Are you a member of the Tory Party? Remember when Dave Cameron said he would pull the Tory Party out of the €uro-Federalist EPP once he was elected leader? Remember when he promised Tory MPs would be free to campaign for withdrawal from the EU provided they were not on the front bench?
Have you had enough of the endless porkie pies from Dave Cameron yet? Do you care if you are lied to just to get your vote? If you do care and you still like the idea of being a member of a political party, then I suggest go and join the only thing even approximating a conservative party in Britain… and to do that, you have to leave the Tory party because if you are not a part of the solution, you are part of the problem.
The only thing worse than another term of Labour implementing its destructive policies would be a term of the same destructive policies being implemented by Dave Cameron’s Tory Party and institutionalising radical regulatory centrist authoritarianism as the only permitted political option in Britain regardless of the party in 10 Downing Street.
Although the editorial writers are pulling out all the stops to minimise the threat of the UKIP, clearly the blood is in the water and ideology-free die-hard ‘sensibles’ like Matthew d’Ancona and other have abandoned their policy of trying to laugh off UKIP. There could be no clearer sign that the Cameron Tories are circling the drain.
Update: I left the following comment earlier today on the Telegraph’s website for the Matthew d’Ancona article linked above. As they seem to have decided not to approve the comment for publication…
So let me see… Dave Cameron (who you may have noticed leads a party that claims to be conservative) promises more ‘green’ regulations, goes back on his pledge to leave the Euro-Federalist EPP, goes back on his pledge to allow non-front bench Tory MP’s to campaign for EU withdrawal if they support that, has called for ‘redistribution of wealth’ a la Polly Toynbee, but no, he has not signed up for the European Social Model and is a pukka conservative. Is that really your position?
Sorry Matthew, but how credulous do you think people are? Not only is Dave Cameron a liar (please show me where the things I have mentioned are incorrect), he is clearly not in fact a conservative by any meaningful definition of the word.
I swither between agreeing with you and getting depressed about the idea of another Labour term. The problem is that if Cameron advanced a Thatcherite platform he wouldn’t be elected. So he may be lying to win over floating voters. But he could also be what Matthew D’Ancona called him in the Telegraph – a George Bush-type “compassionate conservative”- which you or I would probably call a statist. We can’t know which it is.
So what should we do? I do just wonder if we are going to have to wait until things get much, much worse, at which point it may become possible to elect a party which advocates liberal (in the classical sense) policies. I shall consider a period overseas in the meantime.
Anyone know how to get a green card?
BH,
I think Cameron is basically the same as Blair and Brown. He has some vague idea that government needs to be balanced with individual freedom. However he has no real courage to oppose interventionist policies.
Thatcher discovered when she entered office that the natural inclination of government is to grow. The civil servants would continually present ministers with a series of options with their own preferences made to appear best. Unless the government has the moral conviction to choose the “wrong” answer, the state will grow.
Personally I believe government has a natural ceiling. Without a Thatcher figure it will always keep bumping against that level. On the plus side, I think technology and globalisation is constantly lowering that ceiling.
I used to be angry with Mr Howard (the former leader of the Conservative party) for only formally suggesting that he would take back fishing policy for the European Union.
Mr Cameron changed that – he said that he would not even take fishing policy back. He will take no powers back from the E.U. at all.
What people like M. D’Ancona refuse to understand is that it is not that the British people do not WANT lower taxes and powers of government taken back from the E.U. – it is that they do not BELIEVE that the Conservatives will do this.
Vast numbers of Conservatives did not “switch to Blair” in 1997 – they just stayed at home, and they have done so ever since.
They came to the conclusion (by judging the government led by John Major) that the Conservative party were a bunch of dishonest shits – and (to judge by Mr Cameron) they were clearly correct.
