Why I Stopped Being a Tory

Why Did I Change Political Affiliations?

At heart I was raised as a Tory. Mostly because I grew up in a Tory household, so those views were ingrained from an early age. That is what we did back then, we just went along with our parents core beliefs and maintained the status quo.

Apart from attending a few Tory party dinners as a guest I haven’t been directly involved with the Conservative Party. I wasn’t a fan of John Major and since then my enthusiasm has steadily dwindled.

I didn’t leave the Conservative Party, the Conservative Party left me.

A few years ago, before the Brexit referendum was even called, I started asking myself what the Tories stood for. What was their ethos? I found myself unable to answer that question.

If you can’t identify a core message then in my opinion, a party, any party has lost its reason for being.

Currently, Sunak is still maintaining that the Tories are the party of low tax and fiscal responsibility, but all the evidence points to the opposite being closer to the truth.

I consider myself to be a compassionate, small c conservative. I believe in low tax, low regulation, small Government, self responsibility and determination. I believe that the job of Government is to manage the big society issues that we can’t manage individually and leave us, the people to work, strive and build the country we want to live in.

I am at heart centre right in many of my political views, but, with an eye on fairness and equality. When I say equality I don’t mean ticking boxes and positive discrimination to fill ethnicity and diversity quotas. I mean creating a level playing field where anyone from any background has the opportunity to the same education, the same health care, the same employment & business opportunities.

I believe that the cream will rise to the top, it always has, it always will. Insisting on quotas for the sake of quotas is an act of self harm that will not help anyone in the long term.

We are not all born equal, it is impossible to create a world where we would be. But, we can provide equal opportunity for all.

No one wins all the time. The most successful sportsmen and women in history all lose as much as they win. Babe Ruth, who I believe used to play rounders almost a century ago in the US still to this day holds the record for the most home runs (714). He also holds the record for the most strike outs (488). He wasn’t afraid of losing. We need to teach our children not to be afraid of losing. It is how you learn, how you improve, how you learn to win.

Giving everyone a medal for taking part teaches no one anything. It creates mediocrity.

To be a good winner, you first need to learn how to be a good loser.

I believe that uncontrolled capitalism is not always a positive thing. Globalisation has demonstrated that. We are heading back to feudal times of massively wealthy individuals and a struggling mass population. Globalisation has driven opportunity for big business, consolidating wealth in the hands of a few billionaires.

No billionaire has ever generated their money from creating jobs. Please correct me if you can think of an example that I can’t?

It won’t be many years before we only have one shop left, worldwide. Smaller shops just can’t compete with the might of one multinational who has provided convenient next day delivery. Is this a good thing for society? I doubt it.

Reputations

Reputations last for decades. Volvo are widely regarded as the safest cars available. The reason for this is that back in the 50’s they were the first manufacturer to include seatbelts as standard….. then sold as the safest cars. That reputation continues despite all cars having the same safety features.

Political parties are much the same. The Tories keep insisting that they are on our side. That they are the party of low tax, low regulation, freedom, border control, fiscal responsibility. All the evidence points to none of that being true.

We have the highest taxes in 70 years, the highest in peace time. We have more regulation that ever before, stifling innovation & investment, we have less freedoms than we had just a few years ago, our borders are porous to say the least with no sign of them being effectively policed and managed any time soon.

No Government in history has wasted as much money as the current Tory government. I want to know where the £37 Billion spaffed on trach and trace has gone? Track and trace is currently being quiently wound down (May 2022)…. £37 Billion is a massive amount of money. It is 10 aircraft carriers.

Not long ago we couldn’t afford to run the two aircraft carriers we have & were looking at leasing one to a friendly country. Now, we can spend almost 10 aircraft carriers on a phone app that never worked properly and only really acted as a work prevention device for the public sector.

The Tories recently threw away £8 Billion in PPE that they ordered and paid for but was either not suitable or not required. This is not fiscal responsibility, this is wasting tax payers hard earned money. It isn’t theirs to waste, it is ours. The Governments job is to allocate if efficiently and fairly to provide the required collective services that we require as a society.

The currently fraud from furlough and bounce back loans is £4.7 Billion. Apparently not enough to even bother chasing. It has just been written off.

At the same time, the pension triple lock was cancelled, to save the Government up to £4 Billion a year. This is not fiscal responsibility.