To someone like me who is desperate to see the regulatory centrist ‘Conservative’ party lose the next election to the regulatory centrist ‘Labour’ party, is always agreeable to see the Tories turn on their own. Even those benighted party loyalists who think that it does not matter what policies one advocates just as long as you win, it is finally starting to dawn on them that Dave is not even going to do that.
So I must say I had a few chuckles at Simon Heffer’s delightfully bitchy sneer at Dave Cameron’s crass duplicity (everyone expects a politician to be duplicitous but crassness is unforgivable).
In his Today interview, Dave chose to insult a range of people, from former Tory treasurer Lord Kalms to ex-Europe spokesman Graham Brady, for daring to disagree with him. Such people don’t attack his policies, but rather his lack of them. It is little wonder, therefore, in the aftermath of this astonishingly infantile behaviour, that we should now choose to examine Dave’s personality. He has shown himself to have exceptionally poor judgement, to be entirely untrustworthy and to be, in short, a rather nasty piece of work: which, as regular readers will know, is what I have always thought he is.
More and faster please.
Where’ve you been? Heffer hasn’t been Conservative for some time now…
But the Telegraph is and always has been… and you are wrong anyway, Heffer has always been conservative, unlike the leader of the so-called Conservative party.
I think Mr Heffer himself would be in disagreement with you there, Albion…
I don’t disagree that he might be ‘conservative’, Albion- I was pointing out that he isn’t a ‘Conservative’.
Ah, it’s beautiful. The Tories chuck any principle they may’ve had out the window and get in Dave because they think he makes the electable and then it turns out that it er… doesn’t.
Dave, mate, you are not the sharpest tool in the box but surely you can see that “Hugging a Hoodie”, ownership of a wind turbine and the idea that people will remain happily married if they only got a twenty quid a week tax-break does not policy make.
Unfortunately, Perry, I shall not exalt in glee when Mr Broon wins.
Nor will I, Nick, nor will I. But it is the least worst option in the long run compared to confirming a single state ideology for both of the main parties.
Heffer certainly isn’t one of “David Cameron’s Conservatives” but then again most Conservative-supporting people don’t qualify to be one of those chosen few.
Perry,
I get your point. I really do. I appreciate that you believe that it’s only going to get better in the long-haul (I’ve read your stuff on that and listened to a podcast of you chatting with Brian Micklethwaite – I think – about it) but… it doesn’t take away from the fact that a further Labour administration will be fucking awful. I appreciate that you have a feeling that yet another electoral catastrophe for the Tories will result in a proper Consertive party emerging from the debris. Well, that’s possible. It’s also possible that they will move further statist, more left-wing (let’s have a big idea this time – let’s save the NHS!) and I don’t see UKIP having a chance in hell of capitalizing.
I tend to agree with Nick. I have as little regard for Cameron, and as little hope for the country should he win the next election, certainly in terms of the consolidation of the “regulatory centrist” consensus that will follow such a win, as Perry has. But I see no reason whatsoever to believe that the Conservative Party will react to a fourth defeat by becoming the kind of party we want to see. As long as they remain in opposition, they will be utterly unable to do that, since Brown will always be able to portray them, to his massed ranks of client-voters, as lurching to the right, as reactionary, as atavistic; and the longer they are out of power, the more irrelevant they will seem. If they are in power, they will at least know that the electorate is once again comfortable with electing a government that calls itself “conservative” (however much we know it to be a misnomer), which is a step in the right direction (if you’ll pardon the expression). While I certainly don’t believe that once elected Cameron will turn out to be a proper conservative, or better yet a proper liberal, there are such people in his party, and he won’t be leader for ever.
James:
If, correctly, thinking that Mr David Cameron has no principles or beliefs and is nasty bit of work means that someone “is not a Conservative” then the majority of the members of the Conservative party are not Conservatives.
I did not vote for Mr Cameron – but most people I know who did vote for him now wish that they had not.
On last Friday’s B.B.C. Radio 4’s “Any Questions” Simon Heffer tried to be polite about Mr Cameron – but was seerned at in a patronising way by a Cameron candidate anyway.
“You are like my old Uncle, with your old fashioned ideas”.
If you can not think up any arguments against an antistatist position call it “old fashioned”.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries antistatists were called “old women” – but I suppose that is not P.C. now, so the new name is “old Uncle”.
By the way, if the Conservative party under Mr Cameron wins the next general election it is all up with the relatively pro liberty faction in it.
Mr Cameron and “modernization” will have been vindicated, and members of Parliament who do not go over to his view will be removed from the list of approved candidates.
If you have a Conservative party candidate who (for example) is prepared to to publically state that he wished to get Britain out of the E.U. (or, at least, get SPECIFIC powers back from it – and list what they powers we should TAKE back are) then by all means vote for him or her.
But most Conservative party candidates will not do this (they will follow the Cameron line) and, therefore, should not be voted for.
It is easy enough to check.
Simply write a letter to your local Conservative party candidate asking their opinion on the above issue and inform them that the reply will be sent to a local newspaper.