The Young Person’s Guide to Conservative Government

A Public Service Announcement

Given recent political developments, a new General Election seems imminent. In the interests of a fully informed electorate, to protect the democratic health of the system, you may find the following guide a useful tool to use with any Young People you know.

Conservative Governments follow a cycle of events in an unchanging, fixed way, like the seasons follow on from each other. These are the key stages:

1. During a period of Labour Party Government (*see below), the Conservatives spend a lot of money given to them by rich donors and foreign powers, to issue propaganda rubbishing the actions of the Labour Government and falsifying statistics to create the impression that key areas of society are in decline. The money is given to them because, under a Labour Government,  the Rich have fewer opportunities to further enrich themselves at the expense of the state and the poor. This enrages them and they consider it to be very unfair and very detrimental to a productive economy. They mask their concern for the decline in their own personal enrichment by expressing concern for the lack of opportunities afforded to the poor by having a badly run economy, with rising unemployment.

2. As a priority, the Conservative party identify key areas of the economy or of Society that are in crisis. They use phrases such as “Broken Britain” and they issue misleading right wing think tank reports to stoke fears of terminal decline under the Labour Party that they portray as unpatriotic, economically illiterate, and in the pocket of terrorists and the trade unions.

3. They identify a series of key groups who can be routinely scapegoated for these manufactured crises. These tend to be the following: Immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers. Lots of preparatory work has to be done first to blur the distinctions between these groups and to create the impression that most of them are associated with Islam or terrorism. In recent years, this list has been supplemented by the idea of “Europe” or “The EU” as a sinister unelected body whose only purpose is to do Britain down because at heart we are better than them, culturally, historically, economically and morally. (see “British Values”). This narrative of British exceptionalism is pursued without embarrassment, and in some cases, it appears that some Conservative Politicians and supporters actually believe it. In recent months, new groups have been added to the list of scapegoats: The British Parliament, The legal establishment and the BBC. This has been given the helpful umbrella term, “The liberal metropolitan Elite” or more usually, “The sneering liberal metropolitan Elite”. No-one actually knows what this means. There is a suspicion that it is used in the same way that the term “Fake News” is used by Republicans in the United States, ie when they cannot give a plausible answer to legitimate questions that have been raised by a free press, or the political opposition.

4. Hand in hand with this decline goes a reckless spending of tax payers’ money, on projects and initiatives that actively make things worse. Higher taxes allow the Labour Party to encourage immigration, terrorism, criminality, unemployment. Because of high taxes and political correctness gone mad there is more homelessness, more immigration, more crime, poorer exam results, worse health outcomes, longer waiting lists. This list is literally endless. Why on earth would the Labour Party do this? What is in it for them? The Conservative Party in opposition have strained every sinew to make the answer to this glaringly obvious to everyone, apart from the handful of Communists in the country: The Labour Party are the Enemy Within.

5. Once in power, The Conservative Government follows its natural instinct, which is to dramatically reduce public spending, lower taxes and line the pockets of its supporters, the already very rich and powerful. These people, apparently, are not the liberal metropolitan elite. They may be the rural elite, or the fascist elite, but both of these groups are infinitely more acceptable than those damn liberals. The sneering ones especially.

6. This is all done in the name of freedom and to liberate entrepreneurship from the dead hand of the state, so that we can all become richer.  No-one seems to worry that this has never worked. Except The Enemy Within.

7. Carrying on the work carefully prepared when in opposition, the Conservative Government continue to denigrate the work of the BBC, accusing all of its journalists and newsreaders of being Lefties. There are clear threats made regarding the licence fee and, subsequently, all news broadcasts are grotesquely “balanced”, which means even the most rabid right -wing lunatics are given equal air time for their views. Please note: This is a process likely to accelerate given the success of the Trump experiment in America. (See “Fake News”)

8. As the life of the Government progresses, their policies start to have an impact. Statistics regarding Homelessness, Health, Poverty, Climate change Social Care, Children’s services, Crime, Infrastructure, Transport etc all plummet. On the BBC news, a succession of such disasters is reported by head shaking, hand wringing newsreaders, with a baffled expression, as if they are at a loss to explain these strange, unrelated phenomena. A simple graphic would show the cast iron correlation between the election of Tory Governments and the inevitable collapse of the fabric of civil society. The point is never made because it is too “political”, so we must get used to thinking of these events as Acts of God, not policy consequences.

