Cameron: Tories party of working people
December 31st, 2006
Is this his “most audacious move yet?”
In what the Observer is describing this morning is David Cameron’s most “audacious bid yet to capture Labour’s political ground” the Tory leader says his is “the true party of ‘working people’ in Britain.”
In his New Year message he says that the Tories will become “the party that represents working people rather than the rich and powerful” and declares that the next twelve months will see “Labour’s dark side” coming to the fore.
But for how long can the Tory leader go on making such pronouncements without alienating his core vote?
As the end of year chart showing the Tory position in the average of ICM, Populus and YouGov polls shows support for the party has dropped a touch since the heady days of last May. How much of this is down to a lack of enthusiasm amongst those who look to the party to follow a more traditional approach?
Certainly the progress has been solid and has mostly been sustained but it barely puts the Tories in a position where it might win most seats, never mind securing the MPs to form a majority government.
The gamble, clearly, is that traditional Tories have nowhere else to go and they can either like it or lump it. It will be interesting to see how this develops in 2007.
.
Mike Smithson
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This is important and, given Cameron’s strategy of removing reasons for not voting Conservative (rather than supplying any reasons in the shape of policies for voters to want to stick their thumbprints next to the Tory candidate), inevitable. A lot of working class people, especially older ones, know instinctively that the Conservative Party is not for them. The alternative to voting Labour is to stay at home.
The risk for the incoming Labour leader is not that he will be seen as a dour Scot but that conditions for those at or near the bottom are not good. Money is tight, social housing is unavailable for their adult children, and our streets too often unsafe. Cameron is after these disaffected Labour supporters.
I doubt this will alarm Conservative supporters. Most company bosses and professionals I have met like to see themselves as the “true” working class. They are only on the golf course to drum up business, you see.
“Is this his most audacious move yet?”
I would be the first to commend Mike on the many excellent and unbiased articles he produces for us to comment upon. I do however feel that his choice of the word “audacious” perhaps supplies a clue about what left-leaning people fail to understand, not only about Cameron, but Conservativism in general.
Most people, regardless of their wealth, choose to spend wisely and extract the best value for their money. For several years now the British public have watched the government fire-hosing their taxes at public services and they are now starting to question whether this has proved effective. Many are coming to the conclusion that they are not seeing better services and are starting to question whether the government can be trusted to spend their money sensibly. They are also losing trust in the government over other issues.
Most of my lefty friends are professional people with good incomes, who despite their best intentions and sympathies cannot properly understand life on the breadline. Due to taxes on expenditure and council taxes, people on lower incomes pay a proportionally higher chunk of their income on taxes. These people are more likely to question whether they are getting best value for money and will be more prepared to listen to anybody who could offer them a better deal. It appears to me that this is precisely where Cameron is coming from, hence I fail to see the audacity.
2 I obviously agree with you comments about the socially regresive nature of certain kinds of taxes, but how does this fit in with Cameron’s earlier promise to follow Brown’s spending plans on Public Services/not to proactively support Tax Cuts ?
Now that the NHS pigeons in particular are finaly coming home to roost, doesn’t it make any attempts to belittle Labour for having to take the hard decisions of Government (albeit because they’re being forced to rather than doing it by choice)look rather shallow and inconsistent s well as run contrary to the puerile notion of ‘ sharing the proceeds of growth’ which were also espoused as convential project Cameron wisdom at the time ?
This is where we could and should have been in a position to be saying - ‘we told you this would happen, we told you that Labour’s spending plans on public services we utterly unsustainable’ but we’ve lost the right to be heard.
An interesting year beckons……
Tory Boy @ 3 — it will be interesting to see whether Cameron ever attacks PFI contracts and management consultancy deals which are haemorrhaging vast sums from the NHS and public sector generally.
Or do the consultants employ sufficient old Etonians to keep them off-limits?
I’m not a great fan of Ken Clarke but believe he would have attacked PFI. The private sector is taking the profits but not the risk.
Audacious, maybe we have an example of “he who dares, wins?” on the other hand coming from someone with his background, it may represent an open goal. But the reaction from others will be worth the waiting. The Lib Dems might benefit from a more audacious approach.
Tory Boy @ 3
Send two people off with a £50 to spend at a supermarket of their choice and one will most likely achieve better value, and return with a fuller trolley, than the other. This is what David Cameron appears to be offering and given the background of cuts in services such as the NHS it is the only conceivable way we can improve our lot from here onwards, unless we are prepared to accept even higher taxes.
