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The Spectacle Blog
I read Robert Taylor’s piece on British Prime Minister David Cameron and how Republicans ought to draw inspiration from the Tories.
From where I sit, Cameron and the Tories are about the last folks the GOP should be looking to emulate. Yes, Cameron was elected Prime Minister in 2010 but the Labour Party were sitting ducks under Gordon Brown. The writing was on the wall and nearly a third of the Parliamentary Labour Party did not stand for re-election. But despite this, Cameron could not lead the Tories to a majority and had to invite the surging Liberal Democrats led by Nick Clegg to form a coalition government.
Taylor writes, “Cameron’s Conservatives have proven far from perfect. Yet, despite missteps along the way, Britain has had a Conservative Prime Minister for the last two and a half years, and barring a political catastrophe, will have one until at least 2015.”
To say that Cameron and the Tories have “proven far from perfect” is quite the understatement. The Tories are massively unpopular and while there will most likely be a Tory at 10 Downing Street until at least 2015 but there’s no guarantee it will be Cameron. London Mayor Boris Johnson is the most popular Tory in the country and overshadowed Cameron at last month’s Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham. If things get any worse for Cameron, Johnson might not be content to wait in the wings.
Now Cameron does have time on his side. It is posible he can hold off Johnson and best Labour’s Ed Miliband in the 2015 election.
But Republicans have little in common with Britain’s Tories. If the GOP can learn from Tories it would north of the border rather than across the pond. The electoral successes of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper are probably more germane to the GOP. With that said, I am well aware that the political culture in Canada is vastly different than that of the U.S. If Republicans are to rebound in 2014 and 2016 the answers will be found here rather than abroad.
View all comments (7) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Aaron Goldstein
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/11/22/why-conservatives-shouldnt-loo
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Teflon93 | 11.22.12 @ 9:05AM
How about we try something different and stop listening to blue state pundits? You have no clue how the rest of the country thinks. Why not try your hand at sports writing?
soljerblue| 11.22.12 @ 9:51PM
Seems to me the last Conservative government in Britain that looked anything like American conservatism was Iron Maggie's. Conservatives in the UK don't show me much.
Mender| 11.23.12 @ 11:11AM
American conservatism lost the election.
That said, for reasons described below I suspect Australia or Germany are better places to import techniques for selling conservatism from than the UK.
Crassus| 11.23.12 @ 11:23AM
Maggie Thatcher talked a good game but did absolutely nothing to roll back the British welfare state. It's hard to say that she was a conservative on domestic British issues. She was more like Labour lite.
Mender| 11.23.12 @ 11:06AM
I grew up in the UK and take a lot of interest in its politics. Cameron is an oddball: very willing to concede on social issues but quite hard on cutting spending and taxes, purely a Londoner with no connection to the rest of the UK, as clearly part of the 1% as Romney.
I don't think conservatives can learn much from him: he's very superficial and his lack of concern for detail has led to approving some quite mad plans from his cabinet.
I think one big lesson from him is that ostentatious rebranding convinces nobody. He has pushed hard for gay marriage even though the UK has a full-featured civil unions law, which has earned him the enmity of religious conservatives without winning any support from new people to make up-I think the lesson is that the next GOP nominee should leave marriage law to the state level or support federal civil unions as a compromise. The other is that dealing with Obamacare requires an explicit alternative with pricings. Cameron very specifically promised not to abolish or privatise any more than limited sections of the UK's state-run healthcare system, which is basic but reasonably functional and good value at the price. Romney seemed to have no plan at all other than sending people to emergency rooms or recommending that every state pass Romneycare.
Vance P. Frickey| 11.24.12 @ 1:02AM
Political memories are short, aren't they? The Tories had nothing but spite for George W. Bush when he and Tony Blair were effectively the heads of the Coalition of the Willing after September 11th, 2001. Why we'd want to learn from hypocritical sods like the British Conservative Party is beyond me.
Occam's Tool| 11.25.12 @ 12:39AM
Bash scumbags abroad (I do my part by investing in Phillip Morris---great growing dividend, and they sell lethal things to Jordanians.).
Cut spending and taxes at home.
That's all that needs be done. Lowering taxation rates to the Reagan level will increase tax receipts. Raising tax rates to get lower receipts is an economic retard's game. But, of course, Obama IS a moron.