Talk:Conservative Party (UK)

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Conservative Party (UK) article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7: 90 days

Conservative Party (UK) was a Social sciences and society good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
February 16, 2008	Peer review	Reviewed
January 5, 2022	Good article nominee	Not listed

Current status: Former good article nominee

The subject of this article is controversial and content may be in dispute. When updating the article, be bold, but not reckless. Feel free to try to improve the article, but don't take it personally if your changes are reversed; instead, come here to the talk page to discuss them. Content must be written from a neutral point of view. Include citations when adding content and consider tagging or removing unsourced information.

This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Politics of the United Kingdom Top‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Politics of the United Kingdom on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Politics of the United KingdomWikipedia:WikiProject Politics of the United KingdomTemplate:WikiProject Politics of the United KingdomPolitics of the United Kingdom articles
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

Politics: Political parties Mid‑importance

	Politics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of politics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PoliticsWikipedia:WikiProject PoliticsTemplate:WikiProject Politicspolitics articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by Political parties task force (assessed as Top-importance).

Conservatism High‑importance

	Conservatism portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Conservatism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of conservatism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ConservatismWikipedia:WikiProject ConservatismTemplate:WikiProject ConservatismConservatism articles
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Section sizes

Section size for Conservative Party (UK) (63 sections)
Section name	Byte count	Section total
(Top)	27,941	27,941
History	439	143,617
Origins	2,768	2,768
1867–1914: Conservatives and Unionists	4,592	4,592
First World War	1,980	1,980
1920–1945	2,087	2,087
1945–1975: Post-war consensus	81	8,115
Popular dissatisfaction	675	675
Modernising the party	5,332	5,332
1965–1975: Edward Heath	2,027	2,027
1975–1990: Margaret Thatcher	7,041	7,041
1990–1997: John Major	7,190	7,190
1997–2010: Political wilderness	6,772	6,772
2010–2024: Austerity, Brexit, and the pandemic	7,587	38,736
2010–2016: David Cameron	5,909	5,909
2016–2019: Theresa May	5,373	5,373
2019–2022: Boris Johnson	8,025	8,025
2022: Liz Truss	6,376	6,376
2022–2024: Rishi Sunak	4,477	4,477
2024: Kemi Badenoch	989	989
Economic policy	3,813	3,813
Social policy	12,513	12,513
Foreign policy	11,669	11,669
Defence policy	5,070	5,070
Health and drug policy	3,427	3,427
Education and research	3,663	3,663
Family policy	3,274	3,274
Jobs and welfare policy	5,444	5,444
Energy and climate change policy	3,846	3,846
Justice, crime and security policy	1,623	1,623
Transport and infrastructure policy	4,745	4,745
European Union policy	2,574	2,574
Constitutional policy	2,236	2,236
Organisation	20	32,305
Party structure	2,970	2,970
Membership	5,336	5,336
Prospective parliamentary candidates	2,232	2,232
Young Conservatives	2,654	2,654
Conferences	252	252
Funding	4,899	11,248
Financial ties to Russian oligarchs	6,349	6,349
International organisations	3,122	3,122
Logo	4,471	4,471
Party factions	3,069	11,204
One-nation Conservatives	2,014	2,014
Free-market Conservatives	3,301	3,301
Traditionalist Conservatives	1,659	1,659
Relationships between the factions	1,161	1,161
Electoral performance and campaigns	2,050	20,661
UK general election results	18,611	18,611
Notes	1,045	1,045
Associated groups	106	2,798
Ideological groups	1,032	1,032
Interest groups	431	431
Think tanks	226	226
Alliances	467	467
Party structures	536	536
See also	409	409
Notes	74	74
References	33	33
Further reading	6,678	8,176
Historiography	1,498	1,498
External links	2,178	2,178
Total	250,441	250,441

Tip: Anchors are case-sensitive in most browsers.

This article links to one or more target anchors that no longer exist.

[[General Certificate of Secondary Education#English Baccalaureate|English Baccalaureate]] Anchor General Certificate of Secondary Education#English Baccalaureate links to a specific web page: English Baccalaureate. The anchor (#English Baccalaureate) has been deleted by other users before.

