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The Tories are not the solution to anything “If you don’t vote Tory, then Labour might get in” is the main argument I hear from people when I tell them I live in a very marginal Tory constituency and have no intention of voting Tory again. But frankly the Tories are just Labour with a better wine list, as is made clear in this ghastly article in CrapX by Damian Collins, the ‘Conservative’ MP for Folkestone and Hythe.
Proper regulation won’t suppress freedom of speech online – it will protect it […] Making sure the Online Safety Bill is not a ‘Censor’s Charter’ was also our priority.
Because nothing says “the state will not censor the internet” quite like a bill that enables the state to censor what you can say on online. I seem to be developing a Pavlovian condition that every time Damian Collins opens his mouth, I send a thousand pounds or so to Reform UK.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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“We recommended an automatic exemption for news organisations from the codes of practice”
LOOOOOOL
The very first line:
Yeah, let’s take lessons on permissable speech from this guy.
… which clearly don’t preclude bare-faced lies.
I recently had a e.mail (which I am sure went to vast numbers of people – it was a public thing, not confidential), boasting of the more than 400 Billion Pounds, on top of an already vast British government budget, that had been spent on the Covid lockdowns and restrictions (“business support” and so on).
The e.mail then went on to warn of the reckless policies of the Labour Party. Perhaps they would indeed have spent even more money.
“Censoring misinformation” – ONE person (“ah but five people died at around this time, or some time later, of things that might have had some connection with…..”) was killed during the Capitol Hill events, Ashli Babbitt, an unarmed Air Force veteran and small business owner from San Diego, was shot dead – but a police officer who ever never even bothered to answer questions when he was “questioned” by the authorities, but was happy to answer the questions of NBC news (the mainstream media being socially-friendly-elements).
Sam Duncan knows all this – but most British people do NOT, due to the endless lies of the “mainstream media”. The same lying “mainstream media” who pretend that the blatantly rigged 2020 United States Presidential Election was straight.
As for the “On Line Harms” Bill – as many Conservative Members of Parliament have pointed out, it is despicable. Rather than rolling back on-line censorship, it actually demands MORE of it. And it would put the internet under the far left “Ofcom” – one of many Collectivist “quangos” that do all they can to undermine this country.
This is the way legislation tends to go – a “consensus” is formed around the “advice” of officials and experts. Tyranny by the instalment plan.
A police officer was killed a little while after January 6th – Mr Biden has talked about the death of this police officer. But Mr Biden forgot to mention that he as not killed on January 6th – and that he was killed by a Nation of Islam (Louis Farrakhan) suppoter.
The “mainstream” media are happy to help Mr Biden (or whoever controls this puppet) with his deceptions.
To put things into historical perspective, Perry and others might want to read this essay by Herbert Spencer.
Please note that, by “New Toryism”, Spencer did not mean what the Tories of his time had become: he meant what the “Liberals” of his time had become,
I try to be optimistic, and hope that some of the rage people feel might make some of them reflect on the wider annoyances caused by the modern State. But I wonder: how many people getting upset about vaccine passports are nevertheless happy for the State to grab around half of their wealth at source, tax it when you die, regulate much of their business, ban things such as smoking in private premises such as pubs, impose “hate crime” laws, etc, etc? It is not as if many of those riled by lockdowns etc are all channelling their inner Ayn Rand or John Locke.
But even so we have to keep bashing away at how the Kafkaesque world in which we live give teachable moments about liberty. Despair is a cop out.
This month marks the one-year anniversary of the Capitol Hill riots in which five people died
…..in which one unarmed person was murdered and four others died.
… after which four others died.
Herbert Spencer’s essay was a bit unfair.
It is true that some Conservatives (“Tories”), such as Disraeli, were statists – but others had free market opinions.
One can trace free market, limited government, supporting “Tories” right back to the 1680s – with people such as Sir Dudley North (the author of one of the first defences of Free Trade).
The late Professor Greenleaf in his “The British Political Tradition” points out (in the “Libertarian Strand” section of his work) that many of the pro free market and limited government people in the United Kingdom were Conservatives – “Tories”.
There has always been a great divide in this political party – for example the HATRED that Disraeli showed for the Conservative Prime Minister Lord Liverpool (who restored gold money, abolished income tax, and so on) – see Martin Hutchinson’s book “Britain’s Greatest Prime Minister” for a defence of Lord Liverpool. The free market strain continues in such people as Sir Robert Peel (although it should be noted that many of his supporters, such as Gladstone, ended up in the Liberal Party – forced out by Disraeli and his supporters)
Disraeli is called a “One Nation Tory” – in reality he was a “Two Nation” person, believing that “the rich” and “the poor” had different interests and that different policies would benefit them. His actions in 1875 (demanding that local government provide about 40 different services even if local taxpayers did NOT want local government to do this, and putting trade unions largely above the law thus pushing up UNEMPLOYMENT) can not really be defended – Disraeli, like Bismarck, was awful.
As for Herbert Spencer – he was indeed a great defender of free enterprise (far more so than John Stuart Mill – the cult of J.S. Mill among some supporters of liberty is based on a very superficial reading of Mill), but he never freed himself from David Ricardo’s false view of LAND.
