Overall, it is clear that the current Conservatives have stayed committed to this principle, and they seem to want to stick to it in the years to come.
The Conservatives have not remained faithful to their traditional values regarding taxation. Traditionally, the Conservatives favour lower taxes, as it supports the idea of retaining personal property and wealth, but a new scheme introduced by the government promises to crack down on offshore bank accounts and make it harder to avoid paying taxes.
However, another scheme introduced by the coalition allows those under the £10,000 P/A bracket not to pay tax, which goes with the less taxation idea of the traditionalist conservative views. Arguably, however, this policy comes more from the Lib Dems, but could be taken as a sign that Cameron is centralising his party.
I think that this point is a hard one to judge, and that the Conservatives have both moved away from and towards their traditional values, so they almost even each other out.
The Conservatives have stayed true another of their traditional values increasing the private sector and reducing the services the government controls. This is in line with the tradition of individuals being able to make a profit of the industry.
With the current Conservatives, the threat of privatising and minimising the NHS is a very real one – over 35000 NHS staff have been made redundant since 2010, around £12bn of the NHS has been sold to private companies, 576 of Labour’s SureStart centres have been closed and one major hospital has even been sold entirely to a private health firm. This evidence is more than enough to show that the government is putting fewer resources towards the NHS, which is a clear sign of reducing the public sector.
I feel this is definitely an example of how committed the Conservatives are towards their traditional principles – it is extremely difficult to find and example of Cameron increasing the public sector.
The Conservatives also kept to their traditional values when it comes to welfare. A core principle of the Conservatives is that welfare should be low – people shouldn’t need a great deal of support from the state, and, to a large extent, the wealthy should not feel obligated to help the poor, and it’s not the government’s duty to intervene. This is a move away from the newer idea of ‘One Nation’ conservatism, where the rich hold a sense of parentalism towards the poor, and back to traditional values.
This is shown in Cameron’s policies to cap the welfare. The current Conservative party claims that benefits are ‘out of control’. They plan to introduce a new scheme that represents a key traditional principle – universal credits. This will mean that it is more beneficial to get a job than to stay on welfare, paralleling the idea that individuals should go out and work for themselves instead of relying on the state.
This is a fundamental traditional principle, so goes far in showing how dedicated to the original values the current Conservatives are.
All in all, while the Conservatives have made attempts to distance themselves from their traditional values, they still remain as a core part of how the party operates and how it forms their policies. The changes that have happened could indeed be seen as Cameron attempting to modernise the party and make it appeal the widest range of people as possible, instead of focusing on the traditional principles of the party.
by
barrowjacobgmailcom (student)
