The not so progressive history of the Conservative Party
The Tories have issued a video about how "progressive" they have been over the last 200+ years: http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2009/08/progressive-history-of-conservative.html
Stirring stuff but even my rusty memory of A level History suggests there are some bits of Tory history missing from the video:
- Pulling together a coalition of every reactionary monarch in Europe to oppose the French Revolution
- Pitt's suspension of habeas corpus, Seditious Meetings Act, and Combination Acts banning groups supporting political reform
- His introduction of Income Tax
- Lord Liverpool's Corn Laws, yet another suspension of habeas corpus, the Peterloo Massacre, the Six Acts limiting free speech and gatherings, his opposition to Catholic Emancipation
- Wellington's opposition to the Great Reform Act and any expansion of suffrage
- Peel's reintroduction of Income Tax
- The split in the party over Corn Law repeal, with most Tories wanting to keep protection despite the horrors of the Irish Famine
- Opposition to Irish Home Rule
- Joe Chamberlain's campaign for Tariff Reform (i.e. more expensive food!) and attacks on free trade under Balfour
- Mass unemployment in the '30s
- Appeasement of Hitler by Baldwin and Chamberlain
- Voting against the creation of the NHS
- Ending free school milk
- Two recessions in the '80s and '90s
- Increasing VAT
- High interest rates
- Cuts to education and housing spending in the '80s
- Destroying manufacturing industry
- Closure of 150 mines, devastating whole communities
- The GCHQ union ban
- Thatcher's opposition to sanctions against South Africa
- Abolition of the GLC and Mets because the voters elected Labour councils
- City de-regulation
- The Poll Tax
- Black Wednesday
- Cash for Questions
- Infighting over Europe under Major
Would someone with better video-making skills than me like to turn this little list into a YouTube riposte to the Tory video?
posted by Luke Akehurst at 11:03 pm
45 Comments:
Indeed. What, exactly does this word 'progressive' mean, in any case? Surely just about anything could be described as 'progress'?
12:43 am, September 01, 2009
So Luke - are you saying that we should get rid of income tax?
8:33 am, September 01, 2009
I am quite tempted to put a 'the reactionary history of the Conservative Party' video together... could add a few bits to your list too... Not sure if I'll have time, so let me know if anybody else is having a go!
9:39 am, September 01, 2009
you could also add John Major's appeasement of 'ethnic cleansing' in Bosnia
I have to agree that I see Income Tax - taxes in general - as progressive. From each according to their means, to each according to their needs...
10:24 am, September 01, 2009
So you're in favour of the French Revolution, which led to "the terror" and plunged europe into the first 'world war' as the new republic went expantionary?
The income tax was introduced to finance that very war.
The corn laws split the tories, but I thought you pinkos were in favour of protection?
There were plenty of COnservatives who wanted to rearm (Churchill for example). More than on your treasonous benches
Do you honestly think cash for questions is worse than cash for policy?
Black wednesday is not as bad as the Labour raping of the entire economy.
These are just the one in the list which can be demolished in one sentence. If you weren't such a worthless squit, I'd take the time to fisk the whole lot.
Pathetic.
10:24 am, September 01, 2009
Don't get me wrong I don't agree with the tories politically but this post is a little daft.
The Tories under Macmillian built more council houses than any other PM.
Disraeli protected the legal rights of the Trade Unions since their legalisation in 1871.
Rab Butler ensured there was free education in this country. He was a Tory.
As Jack says, Churchill, the greatest Consevative PM of all time(albeit wartime) inspired a nation to fight the Nazis.
All you critisisms are true but I think the british public would rather we put forward our own progressive agenda rather indulge in this negative diatribe.
10:59 am, September 01, 2009
Labour - Conservatives - you are all the same. New Labour into Blue Labour - no thanks. You pair can smear & spin at each other all you like - the people are not listening to either of you.
Both "brands" are in terminal decline - thank goodness.
Political dinosaurs the lot of you.
I hope both Labour & the Conservatives lose big time at the next GE to any independent who is not representing any political party - providing of course that McStalin does not find a reason to suspend elections.
So get out & vote for anyone who is standing that does not have a political party behind them.
11:33 am, September 01, 2009
Heath's deceit over the EU.
11:41 am, September 01, 2009
@ Someday - whilst I agree that heath's EEC antics were a despicable detrayal of this nation and of our commonwealth cousins, not to mention our fishing and farming industries, it was done for impeccably "progressive" reasons (he was the most disgusting pinko).
