Homer, this one is for you - largely because you are the only person who reads this thing.
I note your comment that we "might not agree, politically". You may be right but it is difficult to tell across the two bodies politic. It would be a mistake to equate the American Republican party with the British Conservative party or the American Democrats with the British Labour party. The histories and traditions are completely different and the positions of the parties don't really coincide.
The British Conservative party was acutely uncomfortable with the Bush administration, for example, whereas the Labour party was closely aligned with it over Iraq and Afghanistan. But more generally, the Conservative party is socially liberal in a way that would appall modern Republicans. Alan Duncan, an openly gay Conservative, pushed through the Civil Partnerships Act ("Gay marriage") during the last Parliament and the Conservatives have more openly gay politicians in Parliament than does the Labour party. The welfare state, including the National Health Service was conceived under Winston Churchill during the second world war - he described it as "a net below which none may fall but above which all may be free to rise". It has become a net below which none may fall but above which all may become entangled, but that is another story.
The Conservatives also have no particular religious bent and certainly no ideological position on abortion. Where they do overlap with the Republicans is their belief in Freedom as an ideal and their preference for private enterprise over state intervention where possible.
The Labour party was born during the revolutionary days of the early twentieth century and was committed to the replacement of capitalism by socialism which they saw as requiring the seizure of the means of production by the workers. Until Tony Blair modernised the party it was still bound by Clause 4 of its constitution: To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service. This was undoubtedly an anti-capitalist, anti-free-enterprise ideal that would never have been allowed to take root in America. During much of my life, the Labour party has acted according to this ideal -by nationalising such companies as BP, British Airways, the Railways, the Steel industry and the telephone companies. The last truly socialist Labour government in the 1970s even tried to manufacture cars!
So for much of my life the choice has been between the Conservatives - a coalition of everyone who believed in a broadly free-enterprise society in which people could succeed according to their efforts and an authoritarian socialist party that believed in enforcing equality on the population by the central control of the means of production. Within that Conservative coalition you would find people who would be comfortable in the American Republican party and people who would be comfortable as Democrats. They were united by a belief in freedom of the individual and the right of people to live their own lives as they wished, without the State telling them what to do.
Blair did change that. He revoked Clause 4 and replaced it with the much blander: The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few, where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe, and where we live together, freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect. But the instincts of the Labour party have not really changed. They reach for the State at every opportunity where the Conservatives prefer individual freedom.
So there you have it. I would say that the British Conservatives are a much broader coalition than the American Republicans without some of the nutty religious and social overlay. It may be that you and I would be on opposite sides if we shared the same environment, but it may also be that we would not.
I note your comment that we "might not agree, politically". You may be right but it is difficult to tell across the two bodies politic. It would be a mistake to equate the American Republican party with the British Conservative party or the American Democrats with the British Labour party. The histories and traditions are completely different and the positions of the parties don't really coincide.
The British Conservative party was acutely uncomfortable with the Bush administration, for example, whereas the Labour party was closely aligned with it over Iraq and Afghanistan. But more generally, the Conservative party is socially liberal in a way that would appall modern Republicans. Alan Duncan, an openly gay Conservative, pushed through the Civil Partnerships Act ("Gay marriage") during the last Parliament and the Conservatives have more openly gay politicians in Parliament than does the Labour party. The welfare state, including the National Health Service was conceived under Winston Churchill during the second world war - he described it as "a net below which none may fall but above which all may be free to rise". It has become a net below which none may fall but above which all may become entangled, but that is another story.
The Conservatives also have no particular religious bent and certainly no ideological position on abortion. Where they do overlap with the Republicans is their belief in Freedom as an ideal and their preference for private enterprise over state intervention where possible.
The Labour party was born during the revolutionary days of the early twentieth century and was committed to the replacement of capitalism by socialism which they saw as requiring the seizure of the means of production by the workers. Until Tony Blair modernised the party it was still bound by Clause 4 of its constitution: To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service. This was undoubtedly an anti-capitalist, anti-free-enterprise ideal that would never have been allowed to take root in America. During much of my life, the Labour party has acted according to this ideal -by nationalising such companies as BP, British Airways, the Railways, the Steel industry and the telephone companies. The last truly socialist Labour government in the 1970s even tried to manufacture cars!
So for much of my life the choice has been between the Conservatives - a coalition of everyone who believed in a broadly free-enterprise society in which people could succeed according to their efforts and an authoritarian socialist party that believed in enforcing equality on the population by the central control of the means of production. Within that Conservative coalition you would find people who would be comfortable in the American Republican party and people who would be comfortable as Democrats. They were united by a belief in freedom of the individual and the right of people to live their own lives as they wished, without the State telling them what to do.
Blair did change that. He revoked Clause 4 and replaced it with the much blander: The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few, where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe, and where we live together, freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect. But the instincts of the Labour party have not really changed. They reach for the State at every opportunity where the Conservatives prefer individual freedom.
So there you have it. I would say that the British Conservatives are a much broader coalition than the American Republicans without some of the nutty religious and social overlay. It may be that you and I would be on opposite sides if we shared the same environment, but it may also be that we would not.
posted by Hugh M | 9:21 pm
1 Comments:
Let me rush to comment before your thousands of readers start to chime in.
I really appreciate your excellent description of the history and nature of your British parties. You would make a great teacher. (maybe you do teach on the side)
It appears that your election system is so much better than ours, with its constant campaigning and the demand for money corrupting our politics.
Will there be a change to proportional allocation of votes?
Although I'm considered a wild-eyed leftist pinko in this Republican area of North Carolina, we are probably not that far apart politically. I might be a Conservative there. While I favor universal health care, full campaign financing, strong regulation, and social liberalism, I also favor private enterprise and freedom, and oppose union "card check", union teacher
tenure. and excessive welfare coddling.
And your Conservatives are not like the Republicans, who want
less government but want it to intrude into private matters such as abortion.
On the gay marriage issue you raise, the multitudes that read my blog know that for many years I have said that government should do only civil unions for all and let religions do "marriage" as they wish.
Enough of politics. What are your thoughts on the World Cup?
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