Why Am I A Tory?

A quick history; I grew up on the top floor of a council high-rise, looked after by my single-parent mother. She later married, but both she and my stepfather were public-sector employees throughout the time that I knew them. I was brought up a Catholic, taught the importance of caring and providing for those who had been less fortunate. My formal education was within the state system - at state-funded Catholic primary schools and a state secondary school.

My current views are firmly liberal; if you wish to partake of an activity that I disapprove of but which does not hurt those around you, then I can be expected to be firmly in support of your right to do it.

My formative teenage years were spent under Maggie, hectored regularly by the news of three million unemployed.

There are no toffs in that background, no silver spoons, no double-barrelled surnames. No-one that I knew used to invite me to their estate for the weekend. And I have never (never) worn tweed. So why am I so firmly Conservative? Why am I utterly contemptuous of the liberal-left parties that my background so decisively pointed me toward?

It was Nick Clegg who summed up the reason for this when he spoke earlier today. Trying (desperately?) to encourage disaffected Labour voters to switch to the Lib Dems, he sought to reassure them by saying that they would not be betraying Labour, it was instead Labour that had betrayed them. What he does not realise is that it is the whole of the liberal left that has deserted the working classes and the poor. It is not his fault (or even that of Labour). They deserted them right at the start, when they formulated a philosophy of politics that treated business and "the rich" as an inexhaustible resource; one that would continue to churn out the golden egg of tax income regardless of what policies they chose to implement. The moment they did that, they sowed the seeds of their inevitable failure when they finally ran out of other people's money.

And so, as I realised very swiftly, the liberal-left are actually the wing of British politics that does the greatest harm to those on low incomes. By taking all the money that they do out of the economy and giving it to unproductive civil servants, they starve businesses of capital with which they might grow and create employment. They blunt the owner's real return from the business, and make him think twice about bothering in future. They embark on grandiose schemes to create jobs, but instead destroy them.

I know how and when I realised that there was this disconnect between their stated aims of helping the poor and the actual effect of their policies. It was when I discovered that they very firmly wished to close my school. This was a school where I regularly saw boys from poor backgrounds given an academic education that matched or exceeded that in the private sector. It was a school where the (very) occasional use of corporal punishment kept 700-odd boys on the straight and narrow and allowed the boys to work in a safe and secure environment. It was (worse!) a selective school. On both of these grounds, the liberal left objected vehemently, yet I could see with my own eyes that it worked.

As I grew up, I saw this again and again. I watched Arthur Scargill demand that pits remain open, even if the coal could not be extracted economically. I watched Howe and Lawson bring economic sanity to the UK against the howls of socialists, and allow our economy to re-invigorate itself - putting those three million back into productive employment.

I read Milton Friedman and, initially, wondered why a book filled with the blindingly obvious should be regarded as such a major work. Then I listened to those who disagreed with it, and saw that the blindingly obvious seemed to escape those of a liberal-left bent.

So, slowly but surely, I realised that the policies of the liberal-left look as if they will work, but are doomed to side-effects and unforeseen* consequences that lead to a worsening of the situation for all, including those most in need. Meanwhile, the policies of the Right look as if they will be harsh, but in the end benefit all - including those most in need.

Hence, my call to you today. Help the workers; Vote Conservative.

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*unforeseen by the liberal-left, at least...