03 September 2009

This is truly brilliant

'Webcameron' have put up a video charting the great things the Conservatives have done for us in the last two hundred years

It is rather one-sided - considering the 20th century was dominated by them you would think we had a perfect century, even Eden gets a positive spin

But what I would take issue with is Peel - the founder of the Conservatives

'repealed the corn laws and faced down the landed interests...'


Now, hands up who knows what that did? Yes, that's right it tore the Tories in two and resulted in the Conservative party being in the wilderness for nearly thirty years, while the 'Peelites' split off and eventually became the Liberal party, you may as well be calling Gladstone a Tory

They actually take credit for Peel facing down the 'landed interests' - this is nonsensical, the Conservatives were the landed interests, they always had been (and still are) and Peel stood up against them and committed political suicide - the repeal of the Corn Laws should never be credited to the Conservatives (look it up, more Whigs and Radicals voted for it)

It's this that I take most issue with because it's ridiculous, if any person watching that went and looked up that period they'd realise the Tories were very much the bad guys - they even tried to keep up with protectionism until Disraeli dragged them away from it - now there's the true Conservative hero, and he hated Peel

They also do Disraeli a bit of a disservice by saying he granted working men the vote - true he did, but only because if he didn't during his short lived minority government, Gladstone would have a year later - they ignore Disraeli's political brilliance, which probably saved the party, for a vague assumption that he was 'progressive' - he was far better than that

I also take issue with several others, Burke, Pitt and Churchill in particular, but I don't want to go there now, and they're nowhere near as bad as the Tories venerating Peel, it's like Labour praising Thatcherism for saving them...

Intriguingly at the end, Heath took us into the common market, but Hague helped save the pound...oh and Howard created a disciplined fighting force for the 2005 election - I ask: so?

But the best is at the end - all about Cameron's brilliance

I'm glad it's still got less than 8,000 views - who do they make these things for? (except me)

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