Backwoods

You know the sort. Proper old fashioned Tories. The kind who thought Iain Duncan Smith[*] would make an acceptable leader. The kind who hold tightly to three articles of faith, regardless of all evidence to the contrary, and who become quite excitable if challenged on any one of them:

1. The BBC is institutionally leftist
2. Tony Blair is a covert left-winger
3. The EU is a sinister plot to socialistify Europe

Old-fashioned Tories are tribal above all else. They don't like the EU pushing neoliberalism, they don't like Blair banging on about yobs, and they don't like the BBC parroting pro-war lies. That's what Tories do.

[*] Duncan Smith's sole contribution to history was his forthright support of the disastrous invasion of Iraq. Michael Howard, more recently, has demonstrated a sharper Tory opportunism on matters such as tuition fees; quite why the Tory leadership were attempting to present a political justification for the war, rather than letting Blair squirm, seemed unfathomable until I was told that IDS has been, for many years, a popular speaker on the rubber-chicken neoconservative US lecture circuit.