Falling Down: The Conservative Party and the Decline of Tory Britain

by Phil Burton-Cartledge

Despite winning the December 2019 General Election, the Conservative parliamentary party is a moribund organisation. It no longer speaks for, or to, the British people. Its leadership has sacrificed the long-standing commitment to the Union to ‘Get Brexit Done’. And beyond this, it is an intellectual vacuum, propped up by half-baked doctrine and magical thinking. Falling Down offers an explanation for how the Tory party came to position itself on the edge of the precipice and offers a series of answers to a question seldom addressed: as the party is poised to press the self-destruct button, what kind of role and future can it have?

This tipping point has been a long time coming and Burton-Cartledge offers critical analysis to this narrative. Since the era of Thatcherism, the Tories have struggled to find a popular vision for the United Kingdom. At the same time, their members have become increasingly old. Their values have not been adopted by the younger voters. The coalition between the countryside and the City interests is under pressure, and the latter is split by Brexit. The Tories are locked into a declinist spiral, and with their voters not replacing themselves the party is more dependent on a split opposition – putting into question their continued viability as the favoured vehicle of British capital.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History

304 pages, Hardcover

First published September 14, 2021

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

An engaging read, but not quite what I was expecting. The book turned out to be a potted history of the Tory party since 1979. Fair enough, but I was expecting to read more on the hypothesis that the Conservatives face a struggle maintaining their electoral coalitions into the future and why.
Either way, a lucidly written and accessible history of the Tory Party over the previous four decades.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

"If, however, the Tories were to become more consistently socially liberal and actively dumped their attachments to scapegoating, callousness, authoritarianism and opposition to equalities, and were less capricious and more thoughtful, and abandoned persistent short-termism, in conjunction with significant about-turns on policy, a reinvented Tory Part might become a rejuvenated Tory Party.

With one caveat [...] such a transformation would demand a clear-out of most Tory MPs, its cadre of councillors and most of the membership. As with expecting the Tories to go against the interests of their base, refounding the Tories as a moderate, cautious centre-right party is a pipe-dream."

I've followed the author's blog for a long time. Phil Burton-Cartledge cranks out the most insightful analysis of British politics you'll read anywhere at an astonishing rate. He's often argued (correctly) that for all the opposition to the Tories there is a dearth of any serious analysis of the Conservative Party from the Left.

His pet theory, honed on the blog for years now, is that despite their past and current dominance the Tories are facing terminal decline, largely due to an over-reliance on elderly voters who (contrary to Tory belief) are not simply being replaced as the younger generations age. This book is the culmination of his thinking on this subject and one I've been eagerly anticipating for a long time.

Mostly so I have a place to access them, I've summarised some of the arguments I found most interesting or insightful below.

• David Cameron and George Osborne were almost uniquely short-termist and vindictive Tory statesmen. In the 5-6 years they were in office they did such harm to the social fabric that they'd prompted significant mass opposition - from the Yes movement and SNP ascendance in Scotland to the election of Jeremy Corbyn and revival of mass socialist politics.

• The conservatising effect of age isn't a natural/immutable process. It's an effect of acquiring assets (especially property) throughout your life. This is happening for fewer of us.

• The young are socially liberal not simply as a result of successful struggles against discrimination, but due to the "immaterial" work most young workers do, which depends on social relationships. "Social conservatism as practised by the right, with its emphasis on tradition, authority and the vilification of undesirables and scapegoats, cuts fundamentally against the prevailing (and expanding) social-liberal common sense. Their way of the world jar with younger workers' experience of the world."

• The Conservatives are alienating the young in more material ways too via e.g. age-tiers for the minimum wage and welfare benefits, tuition fees, holding down real pay and therefore living standards. The Universal Credit cut and National Insurance hikes are more recent examples of this phenomenon.

• "[Even if] the conservatising effects of age are jump-started by a new policy package, there is no reason to believe these policies could overcome the toxicity they're bedding down into younger demographics."

• This also means that even when young people inherit their parents' assets, the convervatising effects may take longer to kick in.