12:50 pm, September 01, 2009
I think you will find that the Conservatives put forward this video to try and educate the public that they do not always plump for the 'conservative' (small 'c') option.
progressive
Adjective
1. favouring political or social reform
• Pulling together a coalition of every reactionary monarch in Europe to oppose the French Revolution;
Valid point. The Conservatives were pro-monarchy.
• Pitt's suspension of habeas corpus, Seditious Meetings Act, and Combination Acts banning groups supporting political reform
Again valid, all actions of a man (not an entire party though) bent on resisting reform.
• His introduction of Income Tax
Required and rather inventive. Extremely progressive at the time and impossible to be without today. I think this qualifies as social reform.
• Lord Liverpool's Corn Laws, yet another suspension of habeas corpus, the Peterloo Massacre, the Six Acts limiting free speech and gatherings, his opposition to Catholic Emancipation
Is most of your rant/education/reading to do with Pitt?
• Wellington's opposition to the Great Reform Act and any expansion of suffrage
Point taken. In actual fact, most of the Tories opposed the Whigs reform ideas.
• Peel's reintroduction of Income Tax
Unpopular but absolutely required. I think you’ll find that is something that is almost impossible to do in politics nowadays – the unpopular but necessary thing – last person to do it was Thatcher.
• The split in the party over Corn Law repeal, with most Tories wanting to keep protection despite the horrors of the Irish Famine
A split in the party is not evidence of progression or non-progression. It’s the damn votes that count. If it didn’t produce or obstruct social reform – it’s not, by the definition, progressive or non-progressive.
• Opposition to Irish Home Rule
The Tories were the Empire party. At the time they built the Empire, this approach was progressive. By the time the Irish issues came about, and also Churchill’s opposition to quitting India, Imperial jingoism was no longer fashionable or progressive. It’s more about place and time than anything, not whether it looks like a good idea to a wet, liberal contemporary eye.
• Joe Chamberlain's campaign for Tariff Reform (i.e. more expensive food!) and attacks on free trade under Balfour
It looks like a bad idea now but at the time, he had to revolutionize the Empire by imposing the tariffs.
• Mass unemployment in the '30s
High unemployment in the here and now though can’t possibly be blamed on the 'ultimate progressives' Blair and Brown though can it?
Continued below...
1:20 pm, September 01, 2009
• Appeasement of Hitler by Baldwin and Chamberlain
This was not a party political issue. Many people agreed with this. Churchill was laughed out of the Commons when he began his tirade against Nazi Germany. And guess what? It was he who was seen as a bumbling, Old World, Tory warmonger AT THE TIME…!
• Voting against the creation of the NHS
Point taken. The NHS is one of the greatest acts of social reform in history. Whether it can remain in it’s current state is another matter.
• Ending free school milk
Seriously? This was one of the bullet points in your arsenal? Pathetic.
• Two recessions in the '80s and '90s
Recessions, as your illustrious leader Gordon Brown is always keen to point out, are not the product of political parties or even movements but market cycles. What defines a party is what they do to get out of them; they did well in the 80s and in the 1990s provided the platform on which Blair and Brown jumped up and down with glee, claiming their own genius for the *insert Glasgow growl here* ‘sustained economic growth we have enjoyed under this Government.’
• Increasing VAT
Increasing taxes, you’ll find, is actually seen as progressive.
• High interest rates
High interest rates in what period? And at whose instruction? And caused by what? Poor point, poorly made.
• Cuts to education and housing spending in the '80s
Citing a cut is not an example of non-progression. Find another barrel-bottom to scrape from.
• Destroying manufacturing industry
They did not destroy it. Manufacturing in the UK had been in decline for decades. Things change, focus alters, countries move on. That’s called ‘progression’. Also applies to your next point…
• Closure of 150 mines, devastating whole communities
‘Devastating whole communities.’ That’s really the ONLY damn argument, and a hyperbolised one at that, that you can really offer. The UK mining industry was grossly uncompetitive. Should we sprinkle cash on a waste-of-time industry that generated little value simply to keep communities happy? Funny how Labour are content to devastate, unnecessarily, the hunting community merely because they ‘don’t like the posh nobs.’ They wouldn’t know a fox from a foxglove.
• The GCHQ union ban
Unions are not generally progressive. They positively represent a group of people but they do so disproportionately. I call that progression.