Incidentally, I now recognise that Mike’s use of the word “audacious” reflects the Observer’s use of the same word. However, my original point remains the same.
John L.
Despite PFI being a Conservative brainchild I totally agree that this is EXACTLY the sort of waste we could have been attacking as unsustainable, offering an alternative vision for its usage,
such as more Police, prisons or whisper it, tax cuts !
I love the tongue in cheek soundbite re Eton ( discuss the ‘working class’ shadow Cabinet’s make-up !!).
You are self evidently spot on to say that the private sector is raking in ’soft’ Public funding for very little risk.Ironically,
we have condoned it with our silence to date, a great shame.
re 2. The term “audacious” was not mine but the Observer’s. What I am trying to do with the site at the moment is to reproduce extracts from newspapers in a form that gets over more the flavour of how they are treating the story. It ’s not just the words but how the headline and the pictures appear. This is not always possible from the online editions but I think this approach over the past week has worked.
So “audacious” is how the leftish Observer is portraying the move.
8 Morning Mike,
At the risk of being a pedant and fully appreciating it is the Observers word and not you own, my little Oxford has it as
‘daring, bold; impudent’
It certainly is ‘bold and impudent’.
Whether it is ‘daring’ rather than ‘crass, oportunistic; shallow’
I guess the jury is out on.
Kind regards all the best for 2007
[6] Farfield suggests that if we send two people off with a £50 to spend at a supermarket of their choice and one will most likely achieve better value, and return with a fuller trolley, than the other.
Actually, it’s most unlikely. For example, one of them might return with only £45 worth of goods because the store was out of stock of the other item(s) they wanted. More generally, “a fuller trolley” and “better value” are two different things, the latter largely subjective into the bargain.
It could be argued that this is precisely what PFI has done - filled the trolley, spent the £50, but produced poor value.
I suspect the problem is easy to describe, hard to fix. Beveridge and the other founders of the Welfare State (before almost any of us were born) would have been astonished to see it still with us on the present activity rates (proportion of insured population in employment). Indeed (IMHO) it’s only been achieved by (more or less) abolishing the housewife, and the more women have full-time careers, the later and fewer children they have - in short, we’ve bought time. But we’re coming to the end of the time we’ve bought.
There is now an influential body of opinion (and yes, in places where they make these decisions) which thinks that the management of the British economy in the 21st century is the management of economic decline, and of the associated reduction in living standards. (Yes, folks, it’s my old friends the Global Three again - globalisation, global warming and global terrorism).
This is not a prospect which any politician in opposition can talk up, since there are precisely no votes in it. Nonetheless, I suspect than when Cameron and Osborne (to say nothing of Sir Ming and dear old Vince Cable) come out from the Treasury after their pre-election briefing, they will be looking a little pale and feeling the need of a snifter. Or two snifters.
Morning all , Mike I am having problems with your site , When I log on to it , I get this article followed by the links that are normally on the right of the screen starting with previous articles from November 2006 . I can access comments to this article but not access or see previous articles from yesterday .
IA - that’s an excellent posting, which I take one different slant on.
Albeit I agree that no-one likes a Jeramiah, there is a huge difference between being a prophet of doom and telling people the truth. With the advent of unchecked global economic and industrial growth (particularly in the far east)the West’s slice of the cake
is inevitably going to decline over time, ditto our standards of life.
To this end, every Public penny spent needs to be done with an eye to achieving value for money, add on outcomes.
I see zero evidence of this being achieved by the current Government, but worse still as an opposition supporter, how either
my your lot or mine seem set to improve matters.
“Audacious” is flattering what is simply a tawdry attempt to fill the policyless wilderness even further into the future by a piece of meaningless jibberish.
His methods-learnt in PR-are transparently thin. His focus group guru Steve Hilton tell’s him that the public see the Tories as the party for the toffs and not for people like them. His solution? To make an announcement that he’s not for the toffs he’s for the working people! Even DEFRA would expect their PR to work with more subtlety!
A serious leader-rather than making himself a hostage to fortune-would be devising policies that appeal to working people possibly including tax rises for the rich to show he means what he says…….
The more I see of his modus operandi the more convinced I am that Gordon Brown will make mincemeat out of him. He really is a puppet on a string…..
Mike @ 8
It is interesting how newspapers put a lilt on their reportage through a subtle choice of words.