• He talks about a kind of "petite-bourgeois-ification" of the retired. Comfortable retirements based on homeownership (with rising asset prices), renting out second homes, index-linked pensions, some degree of shares, as well as the State Pension triple-lock, means that pensioners have much to lose if the economy or governments turn against them. They instinctually/rationally support governments who won't tackle private renting or undercut property prices by building more housing.

• The Tories are aware of their predicament and have made some half-hearted attempts to address it, such as help to buy schemes and the "Levelling Up" agenda. However, the short-term gains are too great to risk alienating their current older voter coalition. "Keeping this base loyal, which disproportionately turns out at election time for the Conservatives, means that the Tories have an electoral interest in pitching their programme at them, even if the price the party will pay is decreasing political viability in the medium to long term."

[David Sidwell · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a former politics university student (too many years ago!) I recognise the importance of reading sources that don't necessarily reflect your own views.
With that in mind, I thought I would give this book a go.

It's basically a critique and "history" of the Tory party, it's policies, intentions, developments and it's impact on the UK and the political scene from Thatcher onwards. BUT it makes no attempt whatsoever at impartiality. It doesn't actually critique anything, it unfortunately falls into the cliché of "left wing care about everyone and anyone who isn't of this persuasion is bad" etc with the kind of Worldview that you would expect to see on social media, not from an intelligent academic.

Instead of genuinely trying to understand any view the author may disagree with, the book is merely an exercise in justifying his own political beliefs.

There are clearly areas of every administration since 1979 that can be challenged or critiqued or had undesired consequences (too numerous to list!), whilst also developments which clearly benefitted others (Right to Buy, Good Friday, Devolution, Gay Marriage/rights, Covid vaccine policy etc) but the author dismisses everything as either negative or having sinister overtones.

It's a shame that he takes this approach. A more balanced assessment would actually give strength to his genuine criticisms and allow for a more thoughtful analysis of the events which he explores.

The book also claims to be an examination of the inevitable decline of the party and frankly, it only touches on this, preferring instead to be a blow by blow history of the party since 1979.

Overall, an interesting book and as I say, interesting to hear and understand the author's perspective but his tunnel vision understanding and interpretation of events results in a diminished work, as opposed to something that could have been more relevant.

[Peter Harrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I should declare at the start that I fundamentally share the analysis presented in this book by Phil Burton-Cartledge (whose blog can be found here). By way of introduction Burton-Cartledge in the opening chapters sets out a summary of how the Conservative Party is structured and those prior analyses which suggest a long term decline in the party's fortunes is under way. He then goes on to suggest his own theory in summary.

At its core Burton-Cartledge's analysis is that since at least Thatcher, the policies pursued by the Conservatives in government have undermined the constituency on which the party has built it's support in a number of ways. Firstly in terms of the communities of support on which the party is built, where the party was originally underpinned by a number of institutions that formed an embedded part of British society including the Church of England ("the Conservative Party at prayer"), small businesses, and a network of upward mobility where being integrated into the network of the party was a logical part of "getting on" in life and a sense of social mobility. The neoliberal revolution begun by Thatcher set in motion the slow dismantling of this institutional basis. The authoritarian state pursued by Thatcher together with the privatisation and individualisation of both the economy and of leisure time have undermined these collective support networks.

Secondly, and as a natural follow on to this individualisation of politics and economy, the party positioned itself as the party of atomised individuals with support from the owners of assets that these policies appeal to. This means that Conservative Party support over time has become more and more heavily weighted towards the retired who as house prices have inexorably risen under these policies are significantly more likely to own assets such as a house, and yet feel insecure about their position and therefore likely to support the sort of authoritarian state created by Thatcher and her followers.

Lastly Burton-Cartledge contends that the policies which garner the support of this electoral coalition are at odds with the growing trend towards social liberalism. Despite what might be assumed, this trend is not the result of successful struggle but of trends towards cooperative, service-oriented, and fundamentally social labour in the modern economy. This means that the coalition built by the Conservatives that has maintained them in power for much of the last 40 years is increasingly out of kilter with modern British society and economy, leading to a long term secular decline in their electoral prospects despite transient success.

