Remembrance - the moment it's real

We're lined up. The great and good of Bradford that is. We've paraded to the Cenotaph, listened to the Bishop's prayer, heard the last post and stood in silence. Each of us has stepped forward to lay a wreath - most emblazoned by the badges of those we represent - the Lord Lieutenant, the Lord Mayor, political and religious leaders, police, fire, ambulance and the elderly men thinking of their fallen colleagues.

And then a woman steps forward - shuffles nervously towards the war memorial - clutching something to her breast. She's wearing a jacket with badges patched on its sleeves and the image of a young soldier on its back. The woman - perhaps fifty years old, certainly younger than me - leans down and places that thing she'd clutched so tightly. It's a photograph of a young soldier, the same soldier as the one on the back of the woman's jacket.

It stands, that photograph, there amidst the wreaths, proud and tearfully poignant. The woman walks back into the crowds, you can see she's holding back the tears. She'd remembered her son. And we'd remembered her son. More wreaths were laid, the Royal British Legion's hymn and the National Anthem were sung and the Lord Lieutenant and Lord Mayor took the salute of the soldiers, cadets and marines who marched past.

I couldn't get that photograph and that mum out of my mind. It's for her we remember - not because we like war but because that young man in the picture and so many like him did their duty. And in doing that duty, lost their lives. Not for the government. For us. For us to think every day about how we get a world where there aren't mum's placing photographs of sons on cenotaphs. And for us to remember that, until that day comes, we need those young men who sign up to lay their lives on the line protecting us.

....

The Conservative Party's problem...

****

...capured here:

Most of all, broadly speaking, I think you’d struggle to find many people under the age of 40 who are appalled or outraged or betrayed by this, far less many who really feel insulted or punished. This may reflect my own selection biases of course but, really, I look at today’s Tory papers and wonder where and when these people are living and to whom they think the modern Tory party should be trying to appeal. Because, on the evidence of today’s papers, it sure ain’t middle-class (and metropolitan!) women.

It's not David Cameron's problem or even the parliamentary party's problem, it's a problem of our image, focus and preference. The Party's image and outlook - again this isn't a consequence of policy, ideology or strategy but one of positioning - is designed to sustain it's core. And that core, the 'Conservative Base' if you wish, is over 55, living in the South East and wealthy pockets elsewhere.

Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of these people. They form the core constituency and customer base for the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail, they don't approve of newfanged things like gay marriage and women going out to work, and they make up nearly all of the Conservative Party's 150,000 members (as an aside, when I joined the party in 1976 it had around 2 million members).

The Party has lost the support of two generations of educated young people - the bunch who finished university and started work in the 1990s and the cohort who did likewise in the 2000s. This goes a long way to explaining why the Party got less than 40% of AB voters - its traditional core support - in the 2010 General Election.

Alex Massie is right. It would be a poor do if this was just the response to giving working mums a tax break on childcare. But it isn't - the same goes for almost any policy that might look even the slightest bit socially liberal. Whether it's gay rights or racial discrimination, the knee-jerk of the conservative press - echoed by the 'party faithful' next time they meet their MP - is to say no and gibber about political correctness or traditional values.

Until this changes, the Conservative Party will decline. For sure, vacuuming up the grumpy old man vote might work as a short term strategy but in the long term all it does it annoy the hell out of 30 and 40 something voters. Voters who really don't have a choice but for mum to work - and who will welcome a little tax break on childcare.

....