As a former Liverpool based newsagent I retain fond memories of one particular long-standing customer. Michael worked at the Camel Laird shipyard, where he was also a principal shop steward. He was forever dissatisfied with the British press and would regularly return to the shop to exchange whatever newspaper he had bought 5 minutes earlier for an alternative. His mainstay was the Morning Star but he would flirt with the Guardian, Mirror, and Express amongst others.
One day he started taking the Telegraph and to my astonishment this became his daily newspaper for the remaining years of his life. I went to visit him in hospital shortly before he died and asked him the question that had befuddled me for years, namely – “Why the Telegraph Michael?” His answer was quite straightforward – “Well, as soon as get home I tear out the comment page and put it on the fire, and after that, I find it to be the most unbiased newspaper there is, because it never tries to tell me how to think”.
I’m not too sure how his sentiment would apply to today’s Telegraph, but because my job enabled me to compare the press on a daily basis, I personally became convinced that Michael was absolutely right at the time.
There is some truth in this article. New Labour has jijacked the Labour party making it the party of big business and has betrayed the working classes.
The rich enjoy the benefits of the cheap labour flood and high house prices caused by overpopulation - while the poor are crying out for jobs, better pay and affordable housing.
This morning’s survey in the times is a must read.
13. Yes, Roger - we’re all waiting for your 2007 predictions with baited breath.
10. An excellent post, if a little downbeat. Slightly reminiscent of the 70s attitude re managing decline in the face of Japan and Germany abroad and union strife at home. We beat that then and there’s no reason that we can’t do the same again. And Cameron looks to be aiming at exactly the same C2 demographic that won Margaret Thatcher and John Major four elections. The reality is that those working in the private sector between lowish and middle grades have not done well out of Labour: those at the very bottom have had the minimum wage; those at the top have had large salary increases, the public sector has expanded massively - paid for by an increased tax burden - as has the benefits bill, and it’s those in the middle who’ve borne the brunt.
With the right message, they ought to be there for the taking. I don’t see any contradiction between his aim and traditional Tory values; in fact, it’s that very (Sun-reading?) group which often has the strongest Tory values - it was certainly the bedrock of the 80s electoral successes, and the 50s and 20s before that.
[12] Thanks, TB. My “quick and dirty” response is that after another Parliament-and-a-half of political thrashing about pretending there are painless solutions, we’ll follow the Germans into a “grand co-alition” (following either an inconclusive election or, alas, a terrorist outrage).
FWIW my daughter’s comments on how my generation (I’m 58 in April) has exercised its political and economic stewardship are utterly unprintable …
presumably scrapping the social chapter is part of this grand strategy for helping ‘the working classes’ too.
A pity Labour don’t have the money to run a campaign similar to the award winning series for the Ecconomist. Headline “I don’t read the Ecconomist”. Small letters ‘Jim Smith junior accounts clerk aged 47′.
“We are a party for working people. Not the rich and powerful” David Cameron. Eton and Oxford
“We are a party for working people. Not the rich and powerful”
Zak Goldsmith.etc etc etc……………
Innocent @ 10
As one who does the family shopping I have to disagree. For a start, commerce is usually pretty damned effective and it is rare to discover items are out of stock. Secondly, if a shopper buys buy BrandX baked beans as opposed to Bettabuy, Smartprice, Aldi whatever, then they are simply going to end up with less items in their basket and less money left over to pay for other shortfalls in the cupboard (NHS for example). The government recognised this years ago when it stopped paying for branded drugs when cheaper generic alternatives were available. Fire-hosing money at public services could be compared to me sending my 10 year-old son to the shops with £50 and expecting him to spend it wisely and for the greater good of the family as a whole.
‘Working’ is the Alice-in-Wonderland word here (A-i-W : a word means whatever you want it to mean).
‘Working girls’ apparently means prostitutes, though why women grafting away in any other trade aren’t ‘working girls’ baffles me. GB loves the phrase ‘hard-working families’, though after all these years, it doesn’t feel as though it resonates with his ‘target audience’ any more.
DC’s appeal to ‘working people’ is part of his rebranding of his party. He is trying remove the negative associations that the tories have been saddled with by Newlab in general, and TB in particular. DC recognises that it was the tory ‘brand’ that was attacked—and badly damaged— (Tory=sleaze etc) not their policies (”I will continue with the tories’ fiscal policies for at least the next two years” GB 1997).
At the last account, the vast majority of the country are “working people”. So I’m not too sure why this is supposed to alienate the “core vote”. He is clearly not limiting himself to the “working class”.
21 - is this a dog-whistle to those who deplore “workshy scroungers”?
roger @ 19 — it’s been done in reverse.
