Have the Tories lost their bottle?

Here's the video of our fringe event at the Conservative party conference on Monday.

I chaired the session and the panellists were Baroness Fox (aka Claire Fox, Academy of Ideas), Mark Oates (We Vape) and Chris Snowdon (Institute of Economic Affairs).

(As I explained in my previous post Mark was a late replacement for Lord Moylan.)

Here are some soundbites:

Chris Snowdon on health inequalities

"The whole issue of health inequalities for years has been used as a cover for imposing the lifestyles of the upper middle class onto ordinary working class and low income people."

"I don’t have the answer, and nor does anyone else, how you can make everyone’s circumstances better, but you’re not actually helping people who are in bad circumstances by taking away the things that are making their life a little bit better every day."

Mark Oates on Britain becoming 'smoke free'

"People should be free to smoke if they so choose but government is doing a bad job of letting people know that vaping is vastly safer than smoking."

"In order to achieve what they call ‘smoke free’ you need as many options as possible. It’s not a one-trick pony. I’m a big supporter of vaping but vaping doesn’t work for everyone."

Claire Fox on poverty

“Poverty is grim. It’s bloody grim. If the energy that was put into stopping poor people eating the wrong food and smoking was put into building a productive economy that might mean that people were less poor we might get somewhere."

Finally, another quote from Claire and possibly my favourite of the afternoon:

“I’m on the left and I’m far more pro-freedom than anyone I’ve met in the Conservative party ... What has happened to you lot? You’ve lost your bottle, in my opinion.”

She’s right, I think. An 80-seat majority yet the Tories have indeed lost their bottle, from grassroots to government, on a whole range of issues.

What a waste.

Comments

[Pat Nurse]

I don't want a smoke free world. I want a harassment free world. I want political lobby groups posing as charities out of the civil service and miles away from influencing legislation.

You are absolutely right. Tories bottled it. They came in on a tide of new hope that the metropolitan classes and fake charities would be put back in their place only to find that "The Blob" put Boris in his place and now aim to get rid of Liz Truss because she won't make their ambition of gentrifying the working and underclasses a reality. Her fate was sealed when she delayed the BOGOF ban and other anti obesity bullshit policies.

The middle class lifestyle lobbyists are so terrified of her they have turned the big guns of their favourite "lefty tossers" in the media on her and her team. The tunnel vision Tories are so scared of going against the status quo and so truly bereft of brave ideas in opposition to "the blob"that they are willing to sacrifice their own chance of ever winning another election by back stabbing their own leaders. The Tory party is ultimately always brought down by Tories.

I fear they will be out of power for a decade or more after the next election and we will end up with Metropolitan Labour that can't support women's rights, favours division between races, keeps the poor down, and dependant on being saved by the alleged party of the downtrodden - and that bullying mayor of Manchester Burnham, who thinks he can solve poverty just by forcing people to quit smoking by pushing them out of sight through social exclusion, will probably be their next leader.

Thanks to the Tories bottling it, the future looks incredibly grim.