Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Letters from a Tory writes "Dear David" letter

One of the leading Conservative blogs, Letters from a Tory, has written a post complaining of the:
  • naivety;
  • incompetence;
  • stupidity; and
  • inappropriateness

of the party's current campaigning. It concludes:

I’m not going to lie to you – I will be voting Conservative at the next election, not least because I despise Labour and everything they stand for but also because you deserve a chance to put into practice what you have preached over the last five years. Even so, when my party membership next comes up for renewal, I suspect that my direct debit may well slip by the wayside. Never forget that, while swing voters always need a reason to vote Conservative, party members need a reason to vote Conservative too.
More evidence that there is a surprising degree of hostility towards Cameron and his circle among Conservative rank and file. I wonder if these complaints about strategy mask what is really disagreement with the leadership's strategy of wooing liberal Britain?

1 comment:

  1. There was a post by Perry DeHavilland in the libertarian blog Samizdata.net that claimed the Conservatives real problem is there is a fundamental split in their base. One faction are those who are very strongly free-marketeers but tend to be social liberal, the other can by summarised by the phrase "Daily Mail Readers".

    He opined that just about any concrete policy designed to appeal to one group will alienate the other.

    Possibly Cameron has decided to keep both groups on board by being deliberately vague about policy. But it doesn't seem to be working.

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