“New Labour, old school tie” — John Major.
“He’s a forty-something, public school-educated, barrister from Islington, with a two hundred seat majority in the House of Commons. Who does he think is the establishment?” — William Hague.
19 - you can’t say that about David Davis.
23 - who used to talk about the Tories as “Garagistes”?
Julian Critchley, wasn’t it?
26 - that’s the chap!
Personally I don’t find this “announcement” particularly surprising. It part of the similar neo-con strategy employed in both Australia and America, to target the “battlers/strivers”.
23. You can say much the same about the background of most Labour leaders - Kinnock and Callaghan are the exceptions, not the rule. Blair is simply following in the tradition of people like Attlee and Gaitskell with their upper-middle class background. In fact, most Labour leaders have been middle-class, middle-aged, married, Anglican, white, male and (the only slightly non-establishment edge) with significant non-English connections - birth or parliamentary seat. Not all fit all categories, but most fit most.
By contrast, of the two main parties, the Tory Party has had the oldest leader in the last century, the youngest leader, the only unmarried leaders, the only leader from of immigrant parents (Michael Howard, who was also of a Jewish background), and of course, the only woman leader. It has had leaders from at least as wide a range of social backgrounds as Labour, ranging from the obviously aristocratic to the much more humble. I predict it will also be the first party to have a non-white leader.
28 - more evidence, if it were needed, that we have a Conservative Party and a conservative Party
21 - I agree. After 30 years in this country I’m still surprised by the British take on class. Working people is a classless phrase (like hard working families) but many above and in the press immediately assume it means “working class’. Roger kicks in with Eton & Oxford as insults harking back to some Edwardian social structure. Cameron is stating an obvious truth - that a political party must address the mass of the electorate.
[28] Nice try, David. But all those “non-standard” leaders were elected by MPs - who have the membership gone for? Hague, IDS and now Cameron. The idea of the (present) Tory membership electing a non-white (or even female) leader is - well, do I need to supply the adjective?
27 - and, for that matter, the “Essex man” part of the Thatcher coalition.
Stating the bleedin’ obvious, I know, but the Tories have ALWAYS claimed, one way or another, to be the party of working people. Psephologists used to say (when I was first learning about it), that “The Tories would never form a government unless they had a substantial chunk of what was described as “the working class vote”. Of course, in these days of “we are all middle class now”, it is not so common for the media to point this out, but one or two recent surveys have shown that a huge chunk of people still describe themselves as “working people”. So I think it would be foolish, nay madness for Dave C NOT to make a play of this kind. He has, after all, a potential disadvantage in the Etonian connection. If Hague were the Tory leader for ex, he could play up, if only in subtle ways, his own and his family’s self-made status, which can be immensely attractive to the audience we are speaking of.
IA, I sympathise in regard to your daughter’s views. Our generation has really not looked after future generations at all. Chickens coming home to roost?!
Ted - Yes, agree, your post came in as I was writing mine! A very happy New Year to all, and we hope Jack W makes a comeback later in 2007.
Can’t wait to see DC’s 2008 new years message, will it be a call for the, ‘Dictatorship of the proletariat’
33 I agree the Conservatives have always made a public face of representing all parts of the social spectrum but the reality is that when in power they use that power to feather the nests of those already well off and themselves .
31. The MP’s elected Hague in 1997 (and some of my examples go back to the ‘magic circle’ days).
I disagree with you over you scepticism about whether the present Tory Party would elect a woman (again) or a non-white - but then I would, wouldn’t I (except for the obvious fact that there aren’t any to choose from at the moment). I don’t believe the party at large is less able to put background aside than the MPs are/were if they see a winner. They did, after all, elect Cameron ahead of Davis. The voluntary party is however, generally a lot more loyal to the leader than those in Westminster.
10 - IA, you raise an interesting point about a “reduction in living standards”.
There is an argument to be made that a “reduction in living standards” (ie the massive, overwhelming choice and ever-decreasing replacement cycles of our consumer society) could co-incide with an increase in “quality of life”.
I doubt any mainstream politician would be prepared to make it, though.
[37] Of course the MPs elected Hague - didn’t feel right as I typed it, come to think of it… and it was the Labour MPs who elected Foot (but let’s not go there
). In fairness to the membership of both parties, they’re looking for a winner - I think we can agree to write off the Tories’ 2001 contest as an exercise in defeatism, unlikely to be repeated.
[33] Tim, the good news is that my daughter has the brains in the family!
