Vibrancy and Viruses: Free Advice for Struggling Conservatives
It’s heart-warming how generous liberals can be. On both sides of the Atlantic, they’re giving their political opponents free advice on how to win elections. And it’s uncanny how similar the advice is:
“Conservative party’s problem with ethnic minority voters is costing it seats: Ignoring the UK’s significant non-white population could diminish political parties’ reach for a parliamentary majority”
Research … has highlighted the growing importance of ethnic minorities in British parliamentary politics, putting numbers and names to seats that could be determined by their votes. … It presents a challenge for all politicians, but for the Conservatives it is a problem they are being warned could consign them to life without a majority or worse. Even in 2010, when Labour suffered one of its worst defeats, and after the Tory leader David Cameron tried to detoxify his party’s nasty image, the Conservatives made little inroad into the ethnic vote. Data shows that the Conservatives got 16% of ethnic minority votes, just ahead of the Liberal Democrats on 14%, while Labour got 68%. This is down from the 80% or more Labour has previously won, but came against the background of its worst electoral performance since 1918 as support slumped in all voting demographics.
A 2012 study by Professor Anthony Heath for the Runnymede Trust [a pro-ethnic lobbying organization founded by the Jewish lawyers Anthony Lester and Jim Rose] showed how stark antipathy towards the Conservatives was. Ethnicity trumped usual predictors of voting behaviour such as class and occupation, and Heath concluded: “Around seven in 10 ethnic minority voters support the Labour party, regardless of social class.” Senior Tories have been baffled over the years, viewing ethnic minorities as natural Conservatives because of strong adherence to family life, social conservatism and entrepreneurship. … (“Conservative party’s problem with ethnic minority voters is costing it seats”, The Guardian, 11th August 2013)
In America, Republicans are “baffled” in the same way when Hispanics and Asians vote en masse for the Democrats, despite being “natural conservatives” just like ethnic minorities in Britain. Read more

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