The FALL of the CONSERVATIVE PARTY - In The Library... EP #9 | Peter Oborne with Adrian Goldberg 

Great interview with Peter Oborne

The demise of the Tory party goes back a lot longer. Back to 1979 in fact when Margaret Thatcher said that she didn't like the terms conservative or consensus, and announced herself as a follower of the wild west, free market ideas of Hayek and Friedman. There's a good chance that many of her own cabinet had heard of neither since Keynesian social democratic capitalism had been the fashion since the war in Britain and western Europe, and even America had pursued vestiges of New Dealism right up until the advent of Reagan (a hokey, professional good 'ol boy with a limited intellect put up by a clutch of very rich businessmen). While the trade unions in Britain may have been overmighty at the time (it was Harold Wilson and Barbara Castle in 1969 who wanted to bring some sense to our industrial relations but were betrayed by others in their cabinet) there was still, at least, the balance between capital and labour that is necessary to keep modern day capitalism alive. When Margaret Thatcher came along, that balance was disturbed. She wanted to encourage businessmen to put goods in the shop window while forgetting that if the mass of the workforce were on the dole (due to a recession caused by her and Geoffrey Howe) they will have precious little spare cash left to the buy the goods. We see this happening again with Cameron and Osborne and their austerity, where the mass of the people (the market for the businessman's goods) are spending half their salaries in rents or mortgages payments. Earlier generations of Conservatives like Macmillan would have understood this. Today's Tories are not Conservatives, they are what Andrew Rawnsley describes as Blue Anarchists. But this trend originated with Margaret Thatcher, prodded by what is known as the Tufton Street Brigade: Institute of Economic Affairs, Adam Smith Institute, Centre for Policy Studies, etc. Organisations funded by big quantities of corporate and financial dosh; some of it having been found to come from fossil fuel companies and tobacco companies.

Good analysis. Even working class Kemi will not be the saviour, rather she'll be the catalyst for the final leap to the right and oblivion.

MacMillan would be too left for todays Labour party.

I always thought mr Oborne was a true conservative himself? I also thought he was a bit biased & boring. But, since the grandees of the corrupt MSM have bombed him out, he now can & does tell the truth, and is amazingly informative. I’m now very impressed with him as a journalist! Keep up the good work Peter. The honest truth is always the best kind of journalism.

So the fall of the Tories is Tony Blairs fault? Exhonoration complete.

Blair. The prodigy child of whom Thatcher was so proud of.

When I moved to the West Country 25 years ago the Tory councillor actually knocked on my door canvassing for the next election. I have never voted Tory and never ever will, but I did know who he was and I respected his commitment to try to speak to everybody in his ward at least once between every election. We did have a fairly brief but friendly conversation at the door and he did say he represented everybody in his ward, not just those who voted for him. He would be very elderly now, and he was from the generation when the Tories did have three million card carrying members and the Young Conservatives, now extinct, were basically a middle class marriage agency. Of course I didn't appreciate this at the time but people like him got involved in local politics because they wanted to leave the world in a better place than they found it. Fast forward to the recent General Election and the Tory Parliamentary candidate was a former Boris Johnson staffer with no connections to the area and was parachuted at the last minute into a seat which the Tories normally almost always win. She lost, but she represents what the Tory Party has now become and it seems to me that it is unrecognisable even to former members and supporters.

Thatcher’s Westminster destroyed society and the welfare state, and in doing so the link between the politicians and the population. The politicians’ priorities and the citizens diverged; this explains the drop in memberships. It has become more and more obvious that the population is on its own, with every Westminster government reverting to short-termism and city interests. To the detriment of society as a whole.

The beginning of the end, ironically, was triggered by Margaret Thatcher with, most notably, the ramifications of Big Bang upon Twinset-and-pearls volunteer lady and her Tory family. The Sloane Ranger Handbook, published as a piece of fun in 1982, has morphed into a document of social history, spotlighting, from today’s perspective, the writing on the wall. Big Bang ushered in the Yuppies, who rapidly pulled the business rug from under Tim-Nice-But-Dim’s feet. Essex Boy Jason was drawn to Thatcher’s party, but his self-made man values were radically different from those of Col. Jeremy and blue-rinse Daphne. Lodsamoney Jason has, now, become the Tory party.

I love these comprehensive objective explainations

That was an excellent taster. His argument about powerless Tory membership falls down on one point - Liz Truss. She was voted for by Tory members, not the billionaires she hoped to help.

No money in it when Thatcher was privatising stuff then?

The second I witnessed Oborne claim Gove is "a trot", I stopped watching and will never listen to another word he says.

People like oboe never called this out

Peter Oborne in my opinion is a very wise man. He is very much a man of my own heart. i think he is right. Money has destroyed the Tory Party. The love of money is the root of all evil. That evil has destroyed and continues to destroy the Conservative Party.

Can we have one about the destruction of the Labour Party.

I’m furious at the deception here. I generally dislike Oborne’s views but was quickly drawn in to what seemed like an excellent and informative analysis. But then it suddenly ends and demands a switch to somewhere else demanding payment. Go to hell.

Great show as always

Presumably, 'spiritual' means something different since Johnson?

he would know hes one of em a liar

The fall of Peter Oborne . . . .

blame blair for what murdoch and thatcher did

His no conservative 💩