The present Labour government is very unpopular indeed (for many reasons) and the media (seeing that Cameron is anther Blair) go all out to support him (so that the British people can vote for “change” whilst really getting more of the same – more taxes, more spending, more regulations and more power to the E.U.). And yet the Conservative party lead in the polls is small – nothing like the vast mid term lead that one would expect.
“Forget your dreams, politics is about running things better”.
First the “realists” are the real dreamers. Such as Mr D’Ancona with his fantasy that Mr Cameron would somehow “run things” better than Mr Blair or Mr Brown. Or Mr Niall Ferguson (on the same page of todays “Sunday Telegraph”) with his absurd idea that the a “U.N. force” can replace the Americans in Iraq and “bail out” President Bush (this being the same U.N. whose staff, right up to the top, accepted bribes from Saddam in the “oil for food” affair and who ran away from Iraq when their H.Q. got blown up). But then one should not expect sense from a Harvard Prof like Niall Ferguson, who last week was waxing on about wonderful place that the “Islamic Courts” were creating in Somalia before the evil Americans destroyed it – I suspect that Prof F. knows that what he writes is nonsense but, as he said in the recent television advert, what he values most is “money” and one certianly gets a lot of money as a Harvard Prof.
Still I must return to “run things better”.
Take the example of my home town – Kettering, Northamptonshire.
The Conservatives (before the took control of the town council and the country council) used to complain about high local taxes – they are now higher. And there is even a plan to build a new town hall (at vast expense) somewhere out of town (I suppose so the councillors and local government officers can hide from the local taxpayers).
The Conservatives used to make much of the fact that one could not drive north-south through Kettering (due to a crazy block to the road system in the middle of town which effectively cuts the place in two) – after four years in control the road system is still blocked.
Oh and (of course) we have “recycleing” – this means that the rubbish is collected every two weeks (and even every two weeks is far from certain – some rubbish gets collected one week and other rubbish gets collected the next week and some weeks the rubbish does not collected at all so it sits outside for the best part of a month) and we must (on the threat of various punishments) divide our rubbish into sorts to be put into different colour bins.
After they get the rubbish the council then mixes it all together again and ships it off the Far East (at great expense), there it is dumped in land fill (which it could be here – at much less expense, as for what the different colour bins our for [when the rubbish is all mixed together again] nobody seems to know).
The Conservatives used to pretend that the scheme was their clever idea, but now even they have given up telling lies about how “the vast majority of the town support the scheme” and now say it was forced on them by the government (who, in turn, had it forced on them by the E.U.).
Does the above sound like “running things better”?
I think the conservatives would probably do a better job of running the country than Labour would.
The reason that I’ll likely be campaigning against them is that if they do OK, we’ll have Cameron as the next tory leader, and someone like Cameron as the one after that. If Cameron suffers a bloody defeat, particularly if the UKIP do OK, we’ll have a shot at a decent conservative party the next time round.
James, that is a very good reason to vote against Cameron.
I disagree James. I think they would be the same self-serving bunch of misfits and incompetents as we see in the Labour Party now. The sole reason for voting in the Conservative Party at the next election would be that we now know that it takes at least one term in office before the real contemptible corruption sets in and it might be worth voting them in for one term if only to get Brown and Blair out. Neither Cameron nor his bunch of smug, ‘NuTory’ hangers-on represent the Conservative Party that I know, respect and have always voted for, rather they appear to represent the concept of branded hype and the soundbite that even Labour have started to move on from.
Very good point about the change of attack on UKIP.
Many may say that we are now at stage 2 of the standard cycle of new ideas / movements.
Stage 1: Ridiculed by the establishment
Stage 2: Attached as dangerous by the establishment
Stage 3: Accepted as inevitible
However, with UKIP there is the fact that so far the establishment approach of trying to fill it with nutters / unpleasant people (so it can be discredited easily) is in evidence.
