Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Communities and Local Government – in the House of Commons at 2:30 pm on 8 July 2013.
Stephen Mosley
Conservative, City of Chester
2:30,
8 July 2013
Tory Cheshire West and Chester council and Labour Wirral metropolitan borough council have announced proposals to merge their back-office functions such as IT, legal services, human resources and finance, saving some £69 million. Do not such schemes show that it is possible to make huge savings in local government without impacting front-line services?
The political party system in the English-speaking world evolved in the 17th century, during the fight over the ascension of James the Second to the Throne. James was a Catholic and a Stuart. Those who argued for Parliamentary supremacy were called Whigs, after a Scottish word whiggamore, meaning "horse-driver," applied to Protestant rebels. It was meant as an insult.
They were opposed by Tories, from the Irish word toraidhe (literally, "pursuer," but commonly applied to highwaymen and cow thieves). It was used — obviously derisively — to refer to those who supported the Crown.
By the mid 1700s, the words Tory and Whig were commonly used to describe two political groupings. Tories supported the Church of England, the Crown, and the country gentry, while Whigs supported the rights of religious dissent and the rising industrial bourgeoisie. In the 19th century, Whigs became Liberals; Tories became Conservatives.
