Proud to be a Tory!

It should be pointed out that “Whig” was also a derogatory term. To be ashamed of the word ‘Tory’ is to be ashamed of great political legacy of Edmund Burke and Pitt the Younger who opposed the carnage and ideological nonsense of the French Revolution and established a pragmatic, gradually reforming nation which respected its traditions rather than a revolutionary mess.

If it were not for the Tories Britain would be a completely different (and much worse) nation.

That is why I am proud to call myself a Tory – indeed a Tory in the REAL sense of the word. None of this classical liberal nonsense!

Own the term.

What is Conservatism?
… I conclude this, as I draw my conclusions on many questions, from timings and dates. Dawn’s son has his engagement party planned for Friday 04-Feb-11 and our wedding anniversary is 7th February. Dawn fled the scene last July which makes it six months she will have been distant. Marriage is a thing the Conservatives approve decently (and generally people with natural Conservative proclivities this a subject I have treated before) and I conclude that Conservatives will take great interest in my case (www.barrass‑brough.org) the reason being it centres crucially on freedom of the individual set against pressures of demographic magnitude and to be specific the State as run by Civil Servants the new modus oligarchia.
Yesterday or the day before I was driven to remind bystanders that Mrs Thatcher had said inflation is theft. This was in connection with the cost to me – theft from me – due to mistaken medical practice. However this morning waiting for the first bus of my day I was reflecting on Mrs Thatcher’s words more in the strict economic sense. Inflation thieves from me because of what other people do en masse. Because the country – egged on by the Government – is a runaway success and people have more money they go out and spend it which bids up prices. This means I have to compete in the rat-race for work or starve as my savings dwindle to insignificance. If I participate in Society to the extent of working for my living my wages are a price which gets bid up along with the others.
I have pondered whether there is any way people – other than people pursued relentlessly by Civil Servants who want easy pickings and run the rulers of the country to try to ensure them – can escape the forces of demography. The way out is to form or become part of a commune, perhaps based on religious principles (I could make up a community of eremites to the number of one: unless Dawn comes home; other people could join up with Hare Krishna or the Carmelites), and farm for myself (or ourselves). Even Mrs Thatcher in trying to make a poll-tax work exempted members of religious orders who were wholly outside of Society. Having realised this way out into the Good Life I might see myself sending this ‘essay’ inclusively to the LibDem members of the Government with no importunity.
The basic problem in the world is finiteness of space (as my regular readers will know). People proliferate and keep proliferating because there are economies of scale. This means there is nowhere to go for those of us who want to be alone and not join in with all the rest. The way out to try (as I say) is smaller-scale community, but those who cannot be entirely on their own need two languages: English to speak to the world and la belle langue française (or dialect) to get pally with one or two close associates (or friends and lovers).
I have been thinking (a related topic) about Tory attitudes to immigration. The first serious thoughts on immigration I had arose when I saw a TV series about Robin Hood and came to understand that the Norman invaders were immigrants and there was a lot of tension for centuries afterwards between Norman successors and Anglo-Saxon indigenes. From this I took cognisance of what I read which was to the effect that the English population derives from a mélange of immigrants who came wave after wave.
Therefore immigration is good because it introduces diversity and fair diversity encourages betterment because there is bound to be some good among the lot of them and the good will flourish. Why then do some Tories, sensible people all, disapprove of immigration?
The answer lies in numbers. If ten times the present population arrive and start speaking French there will not be fair diversity there will be rule by francophony. If the numbers are less disparate there will be change: one tenth of every word published will be a French word. This is the rub for traditional Conservatives: they have an aversion response to change.
Capitalism means providing for the future, and it is associated with P and L because the way you carry a surplus forward for the future is by spending less in the present than your income. Conservatism is slightly different: it means not spending all of your savings. Conservatives do not like sudden change because the change will mean loss of savings (one way being through the theft which is inflation and inflation of 20% per annum deserves calling sudden change). But people who like to make a profit like to make a sudden large profit, don’t they? If they are Conservative Capitalists it is less so, because looking beyond next year they can see that an extraordinary profit, in the meaning of the word, will not be repeated (not unless there is rampant inflation which is an attraction to some profiteers who simply like looking at the numbers mount).
So Conservatives are Capitalists who look beyond next year, and also they look back to learn from the past. They do not like abrupt alteration because one cannot learn from constant chopping and changing.