Please help fix the broken anchors. You can remove this template after fixing the problems. | Reporting errors

Within the EU, the UK is one of the largest recipients of research funding in the European Union

Wouldn't it be time to write 'was'? Regards, ULF 2001:4C80:40:493:9AEE:CBFF:FEE7:FBAD (talk) 09:08, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Done — Czello ^(music) 09:11, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Marriage equality

"According to an estimation of the right-wing Bow Group think-tank, in 2013 the Conservative Party lost 35–40% of its membership due to the Same Sex Marriage Bill."

This is a baseless assertion. It should be deleted.

Citation link is dead, and Bow Group provides no data to ground this claim. "Evidence" comes from claimed "canvassing" of 100 local associations, typically one per constituency. UK has over 600 constituencies.

Same group found that average age of Conservative Party members is 72.

If not deleted, it should be contextualized:

"The right-wing Bow Group think tank claimed the Conservative Party lost 35–40% of its membership due to the Same Sex Marriage Bill in 2013. It based the claim on a canvassing of a fraction of local associations; it did not conduct a poll. The same group stated in 2017 that the average age of a Conservative Party member may be 72."

https://www.bowgroup.org/the-bow-group-finds-that-the-average-age-of-a-conservative-party-member-is-72/ 108.51.52.223 (talk) 13:01, 25 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

~~== Policies section could be replaced with a Recent Policies section. ==~~

The policies section contains information from a decade or more ago. A soultion to this could be changing the ''Policies'' section to ''Modern policies'', focusing on the four recent Conservative manifestos. 2A0A:EF40:E4A:E101:319F:4C4A:6D08:9EEC (talk) 22:06, 11 June 2024 (UTC)( Blocked sockpuppet of Lam312321321, see investigation)[reply]

That would be counter to the WP:RECENTISM guideline. Helper201 (talk) 03:36, 12 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Directly Elected Mayors Count

The article lists 2 Conservative mayors but there is only 1 92.40.218.87 (talk) 22:53, 20 July 2024 (UTC) At the foot of the infobox they claim to have 9 Conservative mayors in combined authorities, including Mayor Of London. Somebody please correct. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.97.236.81 (talk) 08:49, 6 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Done Cambial — foliar❧ 17:27, 6 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Right-wing to centre-right

This makes no sense.

Should be centre-right to right-wing like other pages. 2A02:C7C:75BE:B300:1C07:226B:DF20:61B3 (talk) 01:41, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not done: The greater weight of reliable sources supports the term "right-wing", thus it appears first. Other pages, such as Electoral history of the Conservative Party (UK), use the same. Cambial — foliar❧ 06:57, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sources for 'right-wing'

Cambial Yellowing I would have appreciated you offering some refutation to the reasoning behind my edit removing certain sources describing the Conservative Party as right-wing in part or whole.

As stated in my edit summary, the Tories are in some of the present sources labelled 'right-wing' in a comparative way that assigns similar labels to other parties which are not broadly adopted on Wikipedia (CDU as right-wing, Labour as left-wing). It cannot be argued that this source's description of the Tories or CDU as right wing conveys the same meaning as the definition of right-wing as being beyond centre-right. This source was rejected by another editor when I raised it at Talk:Labour Party (UK).

It is important to note that some of the sources also implicitly acknowledge the party's centre-right elements, some implying it to be the default for the party.

In any case, there are needlessly many sources to justify that there are right-wing elements in the Conservative Party, particularly when some of these sources are evidently being mis-applied. I will re-attempt my original edit a couple of days from now if there is no dispute.

Also, the initiator of the section above is correct. 'Centre-right to right-wing' is the norm for a largely liberal conservative party or a broad church party on the right of the centre. Cheers, Will Thorpe (talk) 04:59, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

“The norm” is determined by the weight of up-to-date reliable sources, not editor’s views on what they perceive the party to be. The scholarly sources do not state the party has right-wing “elements”, they characterise it as a right-wing party. There are no sources “being mis-applied”, and you give no indication of what led you to perceive this to “evidently” be so. There’s simply text reflecting what scholarship says about the topic. The greater weight of scholarly sources characterise it as right-wing, not as centre-right, hence that characterisation appears first in the description in running text. “Other stuff”-type arguments about a different article carry little or no force. Cambial — foliar❧ 10:15, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Cambial Yellowing The application of 'right-wing' to the Tories in two of the sources is not being done to differentiate it from the centre-right, but rather – and only – to differentiate it from the left of centre. In one of these sources, the same sentence that invokes the Tories also refers to Labour as a left-wing party. Another refers to the Tories and CDU in one sentence as right-wing parties. This is apparent shorthand for a more apt description (right of centre i.e. centre right to right wing). I challenge you to contend that this is not the case.

