Imploding Tories again

The Tories are imploding again. Michael Portaloo is having another go at their nonentity of a leader, Ian Duncan Smith. Read about it here and here.

Reading this article from Samizdata.net suggests the problem with the Tories goes much deeper than the personalities of the leadership, but a fundamental split in Conservative voters. There's one group (who I'll call Daily Mail readers) who are nationalistic, deeply socially conservative and hostile to immigrants and minorities, and there are a second group who are socially liberal but believe strongly in free markets. It's increasingly difficult for a single party to appeal to both groups; any policy that appeals strongly to one will alienate the other.

I think Britain is due for another political realignment, along the lines of the one which eventually saw the birth of New Labour. Under our first-past-the-post electoral system such things are messy, which means we're likely to be stuck with New Labour until the dust finally settles on the centre-right, which may take another ten to fifteen years.

It's impossible to predict what will eventually happen; maybe the Tories will split and fight it out directly in the polls. Maybe the Daily Mail readers will win the internal struggle leaving the social liberals to drift away to the Liberal Democrats. Or maybe the social liberals will win out, leaving the Daily Mail readers to drift off, perhaps to the openly fascist British National Party, which is a scary thought. Or perhaps a charismatic leader will emerge and somehow unite the two wings.