It was founded by the hugely amiable Dr Alan Sked, who was soon ousted by types who appear to put themselves before any ideology, and who seem broadly opportunist rather than intellectually coherent. They run a big risk of turning into a sort of Lib-dems of the right, positioning themselves to pick up protest votes and running unpleasant and dirty local campaigns.
Unless britain adopts PR, barring a HUGE infusion of talent, they will not form part of any government. Thus they end up being a way to influence the Tory party, but at the cost of increasing the chances that Labour rather than the Conservatives will run the country. At the very least it comes across as rather Trotskyist – “The worse the better” etc.
If you accept my previous paragraph, you can at least accept that Cameron might be quite keen to stop UKIP getting that huge infusion of talent.
If Cameron suffers a bloody defeat, particularly if the UKIP do OK, we’ll have a shot at a decent conservative party the next time round.
Sadly, this probably won’t happen. Like it or not, Cameron is the leader best suited to getting the Conservatives elected. They had a real conservative in the form of IDS (or at least, more real than Cameron) and nobody liked him. If Cameron does suffer a defeat, the answer to their problem will be to choose a candidate with more Cameron/Blair qualities, not more conservatism. But of course, that won’t help the readers at Samizdata too much. That said, I still agree that voting against Cameron serves a useful purpose of delivering the message that some people in the UK still want a properly Conservative government, even if we are not in sufficient numbers to be able to vote one in.
Julian: it might take more than one term in power to become corrupt, but today’s Conservatives come pre-corrupted. Already they’re taking the view that they want to have power and they’ll find the ideas that’ll get them there, not that they want to implement ideas and they’ll work to get the power to do so.
Why would the Conservatives only stay in for one term? I don’t see how they’re any worse than Labour. Cameron’s policy of excluding the believers seems like a reasonable policy for gaining and maintaining power. Worked for Blair (although I think that Blair was following the ideas he believed in to a much greater extent, and that that is a big help).
Tim: I agree that Cameron is the Conservative’s best shot at getting elected. That’s why, although there’s a lot of Conservatives who are unsure about Cameron, he’s been able to make ’em shut up by promising them power. So far the party is holding together pretty well. There’s some cracks beginning to show (this story is a good example), but things are still mostly OK. If the party loses, if the sacrifice of principles for power doesn’t pay off, they won’t be able to keep a lid on the grassroots in the same way again. We might not get another IDS, but I think the chances that we might are good and the chances that there’d be a bigger split in the party are also good.
James Dunlop: The UKIP already do well in the European elections, better than the Lib Dems. I’m not sure why people care so little about the 80% of our legislation that comes from Europe, but it’s worth pursuing power there, too.
I felt distinctly queasy at the end of d’Ancona’s article. “Cameron’s not a patrician Tory – he’s a compassionate Conservative, like JWB”. Oh, well, that’s all right then. He doesn’t want big government for our own good, he wants big government for our own good. “He’s not in favour of the EU social model; he’s promised to withdraw from the Social Chapter.” Is that like his promise to withdraw from the EPP, then? That kind of withdrawal?
God help us.
The only bright side, as Perry says, is that it shows that despite all the “fringe party” talk, UKIP has them scared witless.
I fort GreenDave wuz a band.
You are all ignoring the 900 pound gorilla in the living room,the BNP,who are likely to vacuum up the disaffected Tory right and the old Labour working class.
Nor do I subscribe to the concept that decimating the Tory party will result in a new party,as yet this creature has not manifested itself.The most probable outcome is another Labour government under the Lord Protector,or,if Iran goes off another term of the Great Gatsby.
This is what is going to decide the next election The cost of living.
Mr Cameron has “promised to withdraw from the Social Chapter” – so the E.U. regualtions would be imposed on “health and safety” grounds.
It is like the promise to repeal the Human Rights Act – “would you get out of the Convention?” “no” – so people would simply appeal to Europe (a different court in this case).
I repeat what I said above.
Most people DO want lower taxes and the return of powers from the E.U.
The task of the Conservative party is to convince people that it would deliver these things if it won a general election.