• Thatcher's opposition to sanctions against South Africa
…because they would make many thousands in South Africa unemployed. We were the principal investor and trading partner, you get rid of that and you do a lot more harm than good.
Is this suggestion of yours an implication that she was pro-apartheid? She had Botha at Chequers and told him what she thought about apartheid. She encouraged him to release Mandela.
1:21 pm, September 01, 2009
• Abolition of the GLC and Mets because the voters elected Labour councils
‘…because the voters elected Labour councils’?
No, because it was a bloated, pointless, bureaucratic Livingstone love-in. Livingstone, who became Mayor of London but who had actually supported IRA bombings of London.
• City de-regulation
De-regulation is progressive. De-regulation means that you no longer need to regulate what once needed to be regulated i.e. you have moved on. Regulation is often necessary but it was Labour who decided to hand so much responsibility to the utterly inept FSA.
• The Poll Tax
Admittedly this was non-progressive as a taxation as it ended up being more costly for the poor than the wealthy as they had to pay for those in their household instead of according to the value of the property. But, socially speaking, this said a great deal about HOW MUCH a certain tier of society was actually costing the community; it highlighted that IF certain families had to pay for their facilities in local areas, they would not be able to afford it. Lambast that view all you like, we have an overpopulation problem in this land. It was a valid experiment way before it’s time. Therefore, highly progressive.
• Black Wednesday
This doesn’t even come under the progressive/non-progressive banner. After the event, sterling rallied well for over a decade. What’s your point?
• Cash for Questions
‘Let he who is without sin…’
• Infighting over Europe under Major
Infighting over leadership under Brown/Infighting over Iraq under Blair...
This isn’t intended to ‘convince’ you or your regular readers/admirers of my points of view. I know you’ll never be convinced, even by facts, as your personal experiences, prejudices and ideology are completely and utterly opposed to my points of view. Were you, or I, to cave in and accept the other side as the proper viewpoint, it would mean that any time cultivating beliefs, time spent cementing those beliefs, oxygen spent expounding and defending those beliefs would be utterly wasted.
Winston Chesterfield
1:22 pm, September 01, 2009
And supporting and approving Stalin was "progressive", Luke?
Destroying the economy "progressive", Luke?
Slaughtering Civil Liberties "progressive", Luke?
Destroying the political process "progressive", Luke?
Waving the worst Chancellor ever in to become the worst PM ever "progressive", Luke?
Dear me, you aren't very bright are you?
New Labour's use of "progressive" (the New New Labour NewSpeak buzzword) is pathetic. Who do you think is taking ANY notice. You all just talk amongst yourselves, and here's the script
"Progressive, progressive, progressive, yada, yada, yada, progressive, progressive, progressive, yada, yada, yada"
Cor. That stuck it up those nasty Tories, didn't it?
Beardy bloke in sandals on a bicycle.
1:53 pm, September 01, 2009
Duncan,
Yeah, wow, go on, that would be cool, and would surely win you the next election.
1:54 pm, September 01, 2009
The trouble with agriculture was that the land was largely owned by the upper classes, but farmed by tenants. Free trade did not just damage the upper classes it severely damaged the farming communities. So we went hungry in WW1 and nearly starved between 1939 and 1949. Had an imaginative group somehow disentangled food production from the class system, and opened it up to investment the story might have been a lot different. But it would have entailed firstly protection, as in the USA, and secondly structures that lay beyond the limitations of prevailing political dogmas.
2:45 pm, September 01, 2009
I think calling Luke (who I confess I have known for decades as a hard working and honest individual with complete integrity) a "worthless squit" tells us much more about Jackart than it does about Luke.
I'm kind of half ready not to vote Labour next time but this sort of Sloane Ranger snorting always brings sharply home to me the actual voting decision we'll all have to make- "what is the least worst alternative for the least worst outcome?"
2:59 pm, September 01, 2009
Luke, reading through your list, you seem to be defining progressive as good and reactionary as bad. Moreover, your definition of bad seems to be just a list of your own prejudices. So monarchs who opposed Napoleon were bad as were English attempts to stop the horrors of the revolution crossing the channel. Keeping open subsidised coal mines in a deep recession using taxes raised from the poorest in society to produce unnecessary, old fashioned fuel is progressive to you but bending over backwards in a vain attempt to avoid WW2 is regressive. You further undermine your credibility by listing Conservative cock-ups, like Black Wednesday, as though they were policy objectives. Preumably, you'll be adding New Labour's failure to find WMD as part of it's glorious, progressive history!
