These are exactly the voters who Labour could capture. Blair took a chunk of them.sheldrake wrote: ↑Thu Sep 16, 2021 9:45 amThere are certainly non-Thatcherite Conservatives (I'm using the Big C for now so as not to cause confusion with social conservatives who may vote Labour), but they still tend to like the idea of thriving small businesses and people trying to be self-reliant. It's closely tied to their concepts of 'personal responsibility' and even 'personal freedom' to a degree. Where they tend to part company from Thatcherites is that they often also hold socially conservative views that trump economic concerns (e.g. they might not like Sunday trading, or think that Murdoch-owned media is vulgar etc..)
I would say Peter Hitchens is a vocal example of a 'non-Thatcherite conservative'. I'm a lot more future oriented than that, but a world where all the windswept high-streets consist of boarded up shopfronts, fried chicken takeaways and slot-machine arcades whilst everything else is ordered online from 2 tax-evading megacorps is grim as f.ck from my perspective.
I would say both the main political parties are completely dominated by corporate-sponsored neoliberals now, and have been for a couple of decades.
Starmer needs to look closely at these beliefs because there's a big overlap with traditional Labour values. Decent jobs with decent pay for decent hard working folk is a Labour vote winner that appeals across the spectrum.
Corbyn f.cked it because he came across as being against thriving small business along side being against the tax-evading megacorps. The tabloids exaggerated, of course, but he was never interested in self-reliance and personal responsibility when he could gaze lovingly at 1970s socialism instead. Biden always remembered the socially conservative views of his voting coalition and their general lack of interest in the crap that excites left-wing student politicians.
The character of "Boris" fakes an interest in personal responsibility and thriving small businesses while Johnson gets on with serving the megacorps and raking in the corporate sponsorship.