We often hear or read comments about the Conservative Party and current government not being conservative, with the inference or suggestion that if they were to be conservative once again, all of the problems that they are having would evaporate and that the result of the General Election that we are all expecting in 2024, would see them with a majority and returned.

As a former Conservative Party Member who was elected as a Borough Councillor twice and either fought or campaigned in a range of different elections besides, I simply don’t believe that to be the case. The Conservative Party and their politicians have no idea who they politically are.

Whilst it may now be obvious to anyone looking on that the Party in power today isn’t in any way ‘conservative’, my own experience – and a key reason I walked away from frontline politics myself – is that whatever disparate philosophy it is that drives the top of the Conservative Party today – the mixture of philosophies and self-interests is a million miles from being anything near ‘conservative’.

The situation isn’t something new, and hidden from view, it’s probably been decades since the Conservative Party functioned in any other way.

The Conservative Party ‘value set’, today

It’s important to understand that the Conservative Party that we recognise nationally and locally today, does not function with anything recognisable as being a conservative philosophy at its core.

If it were possible to pin down what the philosophy driving the Conservative Party – at least in Government, really is, then it would be an economic based philosophy called Neoliberalism.

The giveaway or tell of just how ingrained and important this economic and selfish ideology has become to ‘Conservatives’ is demonstrated by the obsession with growth, and the idea that growth is the only thing that can solve any of the UKs problems.

It is very important to note that you will hear just as many Labour Politicians chuntering on about growth. Because since the Blair era and the arrival of New Labour in 1997, the Labour Party has fully embraced and been driven by Neoliberal ideas and practices too.

The problem is that growth, or rather the kind of growth that politicians are using as a way to measure economic success, simply keeps on filling the coffers of the same people who are already very rich, whilst everyone else gets poorer and poorer, with increasing numbers at the bottom now unable to pay for enough food to eat.

Despite the many protestations and words of very credible people, ‘Free Markets’ and ‘Deregulation’ does not lead to a situation where everyone can thrive and where industry takes care of public need.

Neoliberals only take care of themselves. They do so at the expense of everyone else.

Neoliberalism has lead to every problem that normal people are experiencing now – and without an alternative to all of the political parties we currently choose from at election time, things can only get progressively worse!

In fact, the deregulation and market freedom they talk about is the removal of the regulations that protect normal people and small businesses from exploitation, whilst the market freedom is the freedom for big companies and those with money to pay for the best lawyers to create their own system of rules or the threat of court actions that amount to the same thing, that mean money runs everything, rather than what is in the best interests of the general public and our communities – as it always should be.

This might all now be ringing some bells and striking a few chords regarding the behaviour and decision making that we now continuously see from so-called ‘Conservative’ politicians – who not unlike any of the others with elected seats in parliament and in councils up and down the land, are basically there, in public office, for no other reason than themselves.

To be clear, there is NOTHING conservative about Neoliberalism. Just as every good Neoliberal Socialist also knows.

What is Conservatism or to be Conservative in the genuine sense?

Free enterprise is not the same thing as free markets – no matter what anyone says and private ownership is not the same thing as ‘let’s accumulate as much of everything as possible – no matter the cost’. And as far as socially traditional values are concerned, taking a traditional approach or rather one that respects our cultural values is at the polar opposite of what the conservative government is helping cultural idealists to impose.

The real meaning of being a conservative

My interpretation of what it is to be a conservative in the genuine sense is to be a traditionalist, respectful of history and the journey(s) that brought us here, proud to maintain our core values and not afraid to stand up to or reject any form of thinking that would bring our identity or that of our community into question or to deal in compromise that will result in the same.

Conservatism should be all about encouraging free enterprise in the sense that any one who is enterprising (or entrepreneurial) can achieve whatever they aim to do so, as long as they are not exploiting others in any way or at any level, whether they are conscious of doing so or not.

In genuine conservatism, ownership does not confer entitlement as it does now. And whilst the money-centric nature of the paradigm or system we are currently experiencing tells us the complete opposite, conservative leadership is to lead against temporary tides, not to surrender to tides and to be led in a way that makes their impact permanent, bearing no relationship with what has been good for us all, before.

Genuine conservatism has people, community and values at its heart.

I neither see nor recognise any form of people-centric values in the selfish and self-serving forms of government that we seem so powerless to remove.

A return to or a renaissance of genuine conservatism in the UK could result in politics and our experience of life being very different to what it is today.

I realised a long time ago that the Politicians running the UK today work on the basis that unemployment and poverty are synonymous, or exactly the same thing.

Some politicians have even built a public platform by trading on it and the arguably heartless policies that people have trusted to look after the  UKs poor and vulnerable tell us as much as we need to know about where the so-called Conservative’s priorities lie.

