Peter Hitchens goes further than me, well, he goes further than most people, but in this instance I cannot fault his thinking. Where-as I am looking forward to bidding farewell to 'Dave 'n' George', either this year or in 2015 when they lose the next election, Hitchens goes further in yesterday's Mail and insists that we should say our goodbyes to the entire Conservative party for this very compelling reason:
You have to say one thing for the Prime Minister. His strategy of driving away the Tory Party’s traditional supporters is a roaring success.
The other bit of the plan, in which thousands of Guardian readers and Labour voters would flock to Mr Slippery’s rainbow banner, hasn’t quite worked out. It never will.
The Tories are now (in my view rightly) loathed and despised by people from all political viewpoints and all walks of life.
Well, can't argue with any of that! But he continues in a mood I can only describe as vengeful gotterdamerung:
Even if you’re still deluded enough to believe that a Tory government would be any use to you, nothing that you do will change the outcome of the next Election. It’ll either be a Labour administration or a Lib-Lab one, which is the same thing.
This is your chance to sweep away a party whose time has gone, which long ago ceased to be what it claimed to be, which despises its own supporters, which has now added failure to fraud and treachery as its chief characteristics.
Don’t work or vote for it. If you feel for some odd reason that voting is a duty, vote for UKIP. Britain’s Left-wing elite truly fear the destruction of the Tory Party that
would follow a thumping defeat of the kind it deserves.
They rightly see its existence as a barrier to the birth of a truly pro-British party, one that could sweep New Labour, the Liberal Democrats and all their works into the sea.
I think what he is asking is - what is the Tory party for? And if it fails to defend and to propogate those principles dearly beloved by people of a conservative disposition, then his conclusion is that it might as well be consigned to the dustbin of history and an entirely new party formed from the ashes of the old.
Hmmmn! I will now try and think of some argument - any argument - to justify the continued existence of the (non)-Conservative Party.
Well, give me a chance, it's not easy . . . !
