What British conservatives can teach the GOP
The Republican Party doesn’t need to steal Democrats’ language, let alone Democrats’ ideas. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, all the Republican leadership needs to do is click its collective heels together and start looking for answers much closer to home.
If Republican leaders really want to appeal to Hispanic voters, for example, they don’t need clever Spanish-language marketing or better slogans. Nor do they need to steal political positions from across the aisle. Instead, they could resurrect the only sensible comprehensive immigration reform bill not passed into law—a bill largely written by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. …
The conservative movement is a broad church, and its worshipers even include a few sympathetic foreigners. Republicans could certainly do worse than to consult their counterparts across the Atlantic. The British Conservative Party spent 12 years out of office after the 1997 elections that brought the Labour Party and Tony Blair to power. After two attempts to win by running well to the right of Blair, David Cameron led a group of Tory “modernizers” into power by, among other things, embracing “conservative” notions of conservation and budgetary austerity—and by deciding that the state should have no role in dictating private morality: Intolerance, one once told me, is “unconservative.” One Tory minister, Iain Duncan-Smith, spent his years in the political wilderness creating a think tank, the Centre for Social Justice, dedicated to the study of long-term poverty and welfare reform. He’s now in a position to put some of its proposals into practice.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Nothing, the Torries aren’t conservative.
reddevil on November 16, 2012 at 10:08 AM
How to become more liberal? Too late …
ShainS on November 16, 2012 at 10:12 AM
How to better manage NHS? Thank you,no.
LtGenRob on November 16, 2012 at 10:15 AM
Do jogging photo ops.
forest on November 16, 2012 at 10:16 AM
Sorry, but while David Cameron may be prime minister he’s PM in a coalition with a far-left party.
Anyway, Great Britain as a society is completely off the deep end much farther than the US is. GB land where they let little girls get raped because they don’t want to be called racist. GB is the land where there really is no freedom of speech if you’re not politically correct on race, religion, or sexuality.
ninjapirate on November 16, 2012 at 10:17 AM
How to get your tail kicked by liberals to the point your nation is disintegrating? I think we’re doing that well enough on our own, thank you.
MelonCollie on November 16, 2012 at 10:18 AM
Here is a sterling example of David Cameron’s leadership…
http://news.yahoo.com/uk-pm-warns-witch-hunt-against-gays-pedophile-125112870.html
That’s right, David Cameron was worried that a scandal over pedophilia may turn into a witch hunt against gays.
ninjapirate on November 16, 2012 at 10:20 AM
The Conservative Party in the UK at its most ‘conservative’ blue-dog democrat. Much of what they hold to is straight up sociallism which is why they will sacrifice their entire armed forces to the holy cow of the NHS.
What Anne is saying here is “Embrace the suck”.
No. A thousand times, NO.
CorporatePiggy on November 16, 2012 at 10:23 AM
How to sell out?
Illinidiva on November 16, 2012 at 10:23 AM
In a sane society, it just might.
MelonCollie on November 16, 2012 at 10:24 AM
How to lose an election against a very beatable incumbent? We already know how that works, thank you very much!
What an embarrassingly ridiculous article. Why would anyone consider the Tories to be rolemodels to learn from? Their showing in the last UK elections was pathetic. There is a reason why their are forced to govern in a coalition. If Obummer was as white and unpopular as Gordon Brown back then, we would look forward to President Romneys inauguration right now.
Valkyriepundit on November 16, 2012 at 10:26 AM
Muffin is NO conservative. He and the rest of his Etonian clique may finally kill the Tories considering their crazy, myopic, fetish to force SSM on the people of the UK, especially the CofE. When you are LEFT of the FABIAN SOCIALIST Archbishop of Canterbury, the leader of the CofE and a man who fought to allow gay priests to serve in the church, you’ve got a problem. Williams resigned as Archbishop over the matter. Personally, I am unopposed to SSM, but Cameron’s government has just ignored the will of the people and been completely tone deaf. Only the radicals believe that religious institutions should be forced to perform marriages, which would happen under the EU human rights rules.
Also, Cameron & Co have backed away from their pledge to give the people a referendum on EU membership, which is something that has had the support of 85% of the country.
If the GOP wants to learn lessons from the Brits, look to Daniel Hannan and Nigel Farage, not Muffin Cameron.
