Major British Conservative tells Americans that they have to vote Democrat.

[AuH2O]

Um problem: there are no "conservatives" in Britain. Even the BNP is leftist on economic issues...

[AuH2O]

The Tories are not "conservative" by any rational definition of the term... not even by European standards...

[AuH2O]

Supporting universal health care is not 'conservative,' I don't care where you live. It flies in the face of free markets and limited government.

There are other European 'conservative' parties that are basically socialist as well, but the Tories don't even make much of an effort to look at conservative...

[AuH2O]

So, if you are against gun control, against abortion, for mandatory school prayer, can you still be a liberal?

If you violate all the tenets of an ideology, you do not hold it... calling yourself one is meaningless.

[AuH2O]

Here is an example: I don't know all the details, but recently in Britain there was controversy over charging students tuition (I assume for college). Blair wanted to, as I understand it, and so the Tories were against it.

Well, let's operate under the assumption that "conservative" is a purely relative term. This still makes no sense for the Tories, because they are supposed to be more 'conservative,' thus they should appreciate reductions in the size of government and its involvement in higher education.

So, it's not that I'm holding Tories to GOP standards; rather, they operate as a generic 'opposition' party without any ideological cohesion AT ALL.