THE GUARDIAN: The Tories aren't in existential crisis, but discontent among voters is focused on the leadership cabal and the issue of class
Cast your eyes over these results, and feel the Tory pain. Harlow, Great Yarmouth, Reading, Plymouth, Thurrock – all southern bywords for the kind of places that decide British elections, and all lost to Labour. Ukip polling an average of 13% wherever it stood. Those half-baked plans for directly elected mayors met with a mixture of hostility and complete indifference.
The low chatter of Conservative angst that has been simmering since the budget has now suddenly risen in volume and urgency. So far, listening to such voices rather suggests that the critique of the Tories' woes needs a bit more work, but one thing is beyond doubt: almighty rows have broken out within the Conservative family.
There may be something in the idea being put about by those on the right of the party that Tory loyalists have been dismayed by the leadership's embrace of bits of metropolitan liberalism, but there again, do more hard-bitten Conservatives really have that much to complain about?
The idea of any leftward pull from the Lib Dems usually turns out to be a canard. The cuts highlight the fact that Thatcherism is in rude health. The welfare state is under assault. The NHS is being subjected to the outsourcing and fragmentation of Tory dreams, and our schools are falling victim to much the same, with the added bonus of a supposed return to old-fashioned discipline and academic rigour. Moreover, large swaths of the public remain in full accord with the supposed need for crushing austerity, are happy to watch benefit claimants being thrown [to] the wolves, and are hardly sold on the idea of Labour coming back to power – with or without Ed Miliband's still cloudy vision of "responsible capitalism". So what is going on?
Three factors speak for themselves: the dreadful state of the economy, the rising cost of living, and the widespread impression of simple incompetence. But that third explanation blurs over into something even more troubling to the Tory soul: the shortcomings of the coterie who currently lead the party, and the torturous issue of class. » | John Harris | Friday, May 04, 2012
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