At around half ten last morning I was rudely awakened by a pair of family members with whom I had apparently the night before arranged something I at that point highly regretted.
There was some gathering of all the horses who were involved in hunts around the country arranged together in order to have a race. It was an annual event named Point to Point, arranged and attended by the sort best described as “Ra”. My immediate reaction was to plead lack of interest, a matter only exacerbated by the fact that I had spent up until nine that morning wasting time on IRC.
Somehow though I managed to plug some emergency energy reserve that I was not aware of the existence of, perhaps some mine of sugar created my my over-indulgence upon Easter Sunday. I opted to attend purely because I knew that I would otherwise fill the void of the day with nothing else. My objection to attending an event that catered solely for a pack of species-based bigots was blunted by the fact that foxhunting is illegal and has been for a few years now.
The journey was taken in a Land Rover and I went with my sister, her boyfriend and his brother, the latter of which was driving and had plugged his iPod into the car’s soundsystem, that blasted out everything from psy-trance to the Wurzles, including a song appropriately entitled “Converting Vegetarians”.
The event itself was to be far less entertaining and much more cold, with the cars ending up parked on the side of a hill and me being informed by my sister that “Everyone who will be here is a supporter of the Conservative Party.”
This was as I’d imagined but barring one lone freak with various facial piercings the crowd was precisely as I’d imagined it: middle aged men with a sense of entitlement were ubiquitous along with their clearly pampered children, the girls seemed vaguely and hazily tolerable as you gazed over them yet once any specific femme was put under scrutiny their expensive deception became clear and the mediocrity of their looks all the more biting for their initial success in conning the eye, blonde hair dominated and the average price of it most likely ran into the hundreds, men wore flat-caps without hint of irony and exchanged hearty chest laughs, there was not a single non-white present that I saw, the only working class people I met were the bookies.
The event was partially one of pro-hunting propaganda, or presentation and celebration of genuine rural culture, if you will. The air of degeneration was almost palpable and we were informed by a woman with a slurred voice over that left her sounding as if heavily medicated over a blaring, jarring tannoy that they now involved themselves in trail races. These are a form of blood-free races whereby a horse-rider leaves a scent behind it that the dogs then pursue and can be summarised with the word “Triangulation”.
The voice continued to inform us that all of the “Hunting community” was opposed to the Hunting Ban, which had previously lingered around unspoken and insidious and that if we wish to do anything about it then the Countryside Alliance had a tent.
Despite the impression I may have given I actually had a fun time but it is here where this entire thing becomes relevant: I went over to the CA and had an immensely awkward conversation with them. I had originally intended to ask them about how exactly they could demand funds for post offices and other infrastructure {their primary aim when I enquired as to their other aims and efforts} and yet kick up such a fuss about “Interference” from the city concerning their bloodsports. Instead however I found them rather disarmingly pathetic and it was entirely obvious to them that I was not their natural demographically typical supporter thus we were left standing their in a stilted fashion.
In hindsight, though, one part of the conversation {such as it was} stood out clearly, when I asked them what they fancied their chances of achieving priority #1 were a woman with terribly over-applied blue eye-liner who was apparently in charge of such affairs {the portly man otherwise running the stall deferred to her when I asked} replied as followed:
Pretty high I imagine, if the Conservatives get in. Cameron’s committed to having it repealed.
I replied that I had received the impression that it was not the highest priority on his legislative agenda.
But in hindsight this was perhaps a more revealing reply than it had seemed at the time. It needs to be considered in the light of Cameron being an unexceptional Etonian {in terms of parentage and wealth rather than academic achievement} and the figures filling his Shadow Cabinet being from similar backgrounds. Although wary of Marxism this is one of the areas where class seems to be one of the utmost importance.
The people surrounding me at that time were the sort who Cameron grew up with. I have no idea if he attended but the aforementioned boyfriend’s brother, who explained having a Land Rover by informing me that most of his friends had estates, was most likely in a position that Cameron would sympathise with.
And as I considered this my confusion with the apparent void of coherent philosophy in Cameron’s conservatism slipped away into nothing. How was it possible for Cameron to describe himself as a “Small government liberal” to the government while letting his home secretary demand social engineering? Simple, the usage of that word was a lie. Or at least a euphemism in the same way that in America “Libertarian” is largely a euphemism for a rich white man who wants to keep their money. Cameron’s real ideology is in favour of privillege.
