We are not a Party of unbridled, brutal capitalism and never have been. Although we believe in personal responsibility and personal initiative in business, we are not the political children of the laissez-faire school. We opposed them decade after decade.I don't think any further need be said.
Where did the Tories stand when the greed and squalor of the industrial revolution were darkening the land? I am content with Keir Hardie's testimony: "As a matter of hard dry fact, from which there can be no getting away, there is more labour legislation standing to the credit account of the Conservative Party on the Statute Book than there is to that of their opponents."
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Conservatives and the free market
Whilst going through some articles today I found the following quote from Anthony Eden at the 1947 Conservative Party conference on what the Consevatives stand for:
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6 comments:
But there is a difference between the then emerging One Nation Toryism of the Butskell variety, which I respect, and that of the Thatcherite variety which Denis Dealey once described as "the politics of Alf Garnett and the economics of Arthur Daley"
LOL Anthony Eden...well we all know what happened to him. Are you going to quote Jeremy Thorpe when speaking in favour of the Liberals next? Perhaps Peter Mandleson as the voice of integrity in Socialism?
The cases are not comparible - Mandelson and Thorpe were destroyed because of their personal dealings. Eden screwed up his foreign polic, but in many ways he was the leading figure in rebuilding the party after the 1945 election defeat.
The Tories lost the 1945 election...
Gosh. that's what I just said!
I'm not sure that the issue of which of two Victorian liberal parties Hardie thought the most liberal has much relevance today.
I also seem to remember from A level history that the Taff Vale judgement came under the Tories watch and nothing was done about it until the Liberal party won the 1906 election.
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