LONDON -- The mission of the Conservative Party is to help the most vulnerable in society. To do this, it will not cut income tax but will make improving Britain's public services its main job.
What is the Conservative Party coming to? Who is going to fight for the owners of capital, the exploiters of labor, the privateers of the free market? And who will now pursue the mission of using physical force against all foreigners, aliens and the wayward offspring of the undeserving poor? Apparently, no longer the Conservatives, at least in the words of the speechwriters for a Conservative spring conference in Yorkshire during the last weekend of March.
This rebranding of conservatism after its years in the doldrums following the expulsion of its old queen, former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, might seem a desperate attempt to position itself on the Labour Party's weakest flank: its claim to be the only party that can and wants to radically improve the lot of the vulnerable, the dispossessed, the excluded.