Your failure to be truely progressive (rather than merely partisian) is because you, like Gordon Brown, don't seem to have much idea of where you want to go.
For me, Edmund Burke's "maximisation of freedom" as the purpose of government is a as good as any. Thus progress is measured as how we increse people's freedom (from poverty, from class bonds) and release their creativity and make them happy. By that measure, I would call Labour regressive in how it has reduced freedom over the past 12 years both legally (Prevention of Terrorism Acts etc.) and financially, social mobility and the divide between rich and poor.
3:00 pm, September 01, 2009
Tory progressive history ... do not forget Section 28!
4:07 pm, September 01, 2009
Good post Luke.
Winston C: "Funny how Labour are content to devastate, unnecessarily, the hunting community merely because they ‘don’t like the posh nobs.’"
Where are these devastated hunting communities? Do you really think a comparison between people no longer allowed to go fox hunting and the loss of all those mining jobs really helps to win people round to your side of the argument?
4:46 pm, September 01, 2009
Although the video is historically dodgy in parts (to say the least) and I don't know how anyone can listen to that music without feeling nauseous, I do like this sudden inclusion of historical debate in political discussions! I think all the parties should set out in their manifestos whether they are in favour of the French Revolution or not.
4:48 pm, September 01, 2009
Observer's friend, yes let's not forget it. And while we're at let's not forget Socialist and Fabian support for uugenics. No doubt we could continue in this vein for some time but where would it get us?
You yah-boos for socialism need to set out a positive vision of where you want society to aim. Simply criticising past Tories and their mistakes just emphasises your irrelevance.
4:54 pm, September 01, 2009
Winston C said
"Thatcher's opposition to sanctions against South Africa
…because they would make many thousands in South Africa unemployed. We were the principal investor and trading partner, you get rid of that and you do a lot more harm than good.
Is this suggestion of yours an implication that she was pro-apartheid? She had Botha at Chequers and told him what she thought about apartheid. She encouraged him to release Mandela."
I may have been a youngster at the time but I am sure I remember Tory activists wearing "Hang Nelson Mandella" t-shirts and badges. Where are these crudaders for justice now?
I really doubt Mrs T cared about making thousands of South Africans unemployed when under her government she made 3 million unemployed her own country.
I also doubt Botha gave a fig whether Mrs T hated apartheid or not. After all as you stated we were not going to sever our trade links to SA. For the record I don't think she liked it that much certainly no evidence to my mind she as an individual was a racist, even if elements in her party were (still are).
The mounting international pressure (not from our government) on SA as well as the collapse of the Soviet bloc were probably contributing factors to the end of minority rule in SA.
Just so we get this right, I would say that progressivism is a political and social term that refers to ideologies and movements favouring or advocating changes or reform, usually in a statist or egalitarian direction for economic policies (Nationalisation, government mangagement) and liberal direction for social policies (personal choice, gay rights etc). Progressivism is often viewed in opposition to conservative ideologies.
So the term "Progressive Conservative" is an oxymoron?
In some ways yes, your party has moved away from statist policies, (anti progressive) yet in other ways your party is more progressive than mine especially regarding ID cards (personal liberty as a cornerstone of progressivism).
I would also say the Trade Union movement as a whole tries to support progressive politics in this country. Campaigns against sexism, homophobia, racism and bullying in the work place, supporting legislation that ensures the workforce can work in safety for a fair wage and conditions (this has positive social effects)are two major things that spring to mind.
But in the end the british public will want to make a choice, I would say this, a Labour Government, even this one, is better than any post 1979 Tory government, but as a Labour man I would say that!
The problem is as you have highlighted there have been things this government has done that have contrveend our progressive portfolio and the tories have done well to capitalise on them. I would say it would be hard to paint you guys as the nasty party when we have done some pretty nasty stuff ourselves.
5:04 pm, September 01, 2009
churchill was hated or distrusted by most tories before 1945, when the victory myth started. he was a man who was blindly anti-german since 1899 and ruined britain as a result. not invaded by germans in 1940 but invaded by americans in 1943 and ever afterwards.
the tories "conserve" nothing.
from another Stokey!
