets it.....it wasn't as though I didn't tell her.
Someone like Cleverly or Tugboat in charge of the Tories won't actually work.....In fact I don't think any of the Tory candidates will work. It's 'speed limit' decline and younger people are going to increasingly turn to stronger answers as they have on the continent, they aren't going to own their own homes and suddenly turn into Tory boomers.
That's gone me old china.
Reform and the Tories emerging by the time of the next election with an actual blue in tooth and claw Conservative figure is what the left and Labour truly fear and the only real chance of the Tories surviving to see power.
That would never happen with old Tuggers.
England
