Conservative Party (UK)
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| Conservative Party | |
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| Leader | David Cameron |
| Founded | Historical 1678, Modern 1830 |
| Headquarters | 30 Millbank, London SW1 |
| Political Ideology | Conservatism, Liberal Conservatism, Social conservatism, British unionism, Thatcherism, Neoliberalism, Classical Liberalism |
| Political Position | Centre-right |
| International Affiliation | International Democrat Union |
| European Affiliation | Movement for European Reform, European Democrat Union |
| European Parliament Group | ED, within EPP-ED |
| Colours | Blue |
| Website | www.conservatives.com |
| See also | Politics of the UK |
The Conservative & Unionist Party (casually the Conservative or Tory Party) is a political party in the United Kingdom. Founded in its present form during the early 19th century, it has historically been the principal party of the right, though in the modern day the party and its voters are more associated with the centre-right.[1] It is the most successful political party in British history in terms of election victories.
The Conservative Party is descended from the historic Tory Party which was founded in 1678. Due to this lineage the party is still often referred to as the Tory Party. As well as the more correct description of Conservatives, its members are also called Tories. The Conservative Party was in government for two-thirds of the twentieth century, but it has been in opposition in Parliament since losing the 1997 election to the Labour Party.
Currently the Conservatives are the largest opposition party in the United Kingdom and form Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Conservative Party is the second largest political party in the United Kingdom in terms of sitting Members of Parliament, the largest in terms of public membership, the largest in terms of sitting councillors in local government, and the oldest political party in the world. The current party leader is David Cameron, who acts as the Leader of the Opposition and heads the Shadow Cabinet.
For the months between January and March 2008, the Conservative Party received nearly £5.8 million in donations, compared to just over £3.1 million for the Labour Party, as declared by The Electoral Commission on 22 May 2008. But the Conservatives are also £12 million in debt, compared to Labour's £17.8 million and the Liberal Democrats' £1.13 million.[2] The Conservative Party has recently become highly popular. Polls and prediction markets in 2008 showed that it is close to winning a landslide absolute majority.[3]
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[edit] Name
The Party's official name is The Conservative and Unionist Party, although this is rarely used. The name has its origins in the 1912 merger with the Liberal Unionist Party and is an echo of the party's 1886-1921 policy of maintaining the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in opposition to Irish nationalist and republican aspirations. Scotland's allied Unionist Party was independent of the Conservatives until 1965. Similarly the Ulster Unionist Party supported the Conservatives for many decades in the House of Commons and traditionally took the Conservative whip. In contrast to Scotland this arrangement broke down in the aftermath of the Ulster Unionists' opposition to the 1973 Sunningdale Agreement. The Conservative Party is now formally organised in Northern Ireland separately from the Ulster Unionist Party.
[edit] Organisation and membership
The internal organisation of the Conservative Party is a contrast between the grassroots groups who dominate in the election of party leaders and selection of local candidates, and the members of the Conservative Campaign Headquarters who lead in financing, the organising of elections, and drafting of policy. The leader of the Parliamentary party provides the core of daily political activity and forms policy in consultation with his cabinet and administration. This decentralised structure is unusual.[4]
As with the Labour Party, membership has long been declining and despite an initial boost shortly after Cameron's election as leader, membership resumed its fall in 2006 and is now actually lower than when David Cameron was elected in December 2005. However, the Conservative Party still has more members (about 290,000) than the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats combined (around 200,000 and 70,000 respectively).[5] However, the party does not publicly provide verifiable membership figures, making this difficult to confirm.
The membership fee for the Conservative party is £25, or £5 if the member is under the age of 23.
According to accounts filed with the Electoral Commission it had income in the year ending 31 December 2004 of about £20 million and expenditure of about £26 million.[6]
The electoral symbol of the Conservative party is a stylised oak tree, replacing the freedom torch. The present motto, adopted by the Party on 6 October 2007, is "It's Time For Change". Before David Cameron, the official party colours were red, white and blue, though blue is most generally associated with the party, in contrast to the red of the Labour Party. The position has become more ambiguous since the logo change in 2006, and the party website is now blue and green. (In the Cumbrian constituencies of Penrith and the Border and Westmorland and Lonsdale the party adopts yellow as its colour after the coat of arms of the Earls of Lonsdale).
Internationally the Conservative Party is member of the International Democratic Union, and in Europe it is a member of the European Democrat Union.