5:54 pm, September 01, 2009
Luke wrote: "Destroying manufacturing industry"
For the billionth time, by the 1970's "British manufacture" was an adjective for over-priced tat. British industry was subsidised, nationalised, unionised, loss-making and crippled by thousands of outmoded jobs that served no useful purpose except keeping someone employed doing something no one would voluntary pay them to do. Any attempts to modernise business were met with strikes so British cars, cameras, toys, tools... you name it were known around the world for their poor quality. We had the British disease and the aetiology was clearly socialism.
For all this, we're are supposed to believe that Thatcher destroyed manufacturing in this country.
6:15 pm, September 01, 2009
Great minds think alike.
We had a go. Hope you like it.
JP
ttp://www.gofourth.co.uk/the-real-tory-history
6:43 pm, September 01, 2009
Here's the link
http://www.gofourth.co.uk/the-real-tory-history
6:45 pm, September 01, 2009
Thank you Luke, yjis sill form the basis for a Newsletter ot two.
I think wee can all ignore the anti working class ranters ijhn this thread and the next.
Funny thing is with all these repeating tossers saying they will never vote Labour again how we ever lost elections in the past.
GW
7:16 pm, September 01, 2009
I'm glad someone else has used the opportunity to attack Pitt the Younger. A genius and a prodigy. A genius at being completely wrong about everything.
Apart from maybe income tax, which is the fairest tax of all.
But very un-tory, or so they would have you believe.
7:57 pm, September 01, 2009
Great stuff Luke, but the 'increased VAT' one should read 'introduced and repeatedly increased VAT'. (Labour's never increased the rate of VAT, though it will for the 1st time on Jan 1st.)
7:58 pm, September 01, 2009
Jackart,
"So you're in favour of the French Revolution, which led to "the terror" and plunged europe into the first 'world war' as the new republic went expantionary?"
Perhaps it was the regime which forced a revolution in the first place through mass starvation, then murdered revolutionaries to the point where they had to kill or be killed?
Could you maybe add in that it also led to the creation of the first non-hereditary representative democracy? or don't you like that bit?
7:59 pm, September 01, 2009
The Labour party have progressed to what?
1. A party that has forgotten all what it used to represent in favour of the same capitalist values of the last conservative party.
2. A party that has progressed to starting meaningless wars and failing to equip troops with essential support and kit.
3. Or party that won a landslide victory to one that will be wiped off the map in 2010.
Very progressive....but in a very wrong way.
9:03 pm, September 01, 2009
It might be to some extent valid to look at the history of a political party, but in what is in effect a two party system which has resulted in periods of consensus it is hard to link policies now to past actions. Just look at Blair, surely he was the ideological child of Thatcher far more so than Major. This is despite him representing a party traditionally aligned with opposing interests.
Traditionally Labour have had a more democratic structure compared to the hierarchical structure of the Tories with bodies like the NEC charged with policy responsibilities and the power of the unions but these were neutured by Blair and both parties have a concentration of power at the executive level. This is so much so in government that the whole 'elected dictatorship' quote really does seem to apply.
http://goingpublicsector.blogspot.com/
9:04 pm, September 01, 2009
To pick just one error -
"Mass unemployment in the '30s"
The government in 1929 was Labour. This was succeeded by a national Government under Ransay MacDonald (Labour) until 1935, followed by a National Government under Baldwin and then Chamberlain (Tory) after that. So how exactly was this the Tories fault?
11:08 pm, September 01, 2009
This is a ridiculous cheek from a Labour activist.
To talk about destruction of industry (destroyed by nationalisation and the unions) as if the Conservatives deserve blame is just normal Labour ignorance of basic economics. To bring up cash for questions when his own party actually amends or even passes legislation for cash donations is just ridiculous! Labour since 1997 have had more corruption each year than the two previous Conservative administrations had in total, over 18 years.
The most powerful man in government at the moment is not only unelected (v. progressive there, Luke, great spread of the franchise) but he has been sacked twice because he was corrupt. They have all been at it, selling favours, selling influence.
Actually it was obviously going to be a ridiculous list when he started with a suggestion that it was not progressive to oppose a brutal, murderous series of coups that killed thousands of ordinary people, successively killed the previous leaders and left in power an absolute tyrant who set Europe ablaze in a war that was to last decades, kill hundreds of thousands and cause political upheaval that would trigger wars until 200 years later.
What's to oppose there, eh?