Most people do not believe it would. For example, most people did not believe that the Conservatives would cut taxes if they had won the last election.
Is Mr Cameron doing and saying the sort of things that would convince the people that he would reduce taxes and return powers from the E.U. – NO.
Is Mr Cameron the sort of man who could be trusted – NO.
Therefore Mr Cameron is NOT the right man to get the Conservatives elected.
The small opinion poll lead is nothing like the massive mid term lead one would expect, especially with the Labour governement as unpopular as it is.
I am not a member of U.K.I.P. but I have met many members of it (including the leadership) and what James Dunlop says is quite wrong.
Certainly they are not libertarians, but they do want a smaller government and have thought a lot about how taxes, government spending and regulations could be faught.
As for “opportunist” – taking opportunites yes (when there any), opportunist no.
They understand that the media (and the rest of the establishment) hate them with a passion and will do anything to destroy them (Mr Cameron calling U.K.I.P. “closet racists” – saying they were both racists and cowards is only one example) and fight on anyway – hardly opportunists.
However James Dunlop is quite correct about the efforts of the establisment (represented by the Security Services) to infiltrate racists into U.K.I.P. (in order to discredit it), there has been very firm action to keep these people out – but it is an area that needs eternal vigilance.
U.K.I.P. people must also come to understand that anything they say will be taken out of context and twisted against them.
Every word spoken should be carefully thought about in advance – the old days when people like Winston Churchill (and the rest of his generation) could say whatever they thought however they wanted to say it (and DRINK as much they liked) are over (although, of course, even Winston Churchill had trouble getting on the B.B.C. in the 1930’s).
Britain is in many ways an “occupied country” in that all its main insitutions (the broadcast media, much of the print media, the schools and universities, the central and local government service and all “public bodies”) are in the hands of its enemies.
People must learn to speak and act accordingly.
In this situation “paranoia” is the only sensible frame of mind, and a clear and sober head must be kept at ALL times.
Cameron is a disaster: the only people who think he’s the answer to the Tories’ prayers are clueless true blue party members who believe that success lies in copying Blair’s cynical stunt of 1997. His platform is not remotely conservative: either he’s lying in the hope of “pulling a Blair” (not a good sign), or worse still, he’s telling the truth and he is Blair — only a more caring-sharing, touchy-feely, better-hair Blair. Why vote for him? The Tories have unswervingly picked the wrong man for the job for nearly two decades. Nobody trusts them anymore.
And the appeal of voting for someone because they’re not quite as crap as the alternative is greatly overestimated. I’ve deliberately spoiled my paper for years, and I know I’m not alone in my perversion. It’s the most miserable feeling, but I refuse to vote for shit, even if it means letting in something even shittier. Political parties have relied on gloomy pragmatism for too long, with the result that they have become complacent and increasingly detached from their natural constituency.
Thankfully, I can end this post on a delightfully happy note, as I’ve just been over to the UKIP website (following a comment on the education thread). …And what a joy it was to behold, after my usual indigestible fare of things like OCR “Specification Aims” (e.g. the “Spiritual, Moral, Ethical, Social and Cultural Issues” involved in taking an A-Level Maths or an RSA Typing course: see OCR’s website if you don’t believe me — or want a laugh).
Free of the phony vocabulary of political correctness, it reads like a breath of fresh air: from the opening page…
Orgasmic, isn’t it? You wouldn’t hear that from the iDave Tories: you’d get something bland, long-winded and hedged about with platitudes on “social justice” and “inclusiveness”. I’d long thought UKIP were just a single-issue busted flush of Tory exiles and bitter misfits, but they could be Samizdatistas with lines like that. Please, my fellow malcontents, go and read it all.
As for UKIP infiltration, if the security services are actively discrediting them, then we really are on a dangerous ground. Maybe the infiltrators are trying to ‘flush out’ racists, but then again, surely it is UKIP’s job to do that. How about infiltrating NL to flush out barefaced liars, hypocrites and incompetents? Might be more productive. Hint: start with Gingerblears.
