Faced with the most calamitous government since the 1970s, Conservatives can rail and wail, but are faced with the accusation ’14 years’.
Woke nonsense infesting the civil service? We had 14 years. All-time high immigration? We had 14 years. ‘Hate-speech’ laws silencing heterodox opinion? All left in place for 14 years. Stifling regulation? 14 years. Vague laws at the mercy of lawyers? Worsened over 14 years. High taxes, spending and deficit? 14 years.
The outrages of the overbearing state are not the result of anything Calamity Starmer has done. The police burst into someone’s house over a social media post and we are indignant. This week we see a nurse disciplined for complaining about a man in her changing room and howl, as we should. The laws used against the nurse or the Twitterer were Blair / Brown laws left untouched by Cameron, May, Johnson or Sunak. The driven social justice warriors implanted in the nomenklatura were appointed under Conservative governments.
Even the stifling taxes are largely Conservative: Rachel the Reiver raised the rates a little and caused meltdown, but that shows they were already too high to be sustainable.
Voters are not daft: they can see all this, and so the Conservatives are polling even below Labour. If Reform tops the polls, it is because they are the only party not (yet) guilty of such failures.
It s possible to turn things around in government: over the Pond, a wild man has changed much with a flurry or orders and a team which will take no nonsense from established opinion. Here it would need Parliament fr the most part but it can be done. It would need to be well planned in advance and unrolled without mercy or compromise.
At the moment though, the chances of getting into government are not looking good. The voters will need to be convinced not just by what Conservatives believe, but that they will deliver. The previous 14 years do not give confidence.
