LETTER

A British perspective: Why the Tories lost in the UK

 

As the political shock waves spread from Thursday’s general election in the UK, people in Canada are scratching their heads: why a Prime Minister with over 50% opinion-poll support in early May 2017, and up against (who this writer considers) a crazy neo-communist, could lose her majority and face oblivion? This is as I have been warning for the last three weeks. It was not their clumsy manifesto, not the changes to pensions, nor even the prospect of a “hard brexit”. Theresa May lost because she uttered two words that ensure defeat for any Conservative, “fox hunting”!

It took David Cameron a generation to rid the party of the image of being “the wicked old Tories”, as he put it. He built a party of plumbers, postmen, supermarket supervisors, people like “you and me”. In proposing to support the re-legislation of fox hunting, May instantly restored the image of their Lordships from the Manor, riding down to oppress the peasants.

In places like the North of England, the effect of those two words is instant? Candidates begged her to rescind it, with one pointing out that one day his office was overflowing with volunteers, the next he was alone. Maybe the Tories will learn their lesson, but with Theresa May pathetically clinging to office, one doubts it. Things (in the UK) will probably only get worse from now on for them.

Robert Thompsett
Aylmer