youngian wrote:crabcakes_windermere wrote:Gove mistakes knowledge for intelligence.
He doesn't always appear to have much of that. During last year's WWI commemorations Gove gave his considered views as what a left wing analysis of that conflict was; accusing officers of being crap like Blackadder.
Yes the Tories are the stupid people's party as they were when J S Mill made that observation but they keep winning. Perhaps that's because they don't over-complicate politics.
It's no surprise the Tories are - outside of their true core audience of the ultra-rich city types - the old people's party. Many get more conservative as they get older and frailer and more concerned about having enough to get by and feeling less confident physically and mentally. They offer simple answers - it's someone else's fault, it's all scroungers, we'll be harsh on kids and bring them back into line.
They're also wrong answers, but it's not hard to see the unlikely cross-demporaphic appeal to an ageing, not brilliantly well off pensioner living in a small town with a few Polish neighbours who have moved into the houses their friends used to live in and a gang of bored kids on the street corner, or the rich country chap who just wants to keep all his money.