It’s a bit much to use past leadership contests as ‘evidence’ that the Conservative membership wouldn’t choose a “non-standard” leader, and is even less enlightened than the Parliamentary Party. It’s not like they’ve ever been given the option (thanks to the MPs!). And Cameron may have been “standard” in background, but certainly wasn’t in political prospectus.
[38] Perhaps we should both join the Greens, Tabbers - they could use some political nous, Lord knows. Actually the reason I don’t is that as far as I can see their inner-party life, at least in my neck of the woods, combines Stalinism with Hooray-Henryism - in my day that was the Trots, of course
Sunday Telegraph suggests Beckett for Leader of the Lords,. What’s her majority and Seat like. Happy New Year all.
Margaret Beckett as is.
Mark 36
eg Thatcher constantly harping on about “supporting small business”, but when there was a choice, “big business” would always win out!
But that doesn’t alter the point that whether pre- or post - Thatcher they have had to do enough to keep enough “woking people” (whether working class or not!) on side. DC is just the latest manifestation of that.
42. 5657 over the Lib Dems. Should be a gimme.
44. Woking has been safe Tory for ages.
Are the Tories anywhere near. Otherwise sounds like another Dunfermline tactical vote by local Tories coming up.
Not so safe these days, David! The Council at Woking has been fairly regularly hung / LD recently. The parl majority has been chiselled away by LDs. Look at what has happened up and down the Waterloo railway lines, at Guildford (OK Tory again briefly) and at Surbiton!
45 - for who?
46. 2005 result:
Margaret Beckett (Lab) 19,683 45.4 −11.0
Lucy Care (Lib Dem) 14,026 32.3 +13.0
David Brackenbury (Con) 8,211 18.9 −5.4
David Black (UKIP) 845 1.9 N/A
Frank Leeming (Veritas) 608 1.4 N/A
Wikipedia link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derby_South_%28UK_Parliament_constituency%29
47. Alright, if you insist: ‘Woking people have voted Tory for ages’! It was only a pun based on a typo!
2007 could get very interesting with the possibility of “Crash Gordon” at the helm.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml…31/nbrown31.xml
Brown’s Downing St ‘humbler, more austere’
Patrick Hennessy, Political Editor, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 11:44pm GMT 30/12/2006
Gordon Brown will preside over an exodus of Tony Blair’s allies from No 10 and usher in “humbler and more austere” government, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt…./
A fitting style after 10 years of credit binging, debt and greed. Now follows 25 years of austerity and “belt-tightening” as the economy based on the illusion of property wealth adjusts to reality. Being a dark and brooding Scot the new Britain under Brown will be a good fit.
________________________
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2137742.html?menu=
Brown cast as Labour’s ‘dark side’
David Cameron cast Gordon Brown as the “dark side” of Labour as he stepped up the Conservative attack against the likely next Prime Minister
Anthony Wells site has an interesting footnote on opinion polls and their believability . 2 polls found that roughly 50% of respondents said they would attend church this Xmas period but church head counts show the real figure is around 1/5th of this . If I had been asked I would have said I would attend an Xmas Eve service but on reflection it is 5 or 6 years since I actually did .
“Roger kicks in with Eton & Oxford as insults harking back to some Edwardian social structure. Cameron is stating an obvious truth - that a political party must address the mass of the electorate”
If you think Cameron was just stating the obvious-that political parties must address the mass of the electorate- then I think you underestimate him. Even I’m not suggesting he’s such a fool as to make such an obvious announcement. This is his solution to several opinion poll findings that the Tory’s represent the rich and have little interest in the rest. And what a risible solution!
The electorate aren’t completely stupid! They don’t believe this because Labour have told them to! They believe it because they remember 18 years of Conservative government. Including the songs of Peter Lilley at conference to thunderous applause by the delegates.
My surprise is that he thinks a New Years statement will suddenly make the public see the error of their ways.
49. That link says it becomes a safer Labour seat with Tory/Lib Dem atention eleswhere. Really. Wouldn’t have thought having come this far the Lib Dems would give up on the seat now. BTW with boundary changes they come into force in January but do they apply to By-Elections or are they still held on the old seat boundaries. Seems very confusing.
28. “I predict it will also be the first party to have a non-white leader”
Interesting David. And Peter Hitchens believes that because of their irrelevance the Tory’s wont even exist in 10-15 years! I wonder who’ll win this prediction contest?
David - noticed typo - left in to provoke!
