Tory Radio

All of this talk about a merger of the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats will (as I have said on the Seven Days Show more than once) go down with activists like a cold cup of sick.

We have seen the leadership of the party treat the membership on more than on occasion with little more than disdain. Lets hope it doesn’t again. There are those that say the free marketeers in the Lib Dems have much in Common with the Conservatives. Indeed I do not doubt they do. Some would more than likely be to the right of Ken Clarke on many issues. Is that a reason for a merger of parties? No. For if they have so much in common, then they can always sign up and join. If they feel they don’t want to join, then surely they must feel they have too much the separates us, and I have to say that I agree.

In politics you can often agree on many things – but that does not mean you are political bed fellows. I always agreed with my former MP Tony Benn with regards the benefits of FPTP and also on Euroscepticism (but for different reasons). I was never going to become a socialist member of the Labour party and he never a right wing Tory.

There are those already worrying that the Conservatives can’t win a majority in a General Election if it couldn’t beat Brown in 2010/ Oh what short memories people have. I remember my British Government A level question was, If Labour can’t win in 1992, can it ever win?By god did it win at the election after! Instead of wasting energy talking about the possibility of some sort of formal merger or even cementing the coalition for an even longer period I would suggest the Conservative Party would be better spending its energy positively explaining the benefits of it being in Government and why a majority Conservative Government is in the best interest of UK PLC.

The latest Seven Days Show is now online. In episode 54 we take a look back at political events in 2010.

We looked at the General Election which took place in May; why 2010 wasn’t the Internet Election; whether Ed Miliband was the wrong choice for Labour; who would be the man or woman of 2010; whether the blogosphere is in a worse state than 12 months ago; who our political survivor of the year would be.

Finally we look at Iain’s predictions for 2010 and run through some of his new ones for the coming 12 months.

Click the play button at the top of the blogpost to listen to the podcast.

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