PS I suspect that The New Party was infiltrated by NL and LibDem types. Shirleywilliamed to death.
“Dave” may be wrong about the best route to power, and Conservative voters will stay home or vote for Ukip in their thousands at the next election. This would be unfortunate as it wowuld mean another NL government and (possibly) the death of the Conservative party, which I supported for many years.
Alternatively, he may be right, and he’ll be booking Pickfords to move him into number 10 the next morning. This would mean the death of the UK, as it would suggest the BBC/Guardian consensus he follows is really what the British people want!
Another term of NL would be terrible, but it is the least bad alternative.
Not today Perry.
If any of the three major parties are going to be pushed in a more liberal direction by UKIP (rather than just a more nationalist one) its going to be the Conservatives. So the question becomes whether someone has a better chance of influencing Conservative policy by staying within the party or by making a point and jumping ship.
Although it may be discomforting to listen to many senior figures in the party talking crap, and listen to hectoring lectures from middle aged multiple election losers about how we (the bog-standard party members) have to change ourselves, a party consists of more than just those at the top and there are many good people in the party who are every bit classical liberals. In fact these people are much more prevalent in the party than the type of goofball who is too often seen with his slimy hands clenched round David Cameron’s coat-tails.
Cameron’s pursuit of Blair-style politics may be hopelessly misguided and out of sync with the electorate, who after living through years of Labour’s oleaginous disingenuity may well have preferred to see a John Howard figure leading the party, but…… it has to be lived with, at least for now: until Cameron gets more robust or retires.
Today is actually renewal day for me. 3 quid to continue my party membership. It has to be worth it.
The Tories are quite worried about UKIP, especially after Tim Congdon jumped ship. I witnessed two A-listers look rather peekish when I informed them of his defection. If 18 Doughty Street gets last Weds End of Day up check out Dale’s face when I tell him. The best thing UKIP did was get former Bow Group Chairman David Campbell Bannerman to run their outfit. He is a bit of pied piper leading quite a few Tory (former PPCs/candidates list) activists to UKIP.
The puff piece is the DT just shows how desperate they are. The comments below it show how it is failing to work as well.
If there is a hung parliament and UKIPs gets a few MPs things could get rather interesting.
Perry,
The DT have now approved your comment for publication (14 Jan 2007 @ 6:50 PM), but have excised your last sentence.
This likely isn’t the place, but not being a Samizdatista I can’t post an article – and being a broom-closet philosopher, I find myself very interested in today’s democracies, and the factors that have led them all to universal spiritual bankruptcy.
Churchill was mentioned – a giant among men. Gulliver’s Travels mentioned how mottled and pocked the giant Brobdingnagians looked to him, and how he looked to the same to the tiny Lilliputians – Churchill was dogmatically warts ‘n all, and damn proud of it. Under today’s all-embracing-politically-correct-thought-police smog, I rather suspect Winston would’ve been consigned to jail or a loony-bin very early in his career.
Margaret Thatcher – the Iron Lady. I have few doubts that, were she to miraculously return to power today, few of her colleagues would still be alive tomorrow – and only a lucky few would’ve shown the decisiveness to do themselves in rather than awaiting her. I’d be willing to bet that, could Maggie run again, she’d either be swept into power or receive no votes at all – today’s politics just don’t seem to attract people as decisive as she was.
Canadian politics are distressingly barren of men of character; our current PM seems the only one for decades who’s actually interested in giving taxpayers value for their money, and keeping his election promises even when inconvenient to do so – he’s on a minority government, and these distressing tendencies could cost him. Our last several Prime Ministers, Liberal and Conservative, have all been horribly venal, and ran the country and spent our tax dollars like they owned them – because under the Canadian parliamentary system, they did.
