Talk:Conservative Party (UK)/Archive1

Complete lack of any Bias
Can you tell I'm not a Tory voter? Silver Sloth 17:55, 29 August 2008 (EDT)

This is a rather biased piece. Disappointing really.

Homeopathy
I had no idea that anyone, let alone MPs, seriously supported it anywhere in the world. Damn. 01:42, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Just look at all the names here EDM 1240, pretty disappointing, Nick Clegg and Vince Cable are on there too! Solarius (talk) 11:36, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Though in defence of those signatories, EDM 1240 was before the Science & Technology Select Committee met to discuss homeopathy. So odds are, prior to that most MPs would have thought "oh, homeopathy is alternative medicine, like herbal medicine, I'm sure that's grand stuff, let's keep an open mind" as not everyone knows what it actually is, and the anecdotal evidence and some passionate word-play often always outweighs proper statistics. 11:42, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Well as the record stands, none of the signatories have bothered to confirm whether or not they still believe that homeopathy is an effective and legitimate form of treatment, and those who have bothered to respond have only justified their resolve in regards to homeopathy, to the point that they would say things on the lines of "oh well we don't know everything about the human body, loads of my constituents have benefited, conventional medicine has side effects etc". Fair enough they may have had good intentions but ignorance is still ignorance and had we enough public scrutiny in the first place, we wouldn't have idiots signing these stupid Early Day Motions in the first place. Also this should serve to encourage more intellectual curiosity and hell we could always update this if anyone notices and were to admit how ill informed they were. Solarius (talk) 11:55, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, but you can't equate ignorance with wilful ignorance. I don't expect politicians to be aware of every alternative medicine in the cupboard, yet alone every medical issue or even every issue. Especially before it's been raised in a thorough context - we're all ignorant about a lot of things, there's no point in saying "there should have been more public scrutiny first" because that's only with the clarity of hindsight. At the actual time, an issue that hasn't been fully looked at is only as likely of cropping up as any other issue. Would you accuse MPs of being ignorant about tree diseases? No. What about after a massive epidemic that fells a ton of trees somewhere? People with a hindsight bias might well say "they should have been aware of the issue when the bad decisions were made" - except they don't become "bad" decisions until after the event, post facto. If we make a quick judgement as soon as a new issue came up, we'd probably go with gut instinct (this is because our ignorance prevents us making a fully informed decision). Later, if presented with a more thorough case, we might change our mind. If you don't change your mind to reflect the new information, then we're guilty of wilful ignorance, which is a different thing entirely, indeed it could be tantamount to full denial. Maybe these individual MPs haven't been approached about their support for alt med, maybe they want to save face by not changing their mind (a big factor in politics, unfortunately), maybe they have recounted their views and not made a big deal out of it, I don't know, that's got to be judged on a case by case basis. Now, post the Sci-Tech Select Committee report - which you do expect MPs to be aware of - if an MP put their name onto something like EDM 1240 I would hold it against them. These people are people, and they don't burst from the womb knowing every single issue that is important to every single person, it's a learning curve. So today they're knoweldgable about homeopathy due to the Sci-Tech Select Committee report, but they might be completely blank on the LHC. I'm a little appalled that the number of scientifically literate MPs is going down, but if that number went up, the number than knew a lot of world history (and the knowledge not to repeat stupid mistakes with foreign policy) would go down and we'd lose out there. Any other permuation of that sentence you'd like to make would also apply. The bottom line is, I don't think it's fair to criticise too much based on something that was done 3 years before the full information was made readily available. 12:21, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

"Dynamic"
Seriously, someone needs to stop using that word.--ZooGuard (talk) 12:58, 26 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Why? ProudTory (talk) 13:38, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
 * "Dynamic" a political sense is kind of meaningless. If you guys give me a few minutes I'll try to include PTs comments in a way that I think will help balance the article with the bipolar love/hate it has otherwise.--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 19:47, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
 * OK, I've altered the article. I'm not too familiar with modern British politics so I cannot make much in the way of expansion, I just tried to include comments by PT in a way that is more in line with the site in general and the article in specific. Someone should probably expand the section on "policies" though.--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 20:11, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Title
It's UK, not U.K. Justbrowsing (talk) 04:10, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Fixed, thanks. PowderSmokeAndLeather: Say something once, why say it again?.silverbrain.png 20:38, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Can we please stop this revert war.,
OK... I don't know if this is considered bad for to attack a user like this but for fucks sake Mikal give it a rest.

If you think that a quote from a has-been TV presenter calling the Conservative Party a bunch of cunts is acceptable but a finely crafted bit of abuse from one of history's great politicians is not then you must have something wrong with your sense of priorities.

You removed the quote from Bevan on the grounds that a quote from 60 years ago was irrelevant but a quote from a TV 'sleb' nobody outside of the UK has even heard of is in some way more relevant?

Get a fucking grip man or go to bed and sober up a bit. Longdog (talk) 22:59, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Randian bastards
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/31/nationalisation-state-save-steel-port-talbot-tata-industrial-policy

Sajid Javid, the Business Secretary, is a big fan of The Fountainhead. And surprise came there none. Worth talking about in the article? Pascal yuiop (talk) 06:52, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, a quick mention and cite will do for now, unless the new Shortest Ever Australian Holiday champion becomes party leader. Flannan Isle (talk) 16:40, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

List of MPs
The list is significantly out of date - it lists members who stepped down from the Commons nearly two years ago, and also lists ministers with portfolios they no longer hold.
 * Reverend Black Percy (talk) 19:24, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I noticed this as well. I'd propose separating out the current from the past, but it might be easier just to retitle it "Current or past MPs". I also wondered if some MPs deserve their own subsection, together with an "others" subsection listing the rest. It would be useful if it was easier to link to specific MPs (you can do a trick with inserting section IDs to link to an arbitrary point, but it may be confusing). If nobody has a strong opinion how to proceed, I'll try and remember to tidy this up in a few days/weeks. --Gospatric (talk) 12:25, 27 April 2018 (UTC)