
A Nation of Shop Keepers
The Party’s sails were slack. Voters saw it as "callous, bigoted, and sleazy". In ‘blind tastings’ voters who liked the Party’s ideas withdrew approval when they heard which party supported them. In short, the brand was toxic. As politicians and the Party faithful started to lose seats their first strategy was to double down on the issues and message which had done so well, for so long. It didn’t work, and things got worse, much worse, for a long time…
So, with thanks to ten years of The Economist throughout this writing, the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom since Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was in trouble. Since the late 1990’s the Conservatives stumbled through the wilderness in British politics, snagging their coats on every briar along the way. They lost three straight general elections and there was some thought by otherwise reasonable people that the Conservative Party may have outlived itself.
Todaythe generic ballot is 45 Conservative 25 Labor.
Of course, one of thereasons for the re-animation of the Conservative Partyis that, usually, the party in power exhausts itself and… Read More