A Very British Dude says:
ID cards, Phone call databases and extended pre-charge detentions. These are lines in the sand we must not cross, and represent a reason for libertarians to vote Conservative. We can argue about the nicieties of an intrusive state afterwards, but for people to say “the Tories are evil statists too” is just plain ignorant.
I have to say that I have yet to see any commitment whatsoever from the Tories to repeal a single one of Labour’s thousands of repressive laws.
As a Libertarian, and a member of LPUK, I will not vote for anyone else. Having once voted for the Tories, thinking that they might be a bit more libertarian than the others, and having been very severely disappointed, I shall not be voting for them again.
If AVBD can produce a list of Labour totalitarian measures that the Tories have undertaken to repeal immediately upon assuming office, then I might consider a tactical vote worthwhile; however, this would involve believing the promises of members of the ruling political class, which I suspect would be unwise.
Being relatively uneducated and naive, I picture so called democracy as a lie, something to do with proportional representation and first past the post, not fully understanding all this, I believe the vast majority of the population can never vote into power who they truly want, therefore we only have a theoretical choice of who might be the lesser of two evils, brown Labour or green Conservative. Who should I vote for, I see no point except to give Labour a death blow by any means. So do I just gamble on the most likely to win and suffer more of a different flavour. I suppose it makes use of any hate genes that could damage the innocent bystander.
The Tory party machine and the overwhelming majority of the parliamentary party will follow whoever is their leader most of the time. Given that their current leader is a politically amoral chancer and paid up member of the Enemy Class the current effect of the party is pretty much evil.
However, a Tory government would be better than the current one, because we would go to hell more slowly both economically (as they are not madly ambitious like Brown to spend us in to the ground) and probably also in Big Brother terms (as they would likely be less actively totalitarian).
Also, there is always the chance that one day, the Tory leader might actually be a patriot, or an opportunist willing to go with a patriotic flow. After all Yeltsin spent his entire life climbing the CPSU hierarchy, before bringing down the Soviet Union.
Thanks for the comments but I would prefer not to give the Tory party a second chance. There is no guarantee whatever that they will do anything to reverse the effects of a decade of state tyranny; indeed, they seem far more likely to take over the apparatus of totalitarianism and use it themselves.