Phillips: the “real losers” in the election are the Cameron Conservatives

Which is also what I said last night, and, of course, what I had hoped would happen, when I said that I hoped Labour would win, because that would kill Cameronized conservatism. But the way it has happened is even better than what I had hoped. Labour is (probably) out, as they richly deserve, but the Cameron Conservatives are tarnished by their inability to win decisively against a ruling party which had been considered totally discredited. Furthermore, in the event that Cameron can form a government, he will only be able to do so through a patched-together majority which probably won’t last very long. And as for Britain’s third worthless party, the much-touted Liberal Democrats, they have also been tarnished, since not only did they fail to break through to second place, but they lost several seats.

Melanie Phillips writes:

Everyone lost!

Who can be surprised? Only the political class (and its media groupies) who refused to heed the unequivocal message being shouted from the rooftops by the public at every opportunity, that as far as they were concerned all politicians were venal, incompetent and untrustworthy, and that people had had it up to here with the entire political system. lso So when increasingly panicky Labour and Tory politicians desperately warned before the election that a hung parliament would be a disaster because it would not deliver the strong and decisive government that the system was tailored to provide, the voters said ‘Yesss!!!’ Or to be more precise, they turned their backs on the big national picture and voted local: the candidate who impressed them on his or her own account won, largely regardless of party; simple as that. True localism!

So now all is murk. And no, the likely political paralysis is not good at all. But then, no party was offering any prospect of getting to grips properly with anything important anyway. It is the condition of British politics, and beyond that the state of British society, which is not good at all and of which this election result is an accurate reflection.

The big shock last night was the drop in the LibDem vote. So much for the ‘Politics Idol’: it looks like when it came to it the voters had more sense. But the real losers were the Tories. Yes of course Labour was smashed (although it’s a brave soul who would say even now that Brown has no prospect of hanging on to power). For although the Tories are the largest party, they fluffed a goal that was wide, wide open. Given the unprecedented incompetence, corruption and chaos of the Labour government and with the country screaming for relief, the Tories should have walked it. If Cameron becomes Prime Minister, it will be by default—and with a fragile hold on power making the prospect of having to hold another election in the near future all too likely.

This result finally proves that the Cameroon ‘hopeydopeychangey’strategy was a bad mistake, for all the reasons discussed here month after month. Will the Cameroons now admit it?

Is the Pope a Catholic?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 08, 2010 08:09 AM | Send