The false ideas about LAND pushed by David Ricardo and developed by James Mill and John Stuart Mill (and the rest of the “Philosophical Radicals” around the “Westminster Review”) led to the land nationalisation movement among a MINORITY of 19th century Liberal Party supporters.
As for my own case – in my youth (even I was young once) I used to call himself a “19th century Liberal”.
However, looking into the matter in relation to my own home town it became clear that this claim could not be sustained. After all in Kettering (Kettering Northamptonshire – not Kettering Ohio) 19th century Liberals were supporters of the creation of the School Board (it was the Conservatives who held it off from 1870 to 1891 when it became compulsory all over England and Wales), neo prohibition of alcohol, and even land nationalisation (for example the founder of the park where I used to work, Charles Wicksteed, was a land nationalisation man – although he left the movement when they started to demand that factories be taken over as well, by J.S. Mill style worker communes).
So in 19th century Kettering I would have been just what I am now – a supporter of the Conservative Party.
In other towns the situation would have been different.
If one takes the main pro private property, limited government – free market, organisation of late 19th century Britain, the Liberty and Property Defence League, its membership were overwhelmingly supporters of the Conservative Party. Although, of course, their view of what a Conservative is would have been just about the opposite of the position (the position of endless state expansion “Social Reform”) of Disraeli.
The division continues to this day. The Conservative Party is sometimes described as a party without a philosophy, without principles – but that is not true. The truth is different, but still alarming – the Conservative Party is a party where people do have principles – but the principles of various people in it are in direct conflict with each other. This appears to have been true even in the 19th century.
The conflict is covered by appeals to the national patriotism, and to support for the Crown.
People can be patriots and be loyal to the Crown – and have very different opinions on economic policy, and on liberty in general.
In the United States such a party could not really exist – as there is no Monarchy (or other ancient institutions) to be loyal to. So parties have to be constructed on principles (or at least pretended principles) – as there is nothing else.
“Are you loyal to Mr Biden?” is a different TYPE of question from “are you loyal to the Queen?”
Mr Biden and those who support him, such as the corrupt FBI and the despicable “Justice” Department, are evil scum. No decent person could be loyal to them. To be loyal to them is to be loyal to a certain POLICY – the policy of creeping Collectivism leading to Totalitarianism (no one is loyal to Mr Biden as a person).
Being loyal to the Queen does not imply any particular line of economic, or other, policy. It is about being loyal to institutions that are not part of politics.
Lastly we have Richard Nixon – whose spirit still walks among “pro institutions” Republicans to this day – the Liz Cheney types.
Mr Nixon argued for what Disraeli called “Conservative Men, Liberal Measures” – by “Liberal Measures” Richard Nixon, like Benjamin Disraeli, meant statism – more government benefits, services and regulations. In the case of President Nixon – vast increases in government entitlement spending, wage and price controls, and crawling to Mao – the largest scale mass murderer of modern times.
President Nixon was the author of the policy towards the People’s Republic of China that has been such an utter disaster for the West, especially for the United States.
By “Conservative Men”, Richard Nixon (like Benjamin Disraeli) meant a sort of David Brooks (New York Times) pose of loving tradition – whilst pushing “Social Reform” (claiming that “Social Reform” will safeguard society – whereas it really undermines society).
I would guess that Prime Minister Johnson is an admirer of Disraeli, and (in private) an admirer of Richard Nixon as well.
The counter argument is that Americans can be loyal to the Constitution – but this is a statement of political principles, principles which those in control of the Federal Government (such as the FBI and the “Justice” Department) hate-and-despise.
This the “Oath Keepers” are finding out. And after more than a year of sickening abuse in the prisons of the regime and threats to their families (ask General Flynn – former head of military intelligence, about that) I suspect that some of them (even those that were not FBI False Flag agents) will say anything the regime wishes them to say.
Institutions becoming the enemies, the fanatical enemies, of the very principles they are meant to defend is not confined to the United States – it is now common in the Western World.
Infiltration and permeation (the spread of anti Western ideas) has become the norm – the long march through the institutions.
Those Conservatives, in any country now, who put their faith in the institutions – are horribly mistaken.
In the end institutions are just people – and the people who now control them, are no good.
I’m reliably informed the Conservative Party is a broad church. Conservatives are possibly a minority in the party. There should not be any progressives in the Conservative Party yet there are. Only one Conservative Prime Minister in the last 60 years has been conservative.
Perry, I’ve posted before about my small-majority Tory MP voting against the government in December. Paul Marks was kind enough to comment that I should acknowledge to my MP my appreciation of my MP’s vote. I followed this advice. My MP has replied to me.
I shan’t quote my MP’s reply verbatim (for my own online security) but the reply states my MP is opposed to mandatory certification on rights and freedom grounds, and fears its encroachment into other areas of civic life. The reply further questions the scientific basis for the government’s policy, given what we know about Omicron and its related fatality-rates compared to other variants, and about other countries who have implemented COVID certification policies. My MP is also concerned about two-tier society implications.
I’ve said I won’t be persuaded to kick Lucy’s Vote-Conservative football again.