It wouldn’t be anywhere near as much of a problem if the ‘poverty isn’t real’ approach was only a message.

However, the idea that poverty isn’t a problem has gone way beyond being just a message. It is the basis of how today’s public policies are formed.

Today will see the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement – where the ‘Official’ announcement will be made to Parliament, that amongst a new range of sanctions against those on benefits (the punishment for the poor and vulnerable who don’t behave), the National Living Wage will rise in April 2024 to £11.44 (the gift to all the poor and vulnerable who behave and do as they are told).

For those in low paid jobs earning the current National Living Wage of £10.42 per hour (or less if they are too young), an uplift of over £1 an hour does sound great.

But £11.44 is still nowhere near enough to live on. And that was a month ago.

In October, I worked through the figures in an attempt to work out how the UK’s elected parliamentarians could be so confident that they are correct in their analysis of what it costs to live. Whilst those actually living the experience of being poor know that they are not.

At the moment I discovered that using the average costs for all of the important things that a single person, working a 40-hour week would need to earn per hour came to £9.41 per hour, I admit that I did genuinely wonder if everyone other than the Politicians had got this all wrong.

However, as I then went on to consider, averages only tell a helpful story to anyone who will benefit from presenting a story in that particular way.

Facts are, that when we consider the real world cost of everything a single person needs – including the ‘poverty premium’, which is the overcharge too many people are forced to pay, because being poor is perceived as being ‘a risk’, the real minimum hourly wage required – for ANYONE working a 40 hour week – just so that they can live WITHOUT SUPPORT – is a MINIMUM £14 per hour!!!**

Again, that was IN OCTOBER 2023 – without adding in the rapid rises in the cost of living. An inflation rate that might have halved, but is still running rampant at 4.7% or more.

It should be a basic human right that people be able to provide fully for themselves on a weekly wage. That’s even before thinking about the realities that married couples and people with family commitments have to contemplate.

Requiring anyone to work for a whole working week and then paying them any less than what it will cost them to cover the cost of meeting all of their basic needs, without subsidy from government, having to take out loans, or having to seek help through charities (such as food banks) is nothing less than sanctioned or legitimised slavery.

Just think about that for a moment. You cannot fend for yourself on what you earn but are being forced to work. Doesn’t that mean you being treated as a slave?

Yes, being honest with ourselves and seeing poverty and how Politicians ‘interpret’ it doesn’t make comfortable reading. Especially for all the small business owners who will already be wondering what the hell they are going to do to cover the upsurge in costs when wages rise – not only by £1.02 per hour in April 2024 – but with all the additional costs that the employers will then be forced to pay afterwards too.

However, all those business owners who couldn’t (or wouldn’t) pay a minimum £14 per hour (Plus the on-costs) in October 2023, should also be asking themselves the very troubling question ‘WHY?’

It won’t take long to realise that none of this adds up for anyone. Other than those who have already got more than they should ever need.

The world does not exist to do business or make money for those who have already got too much of it.

An economy should function purely to support and sustain happy and healthy lives that are humane for every one of us, above all else.

**It may be worth considering that with the average UK annual wage for all workers is currently at 27,756.00, even this realistically low figure sits way below the annual wage of what I am suggesting EVERYONE needs as a minimum of £14ph – which is £29,120.00. It is perhaps telling that only this week, the announcement was made that Foreign workers coming to the UK will need to earn at least £30K per year. Does someone working for the Government know something?

I’ve just picked up an article published by the BBC that says Food Banks are reporting a 9% surge in demand for help – all from families with children, between April and September this year.

In the same article, the Department of Work and Pensions is quoted as saying that ‘there are 1.7 Million fewer people in absolute poverty since 2010’, and it’s fair to say that anyone who hasn’t really had reason to think about this issue in any depth would be forgiven for wondering if both statements can be true.

The regrettable reality is that both statement certainly can be true, and depend very much on how data – and therefore the reality that real people are facing – is interpreted.

What was clear when a well-known Conservative MP recently declared that real poverty last existed in the 70’s, is that there are different interpretations of what poverty really is and how it can be identified,

Sadly, it serves the purposes of some to be able to declare that people who need help aren’t actually poor in a way that they can ‘hand on heart’ tell the world is right. But as I discussed in my recent blog about the hourly wage that the lowest paid single person really needs to earn before deductions are made, the difference between the figures the government is using to qualify people for help, versus the reality that people are living through when they genuinely do need help, are likely to be two very different things.

Food Banks are the acceptable face of a culture that believes for some to be rich, others must therefore be poor. And the fact that the need for them is growing – and very quickly too, is something that should give us all considerable cause for concern.

Who will need help from a Food Bank next?