The UK Conservative Party is supposedly “centre right” but this is a long outdated designation because, in the musical chairs game of political charades called “Democracy” where the party which promises the most “benefits” gets the most votes, they have no option but to play on the left field.  Hell will freeze-over before an electoral promise to increase spending on science or defence wins votes..!   Given the ever-increasing number of retired voters expecting state benefits – particularly the NHS, the aged pension, bus-passes, etc – and the need to attract young voters away from their default left field home – the “Conservatives” are being inexorably pulled onto the left field by the “red-shift” phenomenon that drives our so-called democracy.   No political party can, for example, even hint about ending the “everything for free” bed-rock of the NHS, despite the ever-growing crisis in that sacrosanct holy-cow of a Labour-excavated money pit.  As long as there is still some “defence budget” to be milked it is not even going to be considered.   The party unlucky enough to be in power when the inevitable funding crunch happens will almost certainly lose the following election.