53 Byelections held on old boundaries till next GE. Lucy Care at Derby S is a superb LD candidate, IMO. I am sure there will be no let up by LDs here irrespective of boundary changes.
54 - Peter Hitchens didn’t appear even to be aware that the Conservatives had any Welsh MPs.
Peter Hitchens made the interesting point that everyone believes that the political center of gravity is where they stand. For someone who felt like a mainstream Conservative during Thather’s time it must be depressing to believe- as he does-that the present lot are further away from his ‘center’ than even the Labour Party. I also happen to think he is right about Gordon Brown. Tories should underestimate him at their peril!
Incidentally Peter Hitchens statement is eminently sensible, just not for the reasons he intended.
What will be largely irrelevant is the traditional Conservative party of caricature (and the spiritual home of Peter Hitchens). That was amply demonstrated by the failures of the 2001 and 2005 elections. Indeed it would not be the first time - several “Conservative Parties” have died in the past. British society is moving on. It is nonsensical to suggest that the Conservative Party, adapting its policies and beliefs to the modern world, will “die through irrelevance”. What or who is he suggesting will replace it?
52 The Conservatives would never have won an election if they only represented the interests of the rich. In fact, what made Margaret Thatcher so successful in the eighties was that she demonstrated to many working class voters that their interests were better served by her, than by Labour.
60. The near communistisation of the Labour Party in the early eighties probably helped just a tad as well.
Are any political parties true to their roots?
We now have the Tories targeting the working class and the BNP targeting the upper classes!!!!!!!!!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=425586&in_page_id=1770
BB
Clever positioning from Cameron, there is great disquiet among labour voters beyond the middle class managerial types who it has served so well (and who continue to see no problem with it). This links in with my comments at the end of yesterday’s thread, parties change over time and its detractors will fail if they try and pin the past onto the present; with this fluidity (aided immeasurably by labour’s massive change of character) it is now a good time for any party to restate or re-evaluate its core philosophy.
62 An interesting and perceptive article. I expect 2007 to be the BNP’s best ever year.
61 Undoubtedly so. But the rich make up about 3% of the population. If the Conservatives only represented their interests, they’d just be a fringe party.
This is all good stuff from Cameron and it is about time we showed people that only the Conservatives really will care about working people rather than the keeping them in their place attitude by the Labour snobs.
65. Troubling. What’s your esyimate of them. You think PR will give them Council seats in Scotland and any list seats in Scots/welsh Assemblies at all.
They don’t have much support in Scotland and Wales, Punter, so I’d be surprised if they were to win anything even with PR.
My guess is that they’ll win an extra 40-60 English council seats in May.
68 - will they generally do well in ‘new’ areas, or ones where they already have a substantial base though? I only ask because a number of BNP councillors, from what we hear, haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory.
It’s a relief there is no PR yet for Local Elections in Wales, as I could easily see some areas along the m4 corridor where they may get a few. Nothing like Lancs but just a couple would be serious enough.
67 - Sean is correct re. Scotland. So far as I know they are only putting up candidates in two regions (not sure if they’ll have any contesting constituencies) neither of whom will have any chance of being elected.
Where the BNP seems to have done well is in areas with significant numbers of ethnic minorities. Scotland is still an overwhelmingly ‘white’ country which probably partly explains why they are unlikely to make a break through.
71. No. I thin Mr Fear has already said they do well in White areas that border areas with a high immigrant population eg Barking. In Scotland I suspect the SNP fortunately acts as the sponge for the sod em all vote in such areas. In Wales Plaid barely exist in some of these old Labour areas in the deprived Vallleys hence the danger of PR in Local Elections opening the door for them BNP and their like etc.
I’m “working class”, if we must employ these dated labels, and I can’t imagine voting anything other than Tory. Dave is absolutely right to realise there’s nothing to fear and everything to gain by seeking to draw more support from this sector of society.
72 - didn’t Plaid pick up support in fairly unexpected places in 1999, though? They seem to be there in the background when voters want to give Labour a kicking (and there are no Peter Law figures around).
74. One or two areas but there are still swathes in satellite villages and towns in the valleys that have no Plaid presence even in 1999. Any case the bar is much lwer even with PR to get a Councillor than a AM.
The is no contridiction here between conservative supporters and David Cameron’s statement of representing working people. As the majority of conservative supporters see themselves as working people, whatever their income phrases like working pepople nad hard working families represent larger sections of the electorate rather than perphaps the class rhetoric used by socialists in the late twetieth century.