Resist We Much on November 16, 2012 at 10:32 AM
lol
The British economy continues to tank, and the tories aren’t conservative anyway, so there’s nothing to learn really.
The people accused of paedophilia also happened to be gay.
Darth Executor on November 16, 2012 at 10:32 AM
Social justice? What a ball of crap.
Paul-Cincy on November 16, 2012 at 10:35 AM
Isn’t David Cameron on his way out, according to polls, and “Red” Ed Miliband on his way in? Is that what modernization will get us?
Oh, and then there is the whole Scottish independence issue. They’re just packing up and leaving. So much for the “United” in the United Kingdom, huh?
Punchenko on November 16, 2012 at 10:38 AM
I <3 Thatcher and Enoch Powell.
Punchenko on November 16, 2012 at 10:43 AM
How to be a permanant minority party?
dczombie on November 16, 2012 at 10:43 AM
How to finally beat the liberals for the title of upper class twit of the year?
Rocks on November 16, 2012 at 10:47 AM
Two problems with Applebaum’s theory:
1. UK Conservative Party is NOT conservative by any stretch of the imagination. If this is what we should aspire to be, we might as well throw in the towel. It’s over.
2. If an election would be held today, they would be thrown out of power in a massive landslide loss. Their “gaining power at all cost” strategy in 2010 was a huge mistake.
Norwegian on November 16, 2012 at 10:53 AM
Applebaum voted for obama in 2008. I have no idea who she voted for in 2012 nor do I care. Once was enough. She also has a history of being some what ethically challenged.
Blake on November 16, 2012 at 10:59 AM
Yes, yes, yes. I was, of course, referring to those in office currently.
That whole Scottish Independence thingy is a laffer. They’ll probably do it. They will have to take their share of the UK debt and, probably, be forced to join the euro since I doubt that they will be allowed to remain as part of the British monetary system. They couldn’t be allowed to sell their own bonds that are denominated in British pounds. It would be like letting Greece print its own money.
Then, they’ll sell their oil reserves and be fine for 5-10 years. After that, the Scots will revert back to Braveheart days. It receives about £1.40 in government money for every £1.00 in taxes the Scots pay. Most of the tax revenues come from London and Southern England, in general.
7 of the UK’s top 10 welfare-dependent areas are in Scotland. In Bridgeton, an area of Glasgow, 85% of the community receives government assistance. According to the World Health Organisation, boys born in some parts of Glasgow are likely to die 28 years earlier than those born villages just a few miles away, and will have a life expectancies shorter than that of people living in India or the Philippines…and, remember, Scotland has socialised medicine! Eleventy!
There are some areas where more of Scotland where 75% or more of the economy, including employment, comes directly from government spending. It is about as close as you can get without full-scale Sovietisation.
Resist We Much on November 16, 2012 at 11:08 AM
Immigration in Britain has been so good to the conservative party, you see. According to the data I’ve found, 5% of Britain’s Muslims support the conservatives.
We should follow their lead…right over the cliff.
CJ on November 16, 2012 at 11:22 AM
But don’t you think the call the prayer is “beautiful”? Huh? Do ya?!
You know, Western Civilization started falling apart when it stopped looking down and sneering at lesser civilizations. Too bad for us the Chinese look at us still as barbarians and the Tom Friedmans of the world to the Chinese as benevolent masters.
That’s got to change.
Punchenko on November 16, 2012 at 11:41 AM
Anne Applebaum is an eternal idiot.
Schadenfreude on November 16, 2012 at 11:52 AM
Cameron can suffocate in Obama’s azz, along with Anne Applebaum.
It’s not Beluga caviar, fools. Oh, Merkel too, the idiot.
Schadenfreude on November 16, 2012 at 11:54 AM
I would comment, but reddevil, ShainS, LtGenRob, MellonCollie and Resist We Much (among others) beat me to it.
In fact, I submit that RWM has a far better grasp on what needs to be done on both sides of The Pond than Applebaum and company.
Steve Eggleston on November 16, 2012 at 12:20 PM
+100.
Modern liberals ‘educate’ students on how mean the Spanish conquistadors were to the Aztecs…conveniently leaving out what a bunch of completely barbaric monsters the poor widdle brown people were.
Read “In Fefense of Elitism”. It’s a very serious eye-opener and an in-your-face challenge to the foolish modern mentality of “lalala let’s all hold hands and sing peacefully together”.
MelonCollie on November 16, 2012 at 1:04 PM