Are the Conservatives conservative?

[AuH2O]

What are the Tories conservative about?

[AuH2O]

That's not an answer.

[AuH2O]

I think it's safe to say the GOP is more conservative than the Democrats. Republicans have spent like drunken sailors but the Dems would spend even more, and on most issues it's not a close call.

In the British case, I truly don't understand how the Tories are any different ideologically from Labour. I realize they have different positions on various issues, but there is minimal philosophic cohesion.

I mean, at some point, using the term "conservative" is misleading because there are no conservatives in the picture. At least in the US we can safely say that numerous politicians at least espouse a conservative ideology (whether they successfully act on it or not). But Britain is more like the late '80s USSR... I mean, Ligachev and Gorby disagreed but it was more of a practical than ideological difference.

The Tories may want to do a few things differently but, from what I read and see at least, they see the world pretty much like Labour does. Not so in the US, between GOP and Dems.

[AuH2O]

I am not saying, and never did say, that Labour and Tories have ALWAYS been the same. I said, RIGHT NOW, the Tories are not a conservative party.

I also did not say they supported the exact same policies as Labour. In fact I said that quite explicity. Rather, I said that the differences between the two sides do not constitute a coherent philosophical gulf.

Now Thatcher, she was a conservative. Watching her call out Labour MPs for supporting communism in South Africa... priceless. But now? The parties just take positions to score political points.

[AuH2O]

No, see that's my whole point. Thatcher did not support South Africa because it was politically popular. Instead she did so because it was the right thing to do, for everyone in that country.

A lot of people have died thanks to the cowardice of Western leaders with regard to the issue. Whites, blacks, and asians alike. Handing a country over to the local communist party and calling it "democracy" is something to be ashamed of, not proud of.

[AuH2O]

I was referring to South Africa. Obviously the fates of former British colonies varied. Rhodesia was forced to surrender but not so much to communists as to simple barbarians.

Obviously the ANC, while a terrorist organization prior to assuming command, is not really that ideological (though this is also the case with most communist parties, because communism is just a cheap slogan that serves more readily than inventing a new one). The ANC operates primarily on corruption. But a side effect, as in the USSR as it sharply declined in the wake of decreased oil prices in the 1980s, is incompetence on top of massive corruption.

British guilt vis-a-vis South Africa probably will wind up costing, at an extreme minimum, several million lives within a matter of decades. Probably more like many millions. Since the political "benefit" is corrupt one-party rule, the net outcome was countless AIDS cases and increased poverty and extreme crime. That's really something to be proud of.