A Choice, Not a Labour Echo

Fire of Liberty

After seeing the Tory defeat on May 5 and Howard resigning shortly after the UK election results, a considerable amount of observers have noted that the Tories lost the recent election because they have abandoned the Conservative/Classical Liberalism of Thatcher, Smith, Burke and Disraeli. Instead of presenting a political manifesto that offered a bold contrast to Labour, the Tories opted for the pastels policy which tried to out-Labour Labour, because they were fearful of pushing away voters. When a party becomes so scared that its afraid to present a clear cut difference from the other party, they project an aura of instability to the voting public thus destroying their chances of being put into power. Though they picked up some 30 seats in the House of Commons, the Tories could have achieved a greater victory by being bold but not petty like the Blair is a "liar" silliness.

While I've read a considerable amount of experts in the UK and US press, who have professed what's wrong with Tories, I think that the best analysis that I've read so far has been this article by Marian Tupy over at Tech Central Station. Tupy argues that the best way to get the Tories back on track is to embrace Margaret Thatcher's political philosophy of free markets, limited government and individual freedoms. It time that the Tories go out and buy copies of Hayek's The Constitution of Liberty (Mrs. Thatcher modeled her policies around this powerful book) and various other Classical Liberalism texts to get a better grip on how they should operate. Better yet they should follow Tupy's advice, see here:

The politics of choice would put Labour in a difficult position. The Labour Party would either have to embark on a reformist course, thus alienating its socialist base, or come out against freedom to choose. Yet freedom is the most British of values. It has permeated the history of that island nation from the time of the Magna Carta, through the execution of King Charles, through the wars against Napoleon and Hitler, right up to the struggle against home-grown socialism in the 1980s.

The politics of choice would also contribute toward solving the Tory's European conundrum. At the moment, it is all too easy for Mr. Blair to paint the Conservatives as a group of reactionary "little Englanders," bent on withdrawing from the European Union. A choice-based Tory party would be more believable when arguing that their opposition to the centralization of economic and political decision-making in Brussels is based not on nationalism and isolationism, but on Britain's wish to preserve freedoms unknown on the European continent. Moreover, the politics of choice would underline the contrast between those members of the EU who wish to move ahead and those EU members who prefer to remain wedded to the past.

I hope the Tories get their act together pretty soon. If they get back to the Thatcher basics, they'll surely win the next General Election and push Labour of their high mount. With a lead of only 66, the mission is achievable.