9. In the second half of a Tory Government, the arguments of the Labour Party and the possible policy solutions become very popular as clear and obvious solutions to the disasters wreaked by the gang of half -witted charlatans currently in office. Tory spokespeople reaffirm that they are spending more money than ever before on   (insert any issue people are moaning about).

10. The year before the election when the Tories are double digits behind in the polls, they steal 75% of the Labour policies they have spent the last four years demonising, and pledge to spend loads of money on Housing, the NHS, Social care, etc etc.

11. They spend billions of pounds from the magic money tree on bungs, bribes and propaganda that forcibly remind people that the Labour Party, The Greens and The Liberal Democrats are all Communists, in the pay of the Unions, Palestine, Islamists and foreigners generally. It used to be Russia, but that’s a bit awkward nowadays.

12. They will do absolutely everything in their power to obscure the basic choice everyone has to make about what kind of society we want to be. Either we can be a country that spends 42% of its GDP on infrastructure and the public realm, ensuring a country that runs efficiently (See Germany). This used to be the case for all civilised European countries. It is what we used to do during the post-war consensus, when all of the statistics mentioned several times above were all much, much healthier. Or we can choose to spend 37% of GDP on the same stuff and watch as society crumbles around us. No-one will ever point out his basic choice to you because they are disposed to treat the electorate as ninnies who don’t know their arse from the elbow. You will get used to this. You have a choice over whether to get angry about it and protest or to shrug your shoulders and eat more of the same shit.

13. Very often the electorate buy the lies and The Conservative Party is re-elected to Government. As soon as that happens, the steps outlined above start again, from step 5, and they begin to cut public spending savagely again. They reallocate a pittance from existing budgets as a fig leaf to cover up their broken promises. This is a bit of a bore for them to have to go through, but they are heartened by the success of Trump who has hit upon a new way of dealing with this. He simply lies about it and gets away with it. This will save the Tories a lot of time in the future. (see “Dominic Raab”)

14. Every now and again, things are so badly mismanaged by the Tories that no amount of lies and spin and propaganda can prevent the election of a Labour Government. Historically, this has been a statistical aberration, but, strangely, there was a period of over ten years of Labour Government, on the back of three election victories and they did great things, but the Left don’t like to talk about that. (ask your parents about this. I think it has been removed from Wikipedia) They (the Left) still think of that period as another period of Conservative Government, cleverly rebranded. During this period, Tony Blair did several things that did not help. They were:

• Knocking back Proportional Representation. (This was a disastrous mistake, and, I believe, an example of Hubris. Jacob Rees-Mogg may correct me on this)

• The Iraq War.

• Being starry -eyed about the Rich and Famous

There are signs that this immutable cycle may be entering a period of rare adjustment, on the back of the success of Trumpery in the USA. This has emboldened the Right to embrace cheating, lying and outrageously unethical behaviour. The current Cabinet appointed by Mr Johnson is so unspeakably Right Wing and so driven by ideological fervour that they are impervious to any appeal to morality or ethical standards. There are people in Mr Johnson’s cabinet who believe in the Death Penalty. Who are against abortion. Who do not support Gay marriage or a whole raft of LGBT rights. Who think that there should be no regulation of markets, or employers or housing. Who think that the creation of a low tax, no tariff, low standards sweat shop off shore is a step in the right direction. Who do not care about the return of bombs in Northern Ireland. Who have been openly racist. There are even rumours that a member of the Cabinet is planning to make not leaving a double space after a full stop illegal, no ifs, no buts. (In that sense, this whole article has been an act of civil disobedience, which is very gratifying). I never, ever thought that I would be able to write that paragraph in bold above in my life time. They believe that their view of the world is right and that The People cannot be trusted to realise that. This means that they can no longer countenance even a brief five year hiatus in their hold on power. The prospect of not being in charge for a minute enrages them beyond reason so steps will be taken to ensure that there will never be a Labour Government again. In the same way there is now talk from the USA that Trump will not step down if he is voted out and the rule about not serving for more than two terms will be scrapped if he does win again. (see “Vladimir Putin”)

We all need to be ready for this. There will be some very dark, difficult days ahead.