Discuss the idea that there is little difference between the conservatives and labour party.
The largest two parties in British politics; the Conservatives and Labour, are often considered the polar opposite to each other, however with a limited understanding, it can be seen that there is little difference in the ideology of modern day "Cameron's Compassionate Conservatism" and Miliband's "One Nation Labour", despite their aims to appeal to different classes and sectors. However they are considered now extremely similar due to their ideologies that can be taken from their manifestos in the 2005 General Election. A party's ideology is a set of promises or regulations that the party follows, this results in bills and policies being made that follow the party ideology to make the nation suit the electorate. Currently, the nation is run by the Conservatives under David Cameron, this involves uniting the people to lessen the amount of government influence over the people which is a departure from the original Thatcherism and One Nation Conservatism.
A similarity between the Labour party and the Conservatives is their intentions to spread the wealth across the nation. The Labour party make it clear in Milliband’s 2010 manifesto that they would reform the system of how wages and wage brackets are organised and paid, the tax levels are also to be changed through reforms across different levels of income to accurately redistribute the levels of wealth for a more equal society. The conservatives intend to redistribute finances to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor which has been known to be huge. Although these methods used by the parties favour different measures to achieve the end result, showing the similarities in the ideologies of the parties that they are aiming for the same outcome but their ways and means are very dissimilar. However for the conservatives the entire system is an enormous skew from Thatcherism of the 1970s onward, which believed if someone has earned their money through work then the government should not be a part of an intervention to take it away from them, this displays how the conservative party have altered their ideology to keep up to date with the requirements, wants and current mind set of the electorate.
Also, the way the conservatives have changed their view on the distribution of wealth, the labour party altered their outlook and their views on the free market. In the 2005 general election, Labour changed their views as to how the free market should be managed and regulated, this lead them away from their basic views of preparing the economy to a reformed and more capitalist view of the reduction of regulation of the markets to permit companies to compete and grow as they wish and not to expand to the limits set out by the central government which can be restricting for large companies. This ensured the Labour's economic policy would be competing to the same degree as the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats whom all believe in the free and unregulated market, this was popular at the time as it was a period of economic increase and industrial output and the policy was popular with the electorate who would vote for a more capitalist government.
Currently both Conservatives and Labour alike have very similar ideologies on how regions and society itself should function in order to adequately provide support each other. Both the Conservatives and the Labour Party describe their outlook being that regions can thrive only when working together, the Labour party described their views towards regional councils in their 2010 General Election campaign, the conservatives also provided a very similar view. Regarding previous points, this was an ideological change for the conservatives, as they disregarded the calls for another Thatcherism who's main ideals believed that it was the job of the individual to help themselves and their families achieve what was required and not to be concerned by matters of anyone else as they shouldn't need to be troubled by such matters. The Labour party is still mostly sympathetic with traditions, however the party advises that communities ought to be more as a unit so the government doesn't need to be involved to the same extent as the Conservatives propose, this is far different from socialist views of the party. This is another reason that indicated the Conservatives and the Labour party aren't far from each other in terms of political values and shows that the only really ground breaking difference is the ways in which each party moves forward to achieve the goals set in their manifesto.
It is clear that history the two parties has shown them to be at odds with each other throughout their history together which lead to them occupying the polar opposite ends of the political spectrum from one another other with the conservatives on the right and labour on the left, with labours radical views of complete nationalism and the conservative’s policy of rugged individualism has diminished over the last few decades with each tier of the political history of each party and their main groups; One Nation Conservatism, Thatcherism and Compassionate Conservatism, Old Labour, New Labour and One Nation Labour. However in order to adapt to modern society each party had to appeal to a larger demographic in which the classes were merged over time especially through recent years of economic crises, it is more important that each party appeals to as much of the electorate as possible. For example, the labour party adapting their policy toward the free market to become more on par with the conservatives partnered with the conservatives altering their view on the distribution of wealth to become more in line with labour. To conclude, it is my opinion that both political parties are now attempting to appeal to the same voters which is why they dominate the political spectrum of Britain, there are clear shifts in party ideology towards the centre which is why the Labour and Conservatives always seem to be neck and neck in recent by elections and the general elections themselves from both the left and the right wings.