If you support the Tories because you dislike the Labour Party’s socialist and kleptocratic underpinnings, might I suggest that you are supporting exactly the same policies just with a slightly posher accent.
And a case in point comes from Oliver Letwin, who like most politicians is rarely overburdened with a need to take a consistent position on almost any issue. He tells is that the Tories should be in the redistribution of wealth business. The only bit I find shocking is that he finally openly admits what has been obvious for rather a long time. The idea the Tories will undo anything substantive to repair the damage of the Blair years is delusional and I certainly hope Letwin keeps flapping his lips to make that clear to as many notional Tories as possible.
So as there is clearly nothing to choose ideologically between Labour and Tory, at least those who are addicted to the preposterous notion that they are empowering themselves by voting should stick to voting Labour on the basis the guys and gals from Transport House are at least more honest about the philosophical underpinnings of their theft. Moreover, as ideology is now no real basis for deciding how to vote and choosing who will be the real Big Brother is about as important as voting for who gets the boot on an episode Big Brother, people should shun the Tories because they are just so damn unappealing from a purely aesthetic perspective. The Labour party may lose the next election but it is hard to see how or why the Tory party could ever actually win it, if you get my meaning.
Or if you are one of those quixotic folks who actually think your vote really does matter, you could always vote UKIP on the basis it is without doubt in the long run the best way to destroy the wealth redistributing Tory party imaginable. And the notion of one day putting the likes of Oliver Letwin out of a job is something I really do find appealing.
Just like American Republicans and Democrats. Different branding, same product.
We may be down to the one ideology in this country today (lets call it vote-winningism) but at least the Conservatives haven’t failed/lied quite as recently as Labour(NHS, War etc…)
So Letwin wants to redistribute “of course the Conservatives favour redistribution” he says (havent they always?) Let’s be honest, the state of UK party politics today is so dire we all know that who governs is fairly unimportant. This is the age retoric and sound bites in the West, and Letwin today got the greatest prize in politics, the front page.
UKIP’s the only option. They are the only ones unequivocal about freeing us from the chains of Europe. And a vote for them will help to destroy the Conservatives, who really don’t deserve to survive.
It is staggering that rather than differentiating themselves sharply from Za-Nulab, they are positively reassuring the voters that under the Tories, there would be absolutely no change of policies. Are they mad? Do they really intend to wreck the British economy?
You need to have the country in explicitly dire straits (eg Labour’s 1978/9 “Winter of Discontent”) before the average British voter will countenance a full-on Right-wing agenda.
As we’re not at that stage yet and a General Election is 3-4 years away, the Tories need to do everything possible to not frighten any horses.
The policies unveiled and promoted in 3 years time will be the telling ones for a change of Government. Today’s promoted policies have more to do with the identified swing voters in next May’s Council Elections.
Anyway, I’d rather have (superficially) identical policies promoted by a Right-wing government bent to the Left to get wavering votes, than a Left-wing government bent to the Right. The only way for Labour to go as Blair slips away is Leftwards.
than a Left-wing government bent to the Right.
Or even a Left-wing government bent. Which this one is in spades. Is this the most corrupt government of Britain ever? This is a genuine question.
Thatcher’s “right to buy” was one of the biggest redistributions of wealth in British history. People remember it for all the council house buyers, but thousands also bought from property developers and the landed aristocracy (famously the Duke of Westminster). There’s nothing wrong per se with pursuing policies designed to reduce the gap between rich and poor, which is really all Mr Letwin’s policy-lite comments amount to. You are jumping to conclusions.
It’s been a pivotal few weeks for me. I’ve been a notional Tory for many years, voting for them as the best of the worst, but watching Cameron cuddling up to the Libdems was a bitter blow.
I then became embroiled in a fairly lengthy exchange on MP Boris Johnson’s website on the subject of global warming. I was in a minority of one, everyone else, presumably Tory voters one and all, were unanimous in their desire to enact measures including tax hikes, banning SUV’s, etc. to “cure” global warming. They were no different to Nulab, they just had a slightly different shopping list of things to ban and control.
And now Letwin cuddling up to the socialists is perhaps the final straw.
A vain hope might be that the Tories are doing a Nulab, promising anything to get elected, but once elected intending to legislate in accordance with their core values, but we’ll just have to wait and see if this is the case.
Where’s Thatcher and Tebbit when you need them? They managed to sell a right wing agenda, why is it now deemed impossible to do it again. Has the country changed so much in only 26 years.
John East – Ron made an interesting comment above. He said things are not yet dire enough to impel people to vote for a right wing agenda.
Still, there’s at least two more years of Tony ‘n’ the thugs, so they may yet manage to bring all the wheels off before the next election.
“Right to Buy” was only a redistribution of wealth if you regard returning looted state ‘property’ to private individuals ‘redistribution of wealth’.
Bill,
I think that the assumed meaning of “redistribution”, generally agreed by the right and left of politics, is taking wealth from private individuals or businesses and giving it to the poor or to bureaucrats to “redistribute”, i.e. to waste.
Returning assets, originally purchased with “redistributed” taxes, to the free market is something different.
Even if there is no ideological difference between the Coinservatives and Labour,there is the small matter of ridding this country of Tony Mugablair.Worth it just for that.
Bill writes:
” There’s nothing wrong per se with pursuing policies designed to reduce the gap between rich and poor, which is really all Mr Letwin’s policy-lite comments amount to.”
Yes there is. It almost inevitably means taking something away from one set of people and giving it to another.
I listened to Oliver Leftwing being interviewed today and the man writhed like snake in a stick. Moreover, he appears to be suffering from that mental illness which believes there is a cake, the cake is somehow owned by the government and it is distributed as the government sees fit, according to some vague notion of “fairness”.
As the government produces nothing and owns nothing this is arrant nonsense – and no more Conservatism than is Das Kapital .
” You are jumping to conclusions.”
Rot! With the single exception of a few vaguely sceptical noises about the EU, every single message since the boy wonder Cameron breezed into power has been a signal that the Conservative party is headed somewhere to the Left of Za-NuLabour.
Oh certainly! And the equally repulsive, although in a different way, Gordon Brown. If they lose the next election, he won’t survive as leader. God knows what they’ll dredge up next.
Is it to early to say I told you so.
Cameron looked good, and he sounded good.
even the left wing press have momentarily been cowed.
But he always smelt funny to me.
Now we are coming down to nuts and bolts rather than rhetoric and the stench is becoming more and more apparent.
Wealth redisribution! We’re talking Robin Hood politics here. Letwin should be taken out and shot!
Hague is onside, as is Boris Johnson.
How onside?
Well they look serious this time having given up lucerative jobs elsewhere. They’ve taken their ties off and rolled up their sleeves.
However if Cameron believes that they love him and his vague ways he is mistaken. They are far smarter than he is. They now think the Tories have an edge. In that they are mistaken, for all the recent polls.
For people like me who would vote for them are now deeply suspiciuos about the doublethink.
Torys. Get a leader with a consistent message.
I’d try Hague again in the fulness of time.
Cameron alas has Blairitis ,A bit like being a Monkee not a Beatle.
This political transvestism is getting too hard to follow.Tories ape Labour who ape Tories.
Crossing the chamber is one thing, but Political cross dressing is well, disorienting…
Oliver Leftwing wants more -and he’ll beggar us to do it.
I think for the moment, Hague’s just going along with the gag. He was far harder line when he was leader and he’s not going to make the same mistake twice. At least, not until he spots that he’s on the winning team. I don’t think Boris Johnson gave up a highly paid job. I don’t know what he earned, but I don’t think more than he’ll be pulling down as a shadow minister.(Do they get paid extra, by the way)? Boris Johnson is a spoiled twerp and I wish he understood that the world at large would appreciate a period of intense silence from him. Yes, RAB, he is very left. Like Dave and Tony.
Who knows what Theresa May is – or does? She’s probably thinking up some more toxic one-liners about her party to throw to ZaNu-Lab.
Is this the most corrupt government of Britain ever? This is a genuine question.
In modern times, I would say yes. It is intellectually and morally bankrupt, as well as frequently corrupt. It’s only commitment is to an increasingly neo-fascist authoritarianism.
As to Letwin, for fuck’s sake what is this fucking idiot for? What is his point? This is a man who lets a complete stranger into his house at 6.00 am “to use the toilet”, and then surprise surprise gets robbed. He is just too damned stupid to have anything to do with front bench politics, but for some reason he seems to have cultivated an image of profound wisdom. In the name of arse, why? What is going on with this twerp? There must be some subtext, but I just don’t get it.
And if the Tories think I’m voting for shit like that, they can think again. If I wanted NuLabor I’d bloody well vote for them. Muppets.
Damn I’d forgotten ! he really did that did’nt he!
Reminds me of a lib/dem politician who, until I ran a quick eye over his accounts on his behalf, was paying a standing order to a religious cult that he fervently dissagreed with, and knew nothing about.
Well these fools will sign anything!
Most of all our futures, sob ,and our children’s futures.
Happy Christmas good Samizdata folk!
My mother has arrived for Christmas so I must be off to be browbeaten by a professional!
There’s a lot to be said for that analysis (except, of course, for that hysterical nonsense about “kleptocratic underpinnings”). When parties have been out of office for a long time, they start trying to emulate their more successful rivals, as New Labour did. Support among voters for tax cuts and a smaller state cannot be ruled out – especially if New Labour’s public-service reforms are later considered to be failures – but the Tories’ problem in this area is that voters fear the party will seek to privatise anything that moves. You can make any number of intellectual rationalisations for such a policy, but the party must first get into government. It will not do so by promising radical changes in the absence of a more generalised sense of economic and social malaise that makes people more receptive to them (e.g. 1979).
I can’t say that I particularly believe it, and I suspect Letwin doesn’t either, but that’s not the point. Here are the results of a YouGov poll shortly before the 2005 general election, in which respondents were asked how close they saw the Tories being to various groups (I hope this little table reproduces properly!):
Close Not close Prox. index
The rich 89 5 +84
Professionals/business 87 7 +80
Rural people 69 21 +48
Women 31 57 -26
Ethnic minorities 21 68 -47
Working people 19 75 -56
Homosexuals 16 66 -50
The poor 11 80 -69
Trade unionists 8 82 -74
Sorry, but the Tories can’t win elections when they’re almost exclusively associated with rich folk and country bumpkins. Their problem is that they are seen as representing only privileged minorities, rather than everyone: even David Davis realised this when he ripped off Blair’s soundbite about “the many, not the few”. This new talk about redistribution should be seen as mining the same vein: an attempt to signal to voters that the Tories are once again concerned for one and all – one-nation conservatism, if you will. It may not get the juices of libertarians going, but it might just have a chance of winning elections. It’s not really the details that matter – in fact, detailed policies on redistributing money from the middle classes to the poor would probably alienate a lot of target voters – but it’s the symbolism that counts. Style may not be more important than substance, but that doesn’t make it unimportant, as messrs Hague, Duncan Smith and Howard can all confirm.
The Tories still have much to do to win back the trust of the electorate, but Master Cameron has made a very promising start. Perhaps he could be the man to carry on the good work of the Blair government, taking forward its ‘choice’ agenda in the public services with rather more conviction than the Brooding Scotsman could manage, while at the same time extending a helping hand to those that most need it. He might just do it too, but if he does he shouldn’t expect any gratitude from the little band of grumblers that clusters here at Samizdata.
Happy Christmas everyone!