In simple terms then Burton-Cartledge suggests that the Conservative Party will eventually run out of road as the natural basis of their support withers away. This is an analysis that feels essentially correct, and can potentially be seen in action in the increasingly strange behaviour of the party in power in 2022 as it faces up to the more and more divisive stance required to keep its coalition together and voting for it. The section on trends towards social liberalism is brief but interesting as it feels related to the analysis of writers like David Harvey on the changes in the economy that led to the cultural turn often referred to as postmodernism.

What follows is a close reading of the politics of the last forty years, stepping through each prime minister's time in office in turn all the way through to 2021 and the arrival of the COVID19 pandemic. This is a detailed and superb summary, but for me could have been more closely connected to the analysis set out at the start. Possibly as a result of ensuring that it was right up to date at a time of accelerating change it feels like it lacks a short summary linking back to the analysis set out at the start.

That said, it is a superb exploration of the nature of the modern British Conservative Party that sets the scene for the increasing strange and extreme behaviour pursued by Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Rishi Sunak in office during 2022.

This review can also be found on my blog here: https://marxadventure.wordpress.com/2...

[Thomas Griffin · Rating 1 out of 5]

So descriptive that it could have been written by Wikipedia.

[Sean Fernyhough · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been familiar with Phil's writing on politics - mainly Labour Party politics - for many years through his blog "A very public sociologist" on Blogger. This book adopts the same easy-to-read style that will suit most readers. The book contains an overview of the changing structures of the Conservative Party and then a detailed commentary of it in government and opposition from 1979 onwards. These are invaluable and, in particular, I was struck by how important the Major government was in consolidating Thatcher's legacy. At the time I just noticed the chaos and a government virtually begging to be put out of its misery.

The premise of the book is that the Conservative Party's electoral coalition - retired and property owning voters - has a limited life (literally) and the collapse of home owning among the under 40s and the changing labour market means that it cannot be renewed on the same terms.

I first read the book in April 2022 when Labour were getting single digit poll leads at last. I have just finished reading it for a second time when Labour's lead is 20 points plus. It's easier to accept the book's premise in early 2023 than the Spring of 2024 when the Conservative Party's handling of the politics of the epidemic danced rings around an inert Labour Party.

With hindsight the skids were under the Conservative Party in April 2022 with Boris Johnson's handling of the Owen Paterson's affair in November 2021 and the decision by MSM the following month to start reporting the stories it had known about for a number of months concerning government parties during the lockdowns (the delay between learning of the parties and reporting them deserves investigation). Johnson's departure and the turmoil occasioned by Truss' "Clough at Leeds" episode may have sealed the Conservative Party's electoral fate for some elections to come. At the same time the financial turmoil may have finished off for a a similar length of time the idea of an active reforming government seeking to recast British society, its institutions and its ills (hold on, I'm writing the second edition here).

So the brouhaha of day-to-day politics and the structural nature of the politics it has built over the years like the slow accretion of a coral reef have forcibly come together in recent months to drive home Phil's analysis. But what is to come of this situation, I wonder?

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A really well-researched history of the Tory party in the UK and their continued electoral success from Thatcher through the wilderness years under New Labour right through to Brexit and the pandemic. The author's central point is that the Tory party relies on predominantly older voters who are relatively well shielded from its otherwise callous economic policies through having acquired property, and that the party faces an existential threat in the years to come as its electoral base depletes with little sign of what might replace it. His points are well argued - from ruthless austerity, tactical refusal to build housing and deplete asset prices, fragmentation of benefits and public services and harking back to an imaginary Britain as a mechanism for winning votes, almost every electoral tactic is touched upon astutely.
While the author is clearly very knowledgeable and presents a rigorously researched - and badly needed - history of the Tory party, the book would have benefited from less painful detail of each election fought and policy implemented in favour of more analysis of what the Tories' future might entail. Furthermore, the book is explicitly political analysis and mostly avoids some elements - the party's relationships with business, its role in financialisation and the outsized importance placed on The City - altogether. While this is fair given the breadth of topics covered, and in fact is stated at the beginning, explaining how fundamental these elements are in how the Tories operate would have helped give a much clearer understanding of the party and its dominance in the UK.
Despite some slight missed opportunities in this book, Burton-Cartledge is an excellent critic of the Tory Party and is a key name to add to your political news feed, especially via Twitter and his newsletter.

