This is an unfinished summary of the Tory party. As Ed seems keen on educating ASAP, I shall indeed grab his torch and carry on whilst he’s gone. Here is my work so far on David Cameron’s goonies. Like I said, it’s not finished and not perfect yet, but still has educational purpose to it…
The Conservative Party.
The Conservative Party [aka the Tories] are not the same as Labour. In fact, they have some quite significant differences.
The Conservative party is the second largest political party within the UK parliament, and has been the most successful party of the previous century. Whilst historically being a ‘right-wing’[1] party, under David Cameron the party has moved more towards the centre [largely to regain lost support].
The party is by nature ‘conservative’ and thus maintains a traditional view of Britain [for instance, support for the Monarchy] and has always regarded itself as being patriotic.
Prior to David Cameron the party was very ‘Europsceptic’ [meaning it wasn’t too keen on being part of the European Union e.g. refusing to accept the Euro] but it has recently tried to shake this reputation off. The current Tory party aims to renegotiate EU treaties to help regain more power within the UK, but are not outright against the idea of the EU.
Conservative policy is more focussed on reducing government involvement in the economic aspects of society [such as reducing taxes, furthering public investment, and promoting the privatisation of companies] but increasing control in the social aspects of society [for instance, promoting ‘traditional’ family values and heavier restrictions on immigration and criminal punishment]. This has lead the party to want to repair what they call “broken” British society.
However, in the past, the Conservative party has often lost liberal support because of the more controversial aspects of its social policy [for example ‘Section 28 of the Local Government Act of 1998’ which banned the teaching of homosexuality as an acceptable family structure in schools, or their ‘war’ on single parents]. The party is currently, however, trying to drop this reputation to regain support.
In terms of foreign policy, the Tories have previously favoured the close tie with America and institutions such as NATO.
There are three distinct branches of the Conservative Party, but members are in no way limited to these ideologies:
-One Nation Conservatives: they promote social cohesion between difference classes, and recently between races and religions as well. These Tories tend to be more tolerant of different groups within UK society.
-Thatcherites: named after the previous Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher. They tend to focus on reducing government economic control [for instance with tax cuts and the privatisation of public services]. They are still Europsceptic in most cases and far more supportive of traditional roles and structures than the official stance of the modern Cameron lead party.
-Cornerstone [Faith ,Flag and Family] Tories: these guys are very supportive of Britain’s Protestant church, patriotism for a unified British state, and traditional family roles – criticising heavily homosexuals, single parents and all ‘non-traditional’ family types. They are also strongly opposed to immigration and in past situations have been regarded as being ‘racist’.
Useful Tory Links:
Party Policy
Crime
Immigration
Welfare
Environment
Economy
[1] “those who support political or social or economic conservatism; those who believe that things are better left unchanged”
Richard