There is so much revisionism in that list that it is far beyond the scope of a single blog post let alone a comment (Black Wednesday for example, the day that a Labour policy implemented by Conservatives finally fell apart, under the assault of well-known socialist George Soros, ending its destruction of our economy; that was far more progressive than a cherry-picked assortment of Labour successful policies - if you can think of more than one, that is).
The rest is nowhere near as bad as anything Labour has done to harm the prospects of British people, and in particular the less affluent.
11:12 pm, September 01, 2009
Scary Biscuits please note that there is a big difference between a Tory Government bringing in an oppressive law (such as Section 28) which legitimised homophobic hate crimes and made people's lives an utter misery for over a decade and ... a handful of Fabian/Socialist so-called intellectuals publishing a leaflet on eugenics over a century ago that led to ... absolutely nothing happening. Duh!
Also, I am not a yah-boo for socialism (or any other political philosophy) but am I not entitled to criticise past (and present) Tories for their "mistakes" without being called an irrelevance? The Tories didn't just make "mistakes" (as you put it), they were and are guilty of criminal neglect too.
But then I think the Labour Government has - on the whole - made a real balls up of the opportunities it's had over the last nine years or so. So I'm left scratching my head and wondering who I could vote for in the next general election. If not Labour, then who else?
Then I remind myself of the words of Maurice Chevalier: "Growing old isn’t so bad when you consider the alternative."
So maybe a slogan worthy of adoption for the next election could be ...
"Voting Labour isn't so bad when you consider the alternative!"©
© Observer's friend.
4:14 am, September 02, 2009
Usual twaddle, having said that the comment about black wednesday made me laugh out loud. Utterly depressing that someone who pretends to be intelligent can't see that it pales into insignificance compared to the depth of the financial mess this useless goverment has got us into.
8:34 am, September 02, 2009
I thought your blog was an absolute hoot.What about the jacobites and the restoration of the old religion ? what about our opposition tro those progressive hanoverians ? Johnson Swift Pope reactioary dogs every man jack of 'em. Or if your taste is for something more modern send people down the pits to die of cave falls lung disease etc at the expense of the rest of us.
10:40 am, September 02, 2009
"Stu" must have just written one of the dimmest, most absurd piece of anti- truth ever written here. I'm laughing at his nerve.
You can try and gloss over Black Wednesday and interest rates of 15% or at least in double figures for multiple months and the implications for unemployment, repossesions and the rest.
Brown's handling of this recession has been immeasurably and indisputably better than Lamont and Majors.
To say that Black Wednesday "pales into insignificance" is wishful thinking in erxtremis!!
11:48 am, September 02, 2009
Jolly glad to have discovered this blog- very amusing.Makes you long for the progressive days of Jack Jones and one man one and a quarter million votes.That nice Mr Brown has more peers in his cabinet than any one in the last 50 years and could teach a monarch a thing or two about placemen. Enjoyed the bit about the Tory recessions, so much more reactionary than the shiny progressive Labour version and all those super -duper progressive banks he saved at a cost of how many billions.And what about those nasty Tories destroying manufacturing while the warm fluffy Labour party modernised them out of existence ? Iwant a nice progessive I.D. card so the nice progressive government can use the Terrorism laws more easily to furthrer erode my civil liberties still many decades ago the Tories suspended Habeas Corpus in a vile reactionary fashion whereas kindly old Mr Brown gets rid of it in a whizzo progressive way that is beneficial for us all.
1:50 pm, September 02, 2009
Sorry - a bit of a lame debate this one. Tories are a bit silly in running this puppy - all parties have ample skeletons in the closet. However, I'm surprised Luke that from my similarly fussy recollection of A level history that you didn't pick up on the Boer War and concentration camps - not exactly our best mo in history unde a Conservative / Liberal Unionist ticket...
5:39 pm, September 02, 2009
Is this really the best the Labour Party have to offer? Why don't you go on about how brilliant this government has been for the last 12 years? Yes I know you can't. Pathetic.
8:31 pm, September 02, 2009
What about slavery,. The tories voted to keep slavery. It took whig party governments to get rid of slavery.
11:35 pm, September 02, 2009
Plus William Wilberforce was not a Tory but a independent. The Tories always voted to keep slavery.
Only Lord Grey and Lord Grenville got rid of slavery. Both Whig party PM's.
11:39 pm, September 02, 2009
I see the REAL history of the Tory party is up on Prezzie's GoFourth YouTube
9:53 pm, September 06, 2009
hi
3:17 am, November 12, 2009
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