Now I appreciate that this is what you would expect from a leftist subjecting the Conservatives to analysis but I am as wary of such knee-jerkage as any man but it is the only conclusion I have reached that holds and water, so please consider:
The past two leaders worth mentioning were their Prime Ministers, Major and Thatcher. The former was the daughter of a grocery store owner and never hid this fact. Although far from deprived she was certainly what could be termed “Petty bourgeois” and according to those around her was rather proud of this fact, contrasting herself with the carefully public schooled “Wets” surrounding her, filling the party with their One Nation weakness, perhaps learned from A level classes centered around D’Israeli. After her Major, a man who had never attended a University and began his adult life in a bank, ascending through the ranks with perhaps minor assistance from internal contacts but certainly not progressing in a fashion that lacked in demonstration of talent.
As such it was understandable that they would embrace the neo-liberalism that suffused the New Right while not performing neo-conservative lurches {Falklands War, “Back to Basics” et al}. Neo-liberalism is best understood as nothing new at all but instead Classical Liberalism mildly adapted so as to prove appropriate for contemporary application. This means dismantlement of vast portions of the modern state, yes, but it also means that those who achieve must be allowed to flourish. The central concept behind the Free Market is that of justice: those worthy of success achieve it while those that are failures flounder unless they emulate those that do not or appeal to the consumers in an innovative fashion.
At present the Conservative party is not interested in justice, it is not meritocratic in intent, it does not reflect the will of Mill. It wishes to protect privilege.
One of the main talking points of new Tory rhetoric has been {strikingly} its offensives towards EMA. The Education Maintenance Allowance is one of the rare benefits of being governed by social liberals and has allowed many teens who would otherwise have either found school unappealing or deemed it impossible as they were needed to earn a wage find it possible to attend a school. I am on it personally and have found it immensely beneficial. Even if you take the most cynically pessimistic stance possible and assume that my saving of the money and only occasional usage of it to support the family is a freak anomaly then you still have poor young adults able to enjoy a night out with their more affluent friends, thus strengthening the cohesion of the social network in a pleasingly egalitarian fashion and encouraging them to continue attendance.
But the Tories are having none of it, attacking it in a vigorous fashion and clearly being keen on its removal. I imagine that had they had had deprived lives they might feel differently but if you consider their front bench, they haven’t.
The idea of the EMA is that the state can provide an incentive to poor children, in order to entice those unwilling into learning that which will benefit them and to enable those who are incapable to handle the fiscal logistics. It could be considered the epitome of Third Way triangulation, a mixture of liberal emphasis upon personal choice and the value of an education and the socialist love of providing money to those in need. It provides nothing, however, for the wealthy in terms of direct benefits. As such it is a tax drain and should be eliminated.
More damning still we see the centre piece of the Tory financial policy, the part most remarked upon and emphasised and the policy that is said to have altered history to an extent we can not yet determine and delayed the election, being the increase of the inheritance tax to £1,000,000. This was a measure introduced by David Lloyd George, the last great Liberal Prime Minister, one that went untouched by any of the copious Tories that followed him. To propose repeal of this policy is to launch a direct assault of meritocracy, to suggest that the will of the wealthy to transfer there goods is of greater import than the benefit that can be delivered to the most needy in society by the assured comfort of their children being denied.
But that is what the grand chaps and ladies of Point to Point covet and it is what, under the Conservatives, they will receive. Or would, I optimistically amend. Once again, meritocracy is rejected, spurned in favour of the already affluent retaining and transferring amongst themselves.
As for the wide-ranging Green Wash that the Conservative Party has ineluctably undergone of late, from the logo to the huskie photo-op and generating a vast amount of rhetoric but immensely scanty policy, well that is rather reminiscent of the efforts undertaken practically simultaneously by Shell. But is it an effort to file down the fangs of the party that left the public anxious for so long? Perhaps. Most likely though it is a fusion of this and the awareness that many of the privileged do actually care about such things. In lieu of personal concerns about mortgages, heating bills and other such mundane worries the wealthy have always found some other cause to fill their existences and time. Eco-conservatism is effectively a more fashionable variety of socialism, following the reasoning outlined by Rod Dreher and Andrew Sullivan in a classic trans-atlantic trend lift but for the slight twist that Sullivan first attempted this in 1985 and all efforts in America to create Green Conservatism have been almost as miserable a failure as that was.