[Grace Brooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a review of the second edition published in 2023.

A solid if sometimes narrative-heavy piece of British social science. The book is on much firmer footing in the first half, analysing how the politics of asset ownership and retirement created worldviews that were amenable to the political projects of Thatcher and John Major. Indeed, Burton-Cartledge makes the convincing case that it was Major’s vicious reforms to the public sector that were the most brutal aspect of neoliberalism’s implementation in the UK. It is also here that the groundwork for Brexit was laid, as both leader’s authoritarian concentration of power within the executive was in contradiction to the federalising tendencies of the EU.

Indeed, even Thatcher’s boost the home ownership was merely a band-aid (albeit an effective one) for the long term factors she unleashed underpinning Tory decline. Her decimation of working-class regions also decimated an entire strata of petit bourgeoisie who serviced those communities, and the shift to a finance/service economy accelerated socially liberal tendencies. This latter problem was only superficially remedied by David Cameron’s “one nation affectation”.

After this, the book slightly devolves into a more journalistic recapping of the post-Thatcher/Major conservative PMs with less of the cutting social science methodological work. Perhaps not enough distance has passed between the Johnson/Truss/Sunak years to truly analyse them historically.

[Andy Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phil Burton-Cartledge has written an extremely thoughtful and insightful book, Falling Down, which ought to be essential reading for anyone trying to understand the state of British politics today and the reasons behind the longevity of Conservative Party rule. Burton-Cartledge argues, persuasively, that the seeds of the Tories’ decline are to be found in the very reasons for their success, namely successive leaders’ reliance on an aging base of support and reactionary policies that appealed to the basest instincts of the electorate, support for which is literally dying away as the years pass. Continued conservative rule has also benefitted from a split opposition, something that won’t always be the case, says the author, who predicts a downward spiral of electoral doom for a party that has been the most successful machine for winning elections in the history of the planet. While Burton-Cartledge would appreciate the political aphorism of “everything turning into its opposite”, he is astute enough not to relapse into political determinism to realise that nothing is inevitable. After all, as he concludes the book, “No one got rich betting against the Tories”. Falling Down is a very readable, essential account that needs to be studies by anyone with an interest in contemporary politics.

[Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read The Party's Over during the 2024 election campaign, which certainly proved Burton-Cartledge's predictions of Conservative doom right. The core analysis, that a series of electoral short-term wins (such as selling off council housing to increase home ownership) have corroded the structural integrity of the Tory voter coalition, is compelling and well-argued. The chapter on Thatcher and how she ultimately laid the foundations for the party's downfall was particularly insightful.

However, too much of the book slips from analysis to just a listing of events; this can still be interesting in an 'oh wow I forgot that happened' way but it means that the second half of the book loses its momentum and prosecutorial edge. An interesting read and admirably foresighted, but I suspect that the coming years will see some more impressive histories produced on this subject.

[Owen Hatherley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book does something very useful - the British left is by and large not good at understanding its enemies - and does it well, with subtlety and patience. However, after the more interesting theoretical introduction the accumulation of 'and then they did this and then they did that' is quite numbing; also highly unconvinced that the concentration of the Tory vote in the elderly is evidence of decline, rather than a sign that a lot of politics is going to look like this for a long while now as the citizen population of the rich countries ages.

[Andrew Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

A detailed and intelligent account of 50 years of the Tories. Not light reading perhaps, but well-informed and thoughtful. While on the face of it the hypothesis of entrenched decline might seem strange after almost 14 years of power - and perhaps a bit overoptimistic given his socialist background - he makes a pretty good case for it. Partly its about the Tories staking their future on the past, particularly the elderly, and in chimeras such as Brexit and the ludicrous 'war on woke'. Let's hope he's right!

[Clare Russell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting history but quite an odd book starting with a thesis of inevitable Tory decline due to societal change, that never quite materialises
Wonder what the author would make pf partygate and recent h events