Quote Originally Posted by alh_p View Post
My answer for the UK is that the (current) Tories are not actually that conservative, they are very concerned with being a progressive government. Hence the greater tax on the rich that you point to.

Tax cuts are sold on the premise that you will keep what you have, and get more from it -what could be more conservative?

High taxes for the rich are about redistribution of wealth (I can see you shuddering) and should be about boosting the lot of the disenfranchised -that is socially progressive taxation.
PVC has already supplied a perfectly adequate definition of what conservatives 'aspire' to, stick with it; "Conservative means preserving the fabric of society, not entrenching social divide and dysfunction. The term was actually coined to appeal to the lower classes."

Sounds more like an excellent justification for western free-market economies, rather than anything that is specifically tory.

No, I am not a supporter of redistributing wealth as an explicit goal in itself, though i am perfectly comfortable with social welfare including the principle that the richer end of the scale should pay proportionately more. again, there is nothing unconservative in this view.