Quote Originally Posted by Montmorency View Post
I'm not sure how you were reading my pretty sparse post.

The primary hindrance to Labour's electoral prospects is evidently not that it has suddenly become widely unappealing. It is because of a long-term geographic and demographic realignment that has been visible since at least the Great Recession; Labour could win as much of the vote as it did in 1997 - roughly the Tory share in 2019 - and potentially win fewer seats than the Tories won now (though of course the latter themselves won far fewer than Labour in 1997 despite the similar vote share -- that's FPTP for you). I'm pretty sure we discussed this two years ago, even if I haven't really updated myself on UK political geography since.

The choice to tolerate Conservative failures of government by reference to "frothing lunacy" of non-Conservative activists (and ignoring the frothing lunacy of Conservative activists themselves) is not obviously something that needs no defense, or doesn't impute something about the proponent of that choice.

It's a common story in the world today that, increasingly, small-government conservatives find themselves more aligned with center-left parties than with traditional/traditionally Right parties in terms of governance and policy. I think you find a lot of revealing things when you cut the surface of the dichotomy between those who make the logical switch, and those who prioritize other urges.
Most of the ministers of the last pre-Blair Tory government absolutely despise the current Tory government. Both in what they do as a government, and how they conduct their politics. It's like the Republicans pre-Trump and post-Trump. The current Tories are Trumpian in nature.