Heresy

[andrewducker]

If the Conservative party had sounded like this before the election, and not been banging on about immigration then they'd have got more interest.  Heck, I'd be tempted to vote for this person if he wasn't associated with some real bastards.

If we believe in economic freedoms then we should believe in wider social freedoms as well. You just have to stop bossing people around and that means taking a much more relaxed view of everything from drugs to the diversity of modern families. In the old days, people used to say they were dry in economics and wet in social policy. That cliché became so tiresome that you became desperate for someone who would say they were wet in economics and dry in social policy - perhaps believing in a prices and incomes policy enforced by corporal punishment.

Nowadays, people say they are economically and socially liberal. This strand of modernisation recognises that our culture is far more tolerant than many Conservatives appear to believe. Social liberals see that we just have to be much more comfortable with our own country as it is today.

Comments

[pickwick.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of something I've thought about a lot since I found out: whereas in the UK socially liberal has tended to go with economically pro-nationalisation and government control, and socially conservative with economic free trade, in Turkey (and presumably other places) it's the other way round - the parties are for government control (of business, of your social rights, of everything) or against it (free trade, social liberalism.) It struck me as odd at the time, but now I think it might make more sense than the way our parties are divided.

[andrewducker]

Depends how you divide things up. Over here it's "Rich people in favour of getting to do what they want and keep control of their money" versus "Poor people in favour of keeping the rich under control."

I tend to fall somewhere in between - I believe that people should be allowed to do whatever they like unless there's a concrete reason for them not to be allowed to (falling on the side of freedom of expression, etc wherever possible), but I recognise that having money gives people huge advantages at getting even more money, and therefore we need to help the people that can't help themselves.

Fiscally speaking, I think that capitalism is the best way to produce More Cool Stuff. However, I also recognise that unfettered capitalism tends to allow for all sorts of abuses through externalising costs (for instance, just taking pollution and dumping it, because it's cheaper that way) and therefore you need oversight of companies to make sure they don't behave badly.

[azalemeth.livejournal.com]

The conservatives are a very varied bunch. My MP just resigned from the front bench - he's too liberal - and yet, well, apart from Howards' taste for necks, his whole "It's not racist to $do_racist_things" stance makes most people recoil in horror. The trouble I've found with parties is that, despite their members being nice, their leaders are total idiots < _ <.