An Introduction!

Hello! And welcome to my blog, the hopeful home of 'The Tory Democrat.'

Let's start with an admission before I attempt to define who I am and why I'm blogging; I have tried this whole blogging business before. And I failed. I used to find that I looked back at my thoughts, musings and opinions merely months after I had written them and disagreed with myself, at times rather strongly! And I didn't really feel I was getting much out of blog, or contributing at all to the blogging community. This election however, has enthused me to get blogging again, with a new blog, look and name.

Between my last blog and this one, I've been around the world on a now infamous 'Gap Yah' and I have (almost) completed two years of studying History at the University of Nottingham. I'm based in London when not in Nottingham. As time has gone on my views have mellowed and settled somewhat and I think the best description of my political stance is 'One Nation Conservatism' or 'Tory Democracy.'

Sorta a leftish conservative basically.

I think I could fit in with the right of the Labour Party and the left of the Conservative Party. Silly me eh?

I believe in helping the poor, struggling and marginal, and I believe in being a friend to business. I believe there is a partnership that has to exist between disparate sections of society. And I believe that however much effort the state puts in to change and the re-distribution (of anything), that real change really does come from the people. And that needs to be encouraged alongside state intervention, not as an afterthought. Making a profit shouldn't be punished, but exploitation shouldn't be rewarded either.

There is so much that I think this Government have got right; the increased aid budget, the priority towards the NHS and the increased funding for school buildings etc. Equally, there is a lot they have got wrong; too many top down targets, encroachment of important civil liberties and putting too great a strain on public finances which is now the issue of this election. I also can't help but get the feeling the attitude of 'throw money at it and it will then improve' does pervade some elements of this Government. On education, whilst I'm delighted the Government brought in top-up-fees (and yes, I am a student!), I'm still shocked at the '50%' target set for university entrance for school leavers.

Do I think the Conservatives have all of the answers? No. They will get some things right, and some things badly wrong. As would any Government. I still hope though, that they will do more than Labour have in the last 13 years to encourage the 'Big Society' which they currently promote. I hope they reform our education system and carefully manage the undeniable required cuts. We'll see what happens if they manage to get in to office!

I hope you've got a flavour of what I'm about and I'll aim to be blogging in the next few days on my election predictions, my thoughts on opinions polls, the value of the TV debates and a few other issues I feel strongly about.

Happy reading.

(PS - It appears I do have a North American cousin...I do hope he doesn't mind a kindred spirit with a similar blog URL.)