Cameron's Conservative Conundrum

There would be a time when I couldn't wait to vote Conservative. With both my head and my heart! The very idea of voting Labour filled me with a shiver. After all, they were a bit "commie", wanted nationalisation, were into pip-sqeaking taxation, and generally were economic trouble. It was a no brainer for me.

Then two things happened. The Berlin wall collapsed, so who were now the socialists, who were now the anti-capitalist campaigners? And along came Blair, a political hybrid with a "well, yeah" response to all matters in his way. We now have a three party set-up in a two-party system.

It was all so easy when it was just Conservative and Labour. Straight fights were the norm. The Liberals came in just for the ride. They had to do deals with the Conservatives in Bolton and Huddersfield just to get a couple of seats!

Now the voters have a multitude of choices. The Electoral Commission is registering a new party a month! The Conservatives should be an easy bet for winning the next election. But that's not a dead cert. Why? I think the first is for the reasons above. Thatcher and Blair between them blew the party bedrock apart. Now all parties are vying for a similar base.

But the main reason is loyalty. People no longer feel they belong to a party or that a party belongs to them. Once the Conservative Party had a huge number of members. Members create activists, and activists bring in the votes. If you lose the members the whole thing starts to unravel. So those who used to be Conservative activists are now either armchair philosophers or are in other parties such as UKIP, English Democrats, or even the BNP! Some have defected to the LibDems (a hybrid party) or to the Greens or the Nationalists. There are others in minor one-man-band parties, such as Veritas and the New Party. All these people are lost to the Conservatives. And the internet is giving them the chance to air their views.

The Labour Party is now worried by the lack of support it is getting. "Ominously for Labour there are warning signs that southern discomfort is re-emerging in a new and more complex form." I wouldn't think it that complex. Just that these conniving New Labour spin merchants have been rumbled for what they are. Those now disaffected with the Government may well serve up a bashing. But will it be to the Tories advantage? I can see Hove going Conservative but maybe the Greens could win in Brighton? That's the conundrum across the country- and it's heading us to a hung, or divided, House of Commons, I think.