Several times I have called for the Tory Party, at least in its current form, to be put to the torch so that a viable and genuine opposition party can form in Britain (even if it is called ‘The Tory party’) as an alternative to Blairism in its various forms.
But as I am hardly bashful about my hostility to modern conservatism, dislike for democratic political parties in general, contempt for that invertebrate David Cameron (or Tory Blair as I like to call him) and the whole class of people who appointed him, I do not expect my views to carry much weight with folks who take a less bile spitting view of the political system than me.
However it would seem that Peter Hitchens, who has been by any reasonable definition the very epitome of a core Daily Mail Tory and ‘sensible’ mainstream establishment figure, pretty much takes the same view that the current Tory Party needs to be destroyed. I have been mildly incredulous to read some of his more recent article in which he has started saying things which are more or less identical to a wild-eyed anti-establishment chap like me on this issue, and moreover for pretty much the same basic reasons.
I cannot help but wonder if all those large bodkins I have been sticking in this David Cameron doll I have dangling in front of me via a little noose have not started to pay off.
Tory Blair? I thought Tory Blair was the original Tory Blair?
Anyway, Hitchens has been saying this for quite some time. It’s a view I’ve come round to also. I did like Hitchens’ recent description of both major parties as a pair of punched out fighters, holding each other up. Knock one out and the other one goes too. A major problem in bringing this about, though, is that as Labour inevitably sinks in the polls, or looks like losing a seat, Tory voters are heartened and turn out. I voted Tory in May, without enthusiam and more to keep the Labour candidate out rather than because of the Tory. I won’t be doing that again.
Do let us know if you’re running short of bodkins.
I still think the old anarchist slogan has it best – Don’t vote – it only encourages them
Perry,
Perhaps the Tory party agrees with you and elected David Cameron as the ultimate self-sacrifice to bring about a change. He has certainly convinced a lot of people (including me who was a member until recently) that the Tories are untenable.
Re Perry’s bodkins, I wonder how long it will take the black candles I’m burning in front of a photo of Tony Blair to kick in.
Voodoo bodkins—the coming political force for the 21st century. Also a great name for a reggae band.
OT. See the Lee Harris column at TCS on the socialist myth. Maybe we could use some VD bodkins on Chavez and Morales, et al. Worth a try.
So what wd you replace democratic parties with – the NSDAP?
I want a genuine constitutional republic, i.e one which binds democracy sufficiently that is does not just become a tyranny of the majority. You know, the way the USA is supposed to work (and occasionally even does work).
Or cannot you really see no alternatives between the current way of ever encroaching democratically sanctified populist authoritarianism (and resultant decay to civil society)… and National Socialism?
My take on the problem is that the political parties have become vulnerable to domination by the over-ambitious oligarchy. Parties themselves are necessary; at best they are a collection of like-minded people who have decided to sink their differences to improve the chance of getting their common aims.
The solution (ie the way to improve things somewhat) is to weaken political parties rather than do away with them. Or rather to weaken most particularly their attractiveness to the over-ambitious proto-oligarchs.
Suggestions on this are:
(i) Do away with party lists for EU elections (and any similar things).
(ii) Ensure there is never state funding for political parties.
(iii) Require election candidates to have been living (principal home) in the constituency for 2 years prior to standing, and to resign if move out.
(iv) Stop any political establishment (eg House of Commons) viewing itself as “pre-eminent”.
(v) Help with (iv) by increasing the power of the House of Lords, in particular by doing away with the Parliament Act.
(vi) Help with (iv) by breaking the link between the Executive and the HoC, most likely by introducing the concept of a directly elected executive prime minister. As in the USA, this should make individual MPs more important and less beholden to the executive for satisfaction of their ambitions.
(vii) Consider further weakening the power of the oligarchs by removing the total supremacy of the common (and undiscriminating) demos. Do this by re-introducing different estates, replacing the aristocracy and church with something more modern (eg the intelligensia). God knows how to do this decently, but I think we need something.
(viii) Replace first-past-the-post elections with the single transferable vote, including allowing multiple candidates from each political party.
(ix) Re-instate the concept that each level of government (EU, national, local, …) must be entirely responsible for policy on raising its own revenues, This does away with national government funding local authorities (and the EU).
(x) Introduce referenda on some aspects, on a regular basis.
Radical: sure.
Desirable: probably, at least in parts.
Practical: at least in part, with a lot of effort against entrenched opposition.
Enjoy.
Perry de Havilland is a Nazi.