[edit] History
The Conservative Party traces its origins to a faction, rooted in the 18th century Whig Party, that coalesced around William Pitt the Younger (Prime Minister of Great Britain 1783-1801 and 1804-1806). Originally known as "Independent Whigs", "Friends of Mr. Pitt", or "Pittites", after Pitt's death the term "Tory" came into use. This was an allusion to the attenuated Tories, a political grouping that had existed from 1678, but which had no organisational continuity with the Pittite party. From about 1812 on the name "Tory" was commonly used for the newer party.
Not all members of the party were content with the "Tory" name. George Canning first used the term 'Conservative' in the 1820s and it was suggested as a title for the party by John Wilson Croker in the 1830s. It was later officially adopted under the aegis of Sir Robert Peel around 1834. Peel is acknowledged as the founder of the Conservative party which he created with the announcement of the Tamworth Manifesto.
The widening of the franchise in the nineteenth century forced the Conservative Party to popularise its approach under Lord Derby and Benjamin Disraeli, who carried through their own expansion of the franchise with the Reform Act of 1867. In 1886 the party formed an alliance with Lord Hartington (later the 8th Duke of Devonshire) and Joseph Chamberlain's new Liberal Unionists, and under the statesmen Lord Salisbury and Arthur Balfour the party held power for all but three of the following twenty years. However, the party suffered a landslide election defeat in 1906 when it split over the issue of free trade.
The Conservatives served with the Liberals in the all-party coalition government during World War I, and the coalition continued under Liberal PM David Lloyd George (with half of the Liberals) until 1922. Eventually, Bonar Law and Stanley Baldwin led the breakup of the Coalition and the Conservatives came again to dominate the political scene in the inter-war period, albeit from 1931 in another coalition, the National Government. It was this wartime coalition government under the leadership of Winston Churchill that saw the United Kingdom through World War II. However, the party lost the 1945 general election in a landslide to the resurgent Labour Party.
Upon their election victory in the 1951 general election, the Conservatives accepted the reality of Labour's 'welfare state' and its industry nationalisation programme, though Churchill, Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan and Sir Alec Douglas-Home continued to promote relatively liberal trade regulations and less State involvement throughout the 1950s and early 1960s.
Edward Heath's 1970-1974 government was notable for its failure to battle the increasingly militant trade unions, although it was successful in taking Britain into the European Economic Community. Macmillan's earlier bid to join the EC in early 1963 had been blocked by French President Charles de Gaulle. As an example of the Conservatives' divided stance on the issue, Churchill at one point argued strongly for a 'United States of Europe',[7] although he was against British membership of any federal European state and specifically the EEC.[8] Since accession, British membership in the EU has been a source of significant and heated debate over the decades within the Conservative party.
[edit] Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher won her party's leadership election in 1975. Following victory in the 1979 general election, the Conservatives briefly pursued a monetarist economic programme. More generally, the party adopted a free-market approach to government services and focused on the privatisation of industries and utilities nationalised under Labour in the 1940s and 1960s. Thatcher after her initial election led the Conservatives to two landslide election victories in 1983 and 1987. She was greatly admired by some for her leadership in the Falklands War of 1982 and policies such as the right of council house tenants to buy their house. However, she was also deeply unpopular in certain sections of society, in part due to the high unemployment following her economic reforms and also for what was seen as a heavy-handed response to issues such as the miners' strike. Yet it was Thatcher's introduction of the Community Charge (known by its opponents as the poll tax) which most contributed to her political downfall. Her increasing unpopularity and unwillingness to compromise on policies perceived as vote losers saw internal party tensions lead to a leadership challenge by the Conservative MP Michael Heseltine, after which she was forced to stand down from the premiership in 1990.
[edit] Conservatives after Thatcher
John Major won the ensuing party leadership contest in 1990, and also won an unexpected general election victory in his own right in 1992. Major's government experienced only a brief honeymoon as the pound sterling was forced out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism on 16 September 1992, a day thereafter referred to as "Black Wednesday". Soon after, approximately one million householders faced repossession of their homes during a recession that saw a sharp rise in unemployment. The party subsequently lost much of its reputation for good financial stewardship despite the ensuing economic recovery, and was also increasingly accused in the media of sleaze. An effective opposition campaign by the Labour Party culminated in a landslide defeat for the Conservatives in 1997. It was Labour's largest ever parliamentary victory. One significant feature of the result of the 1997 election was that it left the Conservative Party with MPs in just England, with all remaining seats in Scotland and Wales being lost.
William Hague assum