Monday, October 04, 2010
Even the Tories prefer Nick
Today's Independent reports on one of those bizarre surveys that ConHome conducts every now again amongst the on-line Tory membership and supporters.
The headline is that Tory activists prefer Clegg to most of their own Cabinet ministers but in actual fact the real story is Conservative unease at how the Liberal Democrats have grabbed the government agenda and made it their own in so many areas.
The paper says that although Tory activists believe the Coalition is a good thing for Britain, they warned of trouble ahead on Europe, human rights, sentencing, university funding and taxation, all areas where Tory and Liberal Democrat policies are at odds:
The survey of 1,727 party members, carried out by the ConservativeHome website, revealed six out of 10 believe Mr Cameron is making too many concessions to the Liberal Democrats. Some 71 per cent regard as "not acceptable" the Coalition's decision to drop Tory proposals to repatriate powers from the European Union, while 64 per cent want a referendum on whether Britain should leave the EU.
Related articles
On other likely concessions to the Liberal Democrats, two out of three (64 per cent) of Tory members say it is not acceptable to water down their party's plans to reform the Human Rights Act and 51 cent oppose the Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke's plans to make less use of prison for offenders. A similar proportion object to the introduction of a graduate tax, a move favoured by senior Liberal Democrats.
Some 46 per cent of Tory members say a looser cap on immigration would not be acceptable, while 43 per cent object to the decision to delay Tory plans to reward marriage in the tax system and 40 per cent to the shelving of inheritance tax cuts.
Being in coalition is not easy for either party of course but if anything this survey shows that the Labour claim that it is the Tories who are calling the shots is just plain wrong. If anything the Government has a distinctive Liberal Democrat flavour and has embraced many of our policies and principles.
The headline is that Tory activists prefer Clegg to most of their own Cabinet ministers but in actual fact the real story is Conservative unease at how the Liberal Democrats have grabbed the government agenda and made it their own in so many areas.
The paper says that although Tory activists believe the Coalition is a good thing for Britain, they warned of trouble ahead on Europe, human rights, sentencing, university funding and taxation, all areas where Tory and Liberal Democrat policies are at odds:
The survey of 1,727 party members, carried out by the ConservativeHome website, revealed six out of 10 believe Mr Cameron is making too many concessions to the Liberal Democrats. Some 71 per cent regard as "not acceptable" the Coalition's decision to drop Tory proposals to repatriate powers from the European Union, while 64 per cent want a referendum on whether Britain should leave the EU.
Related articles
On other likely concessions to the Liberal Democrats, two out of three (64 per cent) of Tory members say it is not acceptable to water down their party's plans to reform the Human Rights Act and 51 cent oppose the Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke's plans to make less use of prison for offenders. A similar proportion object to the introduction of a graduate tax, a move favoured by senior Liberal Democrats.
Some 46 per cent of Tory members say a looser cap on immigration would not be acceptable, while 43 per cent object to the decision to delay Tory plans to reward marriage in the tax system and 40 per cent to the shelving of inheritance tax cuts.
Being in coalition is not easy for either party of course but if anything this survey shows that the Labour claim that it is the Tories who are calling the shots is just plain wrong. If anything the Government has a distinctive Liberal Democrat flavour and has embraced many of our policies and principles.
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or more likley the survey shows that Nick Clegg has gone so far to the right that the Conservatives have embraced him as one of their own
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# posted by 
: 4:50 PM
: 4:50 PM
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