Why?
I finger the media as a major culprit: MSM writes what it feels like about anything it feels like writing about, and have been the ‘sole purveyor’ of information for so long that it’s no real wonder they’re taking umbrage at the blogosphere rolling-away their rock. A sub-case of the media’s damage, is the entire swamp of PCism: they pillory without pause and with refreshingly little favouritism, and as they’re self-interpreting, anything you may choose to say, or remain silent about, exactly proves their point.
Another major culprit is the high cost of doing business in the political arena. In the U.S., money scandals are forever rocking future, present and former Presidents. It costs so much to mount a campaign that unsuccessful candidates face bankruptcy, and therefore tend to fold early; and successful candidates take office beholden to so many big backers, that their probability of expending effort on the little guy’s behalf (or for his benefit) are de facto suspect.
The result of it all, as I see it, is that today, anybody who’d go to the trouble of closely contesting a major election is either insane or power-mad, or has an outside-funded axe to grind. The effect is likewise deleterious on the voters: I know that in Canada, decades of successive federal governments, LIEberal and CONservative, have spent untold billions putting the voter asleep and keeping him there – and that Canadian voters now only wake-up cross, and we no longer vote-in – we only vote-out.
The blogosphere is a very big broom here; it sweeps-away the MSM ‘line’, and permits voters to get information that neither MSM nor politicians want them to. But there must be more – there must be “some” way to fix it – it’s all our future. Churchill noted that democracy is the worst form of government there is, except for everything else that’s been tried; can it be made better?
A debate, please, on either this or a separate thread devoted to it – What-all is wrong with democracy today, and what do we do about it?
Thank you all (if for nothing else, for reading this tedious missive in the first place!)
Haha Andrew! Mr Dale does indeed look remarkably like someone who just got the curate’s egg after that announcement.
Aren’t all bets off if the SNP win in Scotland?
“Reform the party within” – no chance (and I have been a member since I was 15 – very many years ago).
The Conservative party (the people who lied about the Federation of Conservative Students in order to get it closed down, who back stabbed Mrs Thatcher, who brought us John “we have spent more money than Labour promised to spend” and “at the heart of Europe” Major and now has brought us the “New Blair” Mr Cameron) will only move to a more free market, national independence direction if it is SCARED.
Scared of losing votes to another party. People who want lower taxes and the return of powers from the E.U. are hardly going to vote for Labour or the Lib Dems – they are either going to stay home or vote U.K.I.P.
And they will only vote U.K.I.P. if it is a strong and active party.
As for “are the Security Services trying to infiltrate the U.K.I.P. and make out it is racialist” – it is hardly a secret that is exactly what they have tried to do in the past (and are most likely trying to do now). In spite of all the nonwhite members of the U.K.I.P. the Security Services see (quite correctly) that the best way to discredit the U.K.I.P. is to spread a “racist” image – not to “flush out” racists – but to put them in. Mr Cameron with his “closit racists” stuff (backed up by the disgusting Mr Maude and “Hezza”) is part of the general establishment move.
Indeed the B.B.C. even presented (without shame) an episode of its M.I.5. show “spooks” showing how the attractive team of security officers spread a (false) image of racism about a fictional Conservative M.P. who had left the Conservative party and was campaigning against British membership of the E.U. – the campaign of disinformation was justified (in the eyes of the Security Service) because such a policy was unaccepatable.
What they present as acceptable, in a fictional show, (in what Peter Hitchins said was the only series outside the Eastern Bloc that glamourised secret police tactics) the establishment will hardly hesitate to do in private.
“until Cameron gets more robust or retires” Jonny?
If by “robust” you mean pro freedom, that is not going to happen.
As for “or retires” Mr Cameron is not that old – if you just wait for him to retire (rather than fight him) you will have to wait a very long time.
By the way Conservative party membership is fifteen Pounds (minimum – if you want a vote) not “three” Pounds.