Another of the sources only notes "an increasing turn to the Right" within the party. This is relative and factional. It is being misapplied and it implies the existence of a more centrist position within the party as well.

Another source (Bale) notes that trends in right-wing parties are evident in the Tories. Also note the source discusses the Tories in somewhat hypothetical terms ("any transformation on the part of the Conservative Party from a mainstream centre-right formation into an ersatz radical right-wing populist outfit"). No serious source would contend the Tories are a "ersatz radical right-wing populist outfit". The source is clearly being misapplied. It is not stating this is what the party is, but it is discussing a perceived trend.

Note also in many of the sources party ideology is not directly related to the primary subject. They can be expected to lack precision on this point as such, and clearly, some of them do.

Cheers, Will Thorpe (talk) 09:57, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Your speculation about the authors' purpose in characterising them as a right-wing party is a very weak argument. "the same sentence that invokes the Tories also refers to Labour as a left-wing party" - so what? This is apparent shorthand for a more apt description (right of centre i.e. centre right to right wing) - this is an entirely evidence-free claim about the source.

Rather than taking a battleground mentality of laying down an amusing "challenge" to other editors, you would need to make a persuasive argument, not merely make baseless claims about the real meaning of the sources that apparently only your special skills can decipher.

As to your claim that "No serious source would contend the Tories are a "ersatz radical right-wing populist outfit", that's precisely the topic of the book, and given it's written by a subject-matter expert at a leading institution, published by an academic press, and well-reviewed in both journals and the daily press, it is itself a serious source.

clearly, some of them do [lack precision] - the "clearly" in that sentence once again a product of your personal opinion. It's not persuasive, and it has no relevance to how we treat sources and represent them on this site. Cambial — foliar❧ 19:56, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Cambial Yellowing You are correct concerning Bale's book, which I apologise for – I was relying merely on the provided quotation from the source.

The evidence for the misuse of the first two sources identified is established through their method of describing other parties, and their academic purpose. Going by the quotations, the only positions they identify are 'centrist' and '[insert]-wing'. There is no 'centre-right'. The sources differentiate the party from the left of centre but not from the centre-right. Note how the title of one of these sources refers to conservatism (a term just as well associated with the centre-right) whilst the quotation & bio use the term 'right-wing' – there is ambiguity baked into the language. That source weaves between discussing the centre-right and the right-wing but for its purpose establishes common terms for both, so it isn't applicable for the purpose that it is being used for here.

A source noting "an increasing turn to the Right" is once again relative and factional, but looking at it further it is simply a case of bad quote selection. Another source I located (2019) notes an opposite relative trend a few years prior – "Theresa May's party produced its most left‐wing manifesto since 1964".

More broadly, there is an excess of sources for 'right-wing' and a lack of academic sources provided for 'centre-right', though plenty exist. A series of neutral searches (insofar as the difference between centre-right and right-wing) revealed the following sources:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369183X.2020.1853909 (see abstract)

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369183X.2020.1853903#d1e249

"Specifically, the centre-right contains Christian Democratic parties such as the German CDU, Conservative parties such as the British Tories or the French Gaullists, and classically Liberal parties such as Venstre in Denmark or the VVD in the Netherlands."

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369183X.2020.1853901#d1e349 (interesting to note Bale is one of the authors)

"Hard-line stances on immigration and increased political salience can be electorally helpful to a centre-right party if it can win, retain or regain ownership of the issue, as in Hungary, in the UK, and in Austria, where the renewed emphasis and restrictive stance facilitated by a fundamental change of leadership bore fruit despite the existence of a strong and established anti-immigrant radical right."

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369183X.2020.1853909#abstract (Bale)

"The British Conservatives – one of the world’s oldest and most successful centre-right outfits – are a prime example of a party that began politicising immigration long ago."

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369183X.2020.1776596#d1e225

"Although more moderate than either the BNP or UKIP, the center-right Conservative Party has been consistently more restrictive on immigration than other mainstream parties, namely the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats."

'Centre-right' is the standard ideological positioning for the Conservative Party.

Will Thorpe (talk) 05:05, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]