Quote Originally Posted by Dorcus View Post
I don't wish us to carry on abusing each other in this thread so I just want to question some of your assumptions in a friendly way.

The Tories are about an awful lot more than personal responsibility and much of what they stand against I would steadfastly say is wrong by any definition of ethics.

There's no space nor time here to do any justice to the subject but I'll just pick up on personal responsibility briefly because you raised it.

Surely personal responsibility is fine if you have the luxury of possessing the wherewithal and means to maintain yourself independently. It's a very laudable ideology for the rich to keep to themselves. However the poor, through no fault of their own, need the support and generosity of all because they are denied the means to look after themselves sufficiently. Personally I believe that to promote the small state agenda denies social responsibility and that is evil. The philosophy of I'm allright Jack, bu**er you is selfish, greedy and evil. You may disagree of course.

Your point about parties being subject to change his true to a point but of course if they lose their core, defining beliefs they become different parties. I'm not aware of the Tories ever having altered their core beliefs of aspiration, small state, personal responsibility, wealth hegemony and allegiance to the crown. For all those very reasons I could never vote for them.
If this was true, I would entirely agree with you, but I don't think it is. I think you present a characature of the party. Wasn't it the Tory party who just spent extraordinary sums on furlough, on reducing fuel prices, on U/C uplifts during Covid. Have they not raised the minimum wage by more than Labour, did they not raise NHS spending by record amounts etc?

The answer to the above is that they did. Our expectations of what a succesful society are are probably very similar. I voted Tory in the last election (and in 2017, for the first time) largely because of the importance of honouring the referendum from 2016, but also because I thought they were more likely to do many of the things you suggested, in an economically more sustainable way. Post Boris, I can't say I think that, but there was no inherent promotion of greed or an 'I'm alright Jack' attitude about May, Johnson or even Cameron.