Perry,
I think you have an overly-romanticised view of America. We’re racing headlong into totalitarianism as fast as you are, you just got a headstart.
– Josh
And ‘bob’ is an idiot. To be a Nazi, I would have to be a racist (nope), a collectivist (nope), oppose free trade (nope), support a fiction of private ownership of the means of production (i.e. you can own things just so long as you use them in accordance with national objective… which actually also describes the LibDem and Labour attitude to private property come to think of it)… and nope again.
Not at all. Plus I have lived a large part of my life there.
I agree, but the US system is at least in theory better… and theory does sometimes translate into reality. I am well aware of the failings of the US but there are at least a few lines left to fight over. The ‘last ditch’ has already fallen here.
Nigel,
Do this by re-introducing different estates, replacing the aristocracy and church with something more modern (eg the intelligensia).
Who defines the “intelligensia”? Isn’t that setting up a different set of oligarchs?
@Nick M, who wrote: “Who defines the “intelligensia”? Isn’t that setting up a different set of oligarchs?”
I did write: “God knows how to do this decently, but I think we need something.” As you can see, I hope, I do fully realise that my thoughts are not well enough developed, and so leave much to be desired.
Can you help? That is with suggestions, constructive criticism, or total refutation of the concept (preferably with reasons). This is a serious request.
Best regards
Nigel Sedgwick – Nice list and I see only two things wrong: you mentioned the EU twice. The EU has to go – at least away from Britain. This behemoth of unelected apparachiks who cannot, as can American policians, take a broad view because they cannot possibly be familiar with the 20 or so entirely separate countries and languages which currently form the EU. There is no such place as “the EU”. It doesn’t exist. It is a dream unravelling in the moments before the awkening.
So if you could include, “sign out of the EU, big time and for all time” I could agree with your other points. The EU is a part of the problem of the death of democracy, because they have introduced a behemoth that overwhelms the voter and makes him feel powerless. Voters also know their own national parliaments are toy parliaments.
Nigel,
Delighted to, except I’m as clueless as you are!
Hell’s teeth, why not? Let’s rewrite the entire UK constitution in an 11-30pm blog-post.
At least we couldn’t do any worse. I don’t think the idea of some kinda “Elders of Zion” (for my sins I watched the Matrix films on ITV this week – mainly for Carrie-Anne Moss in that catsuit) is ever going to be a good idea. I’m with Aristotle on the idea that “democracy is the least worst form of government”.
So an elected upper chamber. I’ve always thought the PR Gordian knot (not how Campbell told Brown to do his tie) could be cut by having a directly elected chamber and a chamber elected by a form of PR.
And that’s all I have to say about Parliamentary reform.
I firmly believe that UK local government has been thoroughly, over many years, neutered. It is now merely a bureacratic mess achieving little. Local Government should have real power and should fund itself locally with no central government funding. Perhaps then, more than 36% of the electorate would turn out on a sunny day to vote in local elections. In short, there should be a strict demarcation between local and central government roles and funding. I’ve got much more to say on this…
In fact, I’ve got a lot more on the whole issue of the reform of the way the UK is run, but I don’t feel like posting (or writing) an essay right now…
And I’m sure the rest of the samizdatistas are glad about that.
I’ll just raise one general issue though. You and me have to live within our means. Governments don’t. I don’t have anyone to increase the burden of taxation on if I want to spend more. Neither do I have the option of running up a debt in quite the same way. Borrowing for individuals generally impacts over the timescale of their lives, for governments it can impact over many generations, long after every member of that government is sleeping the Big Sleep. If we have to live within our means or face the consequences, so should government. Doubly so, as they’re not doing it with their own money.
Slightly off topic, but speaking of Voodoo dolls, I notice that you can now buy dolls for the team your country has been drawn against in the World Cup, dress them up in that team’s colours and stick pins in them.
I would be interested to know if we might find such a doll bearing a Labour Party rosette and stuck full of 257 pins in Mr Cameron’s Notting Hill household?
Oops, sorry … forgot the link.
Julian Taylor wonders:
“I would be interested to know if we might find such a doll bearing a Labour Party rosette and stuck full of 257 pins in Mr Cameron’s Notting Hill household?”
If only one could believe he had the balls to do any such thing!
Hmmm, GCooper. As Mae West drawled about Cary Grant, “Looks …g-o-o-o-o-d.”
My personal preference, a photograph and black candles. I just feel, in a universal sense, this might work out. Takes time, but doesn’t everything?
Democracy is disfunctional, both sides of the Atlantic.