But my MP has shown more courage than I gave my MP credit for, in the face of a small majority, a nasty parliamentary party leadership (recent comment I sadly can’t quote and acknowledge compares the Whips Office to Mafia enforcers) and local public-sector Chicken Lickens the like of which you won’t find in London Tory constituencies. A genuine question then, as there seems little point in democracy if we don’t acknowledge our representatives’ voting records: should I vote for the candidate, even if the candidate is standing on a manifesto for a party I swore never to support again?
Stuart Noyes – basically correct. Conservatives are actually a majority (not a minority) of the Conservative Party – but only really at the lower levels.
And Lord Home may have been a Conservative – and he was Prime Minister up to 1964. But YES – certainly Edward Heath, John Major, David Cameron and Mr Johnson were NOT Conservatives (although they were members of the Conservative Party).
As you know, Margaret Thatcher is the great exception.
X Trapnel – thank you very much indeed for writing to support your Member of Parliament’s vote in defence of liberty, it really does help when members of public support their Member of Parliament in voting to support liberty.
As for elections – the ballot paper (I am told) did not use to have the party label on it, on the grounds that people were voting for an individual.
That was a good rule – you are voting for an individual. And you, by your letter (and, hopefully, by physically meeting the Member of Parliament – and helping out) are helping give the Member of Parliament the backbone (the support) to do what they know to be the right thing.
Briefly looking up Hansard for 1968, some Conservative Members of Parliament expressed concern that the changes would lead to the Party HQ in London having the right to prevent someone standing for election as a representative of the party – even if they had the support of their local Conservative Association.
Sadly this proved to be the case.
Mr Edward Heath was later known for pushing a national approved list of candidates – and trying to prevent real conservatives getting on that list.
As for people being removed from a political party without even a meeting or proper charges being presented against them. These people being tried without them being present (a Kangaroo Court procedure) and on vague “charges” that are in no way crimes. Well I have personal experience of that.
Yes, you probably should vote for them if they are consistently on the side of the angels. But if your MP supported the later lockdowns or NetZero or the appalling online censorship bill (i.e. the majority of MPs) then fuck ’em.
I have always voted conservative and likely will keep doing so, even though I haven’t seriously ever considered joining the party and often vote for them more out of a feeling that they’re the best of a bad bunch than ardently support them. I would say that even rather lousy conservative administrations have been generally better than the ‘best’ Labour governments. While Cameron, May and Johnson haven’t been good PMs for various reasons, I don’t think any of them are as awful as Blair or Brown were. And although he’s is a total mountebank, BoJo is still preferable to Keir Starmer, who I think is more contemptible than Corbyn.
If the Tories can suspend a whole swathe of civil rights for two years, support the insane NetZero, promise to defund the BBC & then do absolutely nothing, and now push for a law to control what you can say on the internet… and that’s not enough to shake your reflexive willingness to vote Tory regardless, then I can understand why the Tories feel no need whatsoever to actually be conservative when all they have to do to get the vote of folks like you is to a bit less ghastly than Labour.
That there is any opposition in parliament to harsh covid measures, net zero etc, it comes from Tory MPs. It doesn’t come from Labour, Lib Dems, Greens, SNP, Plaid Cymru etc. It maybe a minority of Tory MPs but a lot more than from any of the parties to their left. If Starmer was in power we’d still be in lockdown one, it would never have ended. That BoJo was unable to impose harsher restrictions in response to Omicron was due to opposition inside his own party, not the supposed opposition parties.à
As for defunding the BBC, while I’m not a fan of the current BBC, I think that private leftist media and woke capitalism and big tech are a much bigger problem than the BBC. Compared to the Guardian, Sky news or the American garbage like CNN, MSNBC,Vox, NYT etc the BBC is almost bearable.
Perry – when did the “Tories” promise to defend the BBC?
I ask because I have been in support of ending the BBC tax (“license fee”) since 1979, when I first joined the Conservative and Unionist Party.
When did the party leadership agree with me?
As for the attack on basic Civil Liberties over the last two years, and the “New Zero” policy (even if one believes that world C02 emissions are causing dangerous Global Warming, the United Kingdom produces only about 1% of these C02 emissions – destroying Britain will not achieve anything good) – the number of Conservative Members of Parliament willing to vote against the government line has grown considerably. But YES – it is still not a majority of Conservative Members of the House of Commons. And that is very disheartening.
The number of Conservative MPs who either have government jobs, or want government jobs – is high. And you do not get or keep a government job by voting against the official line.
I am told that Mr Johnson may be changing course in a more pro liberty direction – but I just have no confidence in the present leadership of the party.
Defund, not defend. There was much talk of ending the ‘licence’ fee from Team Boris during the first few months after the election.
The article below helps illustrate why I haven’t given up on the Conservative Party entirely.
While it’s unfortunate a weirdo like Crispin Blunt is a Tory MP, it is heartening that most Conservative Party members are not shills of the Transindustrial complex.This is definitely not the case in Labour, the Lib Dems, Greens, etc., where even the faintest criticism of Stonewall or the trans lobby makes you quickly persona non grata.
https://unherd.com/2022/01/inside-the-tory-trans-civil-war/