{Besides of cause the immense coup of winning over McCain, but given his maverick RINO credentials that perhaps serves only to emphasise the point.}
Regardless, the wealthy are able to purchase pricey organic produce from the appropriate aisles of Sainsburys or the local farmer’s market and haven enough time on their hands to concern themselves with such matters. The poor get less of an opportunity and as such we are left with the results of Co-Op’s studies on what concerns them having results for Global Warming that the Guardian was forced to preface with “Surprisingly…”
The weigh-up between poverty and matters ethical is not one that makers of the front-bench Tories have ever had to make, though. I am not suggesting here that this makes them unfit for government, that Labour high-rankers have not enjoyed lives of extreme privilege or that it somehow invalidates any of their positions, simply that the influence the Tories’ background exerts upon their outlook is clearly so dominant as to be utterly obvious and apparently serves to the exclusion of all empathy.
Consider marriage, the Tory proposal is effectively that single parents will subsidise married ones. Never mind that the latter almost invariably earn far more than the former, the hefty tax-cut shall be given to the more secure and the balance will be made by making the single parent suffer. Why? To set an example. To send out a message.
My nausea with this sort of politics {laws for purposes of transmission} will have to wait for another time as both parties {all, in fact} are guilty on these grounds to an extent that leave it worthy of thorough consideration exclusively. But the fact that the Cameron emanates from a strata of society where an overwhelmingly disproportionately high number of parents are marries is obvious. Even amongst my middle class peers the majority of my close friends have separated parents and this personal anecdote would be hyperbolic if considered the norm but not wildly so. It is only right at the top that the marriages totter on, never mind if it’s a sham it’s good form. If the media hadn’t shoved their lens into the bedroom of the royals that lie of a union would most likely be still staggering to this day.
It takes a warped form of viewpoint to imagine these these hollow husks as more worthwhile than an honest split but, again, an affluent upbringing provides it. There is a total disconnection between the lives most lead and the bubble of high society which the Old Money have generated for themselves, one that has left the Conservative party near blind. Certainly too much so to have any aspirations for One Nation being anything more than just that.
Yet they have rejected meritocracy quite clearly, pronouncing that money shall stay where it is save for the hand-me-down and being quite clear in that the government will not be supporting school children. It is so easy to grow cynical with the Conservatives that I’ve almost concluded that their opposition to ID cards is founded on the fact that even the wealthy land-owners, who are clearly not terrorists or criminals, would be forced to keep one about their person. I rejected this as those tweed coats tend to have a vast amount of pockets and thus it would surely be less of an inconvenience than for others, if anything. If a right devil to keep track of…
Irrespective of this the present order clearly denotes a transcendent insurgency of the Old Money elements that formerly ran the show. The only difference here is that the public spirit that used to epitomise this breed, the aspect of that crowd that Thatcher so truly despised, is absent, or at least severely perverted. The rejection of the state is present but society is considered as in existence {how else can it have a “High” section?} and thus Number 10 is conceived of as a pulpit, with Dave our secular preacher.
As methods of coping with the drawn-out demise of the CofE go I’d rather have radical Islam.
When the most radical and exciting philosophy within it consists of a pack of poignant but ultimately inane non-sequiters linked to the overly technophilic and absurdly reductionist ramblings of a madman who claimed that humans were comprehensible by machines that had not yet reached Iteration X, that were disowned as soon as their creator ceased to be insane, you know that a party is suffering from a severe malaise. That sort of pap, which would be rejected even by the Guardian, is actually the closest that they have to a coherent philosophy at the moment, given the aforementioned tendency of any philosophy they lay claim to being clearly and completely contradicted by a later policy. From green tories out to save the earth to classical liberals who let people suffer from their inaction and minimise the state to pro-prison types who want to out-build the government’s maniac fantasies, while peddling a side-line in sever social engineering to whatever next incarnation they opt for, as expedient. All to hide the raw wealth beneath that explains all they do and everything they propose.
I suspect that the recent budget would have done well to drive this insincerity into the fore by forcing hard a large rise on fuels, tearing the party down the lines of anti-tax activists and earnest eco-cons and winning either way, be it through defects {but who to?} or sit-at homes {more likely} or through gunning at the blatant hypocrisy exposed by a party flushed with green embracing the black stuff.
So far Labour seems timid, though. I suspect that they fear there might actually be something to the alleged shift. They’re right in the concept but not the response or the anxiety, the Tories really have changed but it’s to whole-hearted support of those already wealthy. The new rich? It’s not against them. But that’s no longer who it’s for.
Who, then? Those who get annoyed by nothing more than the Labour government’s decree that they are no longer allowed to gather the hounds and kill a fox. Them. And those around them.