Additional suggestions on how to deal with it —
– Being an MP or Representative should be like jury duty. Someone in each area gets a computer-selected letter, and that is it. Good pay. Job held open to go back to. And the educational system has an incentive to perform, since little Johnnie at the back of the class may shortly be the guy voting on the “Capital Punishment for Teachers Act”.
– House of Lords/Senator should be elected positions — but no pension, and disqualification for running for any elected position (including the current one) while in office. The idea is to make life impossible for the career politician. Personal details, including income, have to be on the internet for everyone to see before elections, during term, and for five years afterwards. Mandatory death penalty for corruption, and to hell with the EU’s rules.
– Each level of government is allowed to tax only the layer of government immediately below it. Local govt can tax citizens; states can tax local govt; federal govt can tax states — and only states.
– Judges prohibited from “legislating from the bench”, under pain of a mandatory death penalty.
Well, that’s for starters.
Alice – this is brilliant. Obviously, it will never be taken up willingingly by the apparachiks in control of your entire life and your circumstances, but it is very clever and could be built upon!
Heh – compulsory representation duty? I can see where you’re going with that, but I hate the idea that everyone 18 and over in this country is compelled to vote. Imagine if they were forced to represent me!
I like the idea about the tax arrangements, not because it would work well (federal government is at the top of the pile and thus has ultimate say), but because it would prove a very inefficient tax collection model. Federal tax collection offices are far and away the most effective organisations in most governments – hardly surprising considering they sustain the beast. Local governments would find it very difficult to emulate the kind of comprehensive bureaucratic nosiness and extraction capabilities that national tax offices boast.
Nigel has a good list of suggestions. My worry is that if the Tory Party goes, in a practical world, what would it be replaced with? I doubt that the replacement would be a lot better in reality.
The problem is that the party is devoid of talent and guts at the higher levels, and has become convinced, in the election of Dave, that it needs to ape the superficial appeal of Blair. This is madness. I already sense, from apolitical types, that they are getting fed up with spin and fluffy politics and want people who are competent and have some principles.
In the broader scheme of things, we are not going to have the sort of constitutional order that Perry or I want and I am afraid that the best we can hope to achieve as libertarians is fighting the battle for ideas, spreading the word, influencing policymakers etc. This is a long haul, a matter of decades. There is no use in my view getting oxidised about the current state of the Tory Party. Since its founding in 1834 by Robert Peel, the party has always been an imperfect repository for our ideas, although during a brief spell under Maggie it appeared to have gone pretty clearly libertarian.
re the HoL.
We have a local sports team that at one point, a few years back, was very good. Almost great.
The Head Coach/General Manager took a job building up another team and a new coach/gm was sought. There was a well qualified candidate who had been an assistant coach and knew the team quite well from the inside.
He knew what was wrong. He would fix it. There was only one problem. He may well have known what was ‘wrong’, but he didn’t know what was right. In his repairs of what was broken, he essentially destroyed all of the many things that were working well. The team tanked and took years to recover after he was replaced.
I think this is the case with the House of Lords. The people of the UK, having lived under it and seeing all its flaws, knew well what was wrong with it. But with the apparent English tendency to dwell on short comings and failures, they failed to see what was right with it.
In this thread(Link) you’ll find some discussion of the HoL and the US Senate. If you search up the first comment by ‘midwesterner’ it discusses institutional loyalty of the senate.
It is essential that the HoL have institutional loyalty to something other than its own re-election. This is why it worked so well when it was more or less hereditary. While some of you will claim the idiocy of individual lords who served there, the system worked because the HoL’s institutional loyalty was not to winning popularity contests.
It is fundamental that however the HoL is selected, it should be a check on, not a reinforcement of unlimited democracy.
Midwesterner,
I get your point. As ever it is well made. But look at it this way. How would you feel if the highest court in the US (the HoL has that role here) was made up of the scions of the Kennedys’s, the Bushs, the Clintons and the Roosevelts… And that the case till Doomsday.
They’re the only major US political clans I can muster right now – it being past my bed-time. I’m sure there are many more.
The issue though, is a biggy. Certainly far too big for 1-43am BST. Catch ya later.
The mere thought of that just ruined my week. Fortunately, a new one starts tomorrow.
I think it would be a little more like the DuPonts, the Ford’s, the Rockefeller’s, the Carnegie’s, and from earlier times, the Randolf’s, the Cabot’s, etc.
I think aristocracy was always rich guys helping the winning side and, since they were often richer than the ruler they helped, they got payed just like corporate flunkies do, with a new title.
All the talent in the world won’t save an institution with the power to buy its own re-election.
Here’s an idea for you. Individuals who fall in the top 1% of all tax payers are eligible to sit in the Lords. As your taxes paid rises, so do you. If it later falls, so do you.
I cannot help but wonder if all those large bodkins I have been sticking in this David Cameron doll I have dangling in front of me via a little noose have not started to pay off.
Yeah, because in the latest local elections the Tories only took the equivalent of 40pc of the national vote– enough for a good Commons majority– while Labour got 26pc, its worst since Michael Foot’s heyday.
But OTOH a nutty Daily Mail columnist has some points of agreement with Perry.
Libertarians: guaranteed to spook any cause they support.
Midwesterner, yes you’re right. It would be more like the Rockefellers, the Carnegies, the Fords – people who helped shape America.
The only problem with your suggestion is, it would be sneered at as an oligarchy. It might have to be the second, revising chamber. But actually, it’s a rather splendid idea. Anyone paying these kinds of taxes has made money, screwed the government and created jobs. I could warm to this.
What do others think? I like it. I think it’s the kind of thing the Romans would have thought up.
Midwesterner,
My first thought to your proposal was “this is very wrong”. That was a gut-feeling.
My second was this. Wealth is it’s own reward. Having money is a great deal more fun than not having it. Why should these people be granted additional state-sanctioned artificial leverage when their wealth already buys them enough leverage? If you’ve made 100 million folks listen to you anyway and so they should – they might pick up some tips.
Thirdly, The very rich are totally unsuited to being elevated into a neo-aristocracy within a country because they are intrinsically multi-national. In the UK the richest include the Hinduja brothers, Roman Abramovich, Lakshmi Mittal. All rather international figures… Nothing wrong with that. I love the fact that rich folk decide to base themselves in my country. It’s rather a compliment. If only a Russian billionaire would put GBP 400million into Newcastle United…
Fourth. The rich aren’t usually rich because they’ve just got a basement bursting with cash. They’re rich because they have interests in things. There is a clear conflict here. I believe that MPs shouldn’t have external interests – they’re paid rather well as it is.
There should be a seperation of business and state as there is between church and state. Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not suggesting government ought to be anti-business – quite the reverse. I’m suggesting it shouldn’t tie itself to any specific businesses. Ever.
I am a citizen of a democracy, not an oligarchy. Long may it remain so.
Fourthly
God knows what that “Fourthly” was doing there. Oh, bugger.
Nick,
I have a lot of respect for ‘gut-feelings’ so I’ll take that as a serious reason to give the idea the ‘third degree’.
To your second point. First, I wasn’t thinking of it as a reward. Remember, we’re talking ‘taxes paid’, not wealth. Also, my understanding is that the House of Lords basically had?has a veto on appropriations but not the power to set new laws and taxes. If this is not the case, it would be necessary for it to be so, otherwise they could loot the treasury.
I’m guessing that people who find themselves in the top 1% of tax payers will be the most aware of the effect of taxes on prosperity. I’m thinking that they won’t want to sit around savoring the ‘privilege’ of that 1% distinction. I’m hoping the turnover would be substantial as each new term managed get their taxes reduced a little.
To your third point. Rich who choose a country, presumably choose it for reasons of wanting a freer economy than the one they came from. I believe there is a good chance that they may appreciate Britain’s history and traditions, on average, far more than the typical native Brit. They might be the most inclined to say “Nope. I’ve seen were that leads.” and vote to shut down some great new overreach of government.
To your fourth point. Yes! They have interests in things. The know how to do something besides cash a government check. There is a very clear and very useful conflict here. They have something. The government wants what they have. They don’t want to give it to the government. Conflict of interest. May we have more of these kinds of conflicts.
To your separation of business and state. I suspect most of these people will want to separate the state as far from their business as they can. If it would help the case any, prequalify the top 1% as those who are not getting payed directly from or by contracts with the state.
Democracy v. Oligarchy. I’m not a fan of democracy. At all. It is, at best, a means for choosing a constitution. The only power these ‘oligarchs’ would have is one of restraint, not action.
I’m not at all certain that this is a good idea. But I am absolutely certain that direct election of the upper house is a terrible idea. A really, really bad idea. You might as well dissolve the HoL and just give it all over to the Commons. The results would be no different and you would save on payroll.
Perry wants to destroy Tory party in order to save it – a libertarian after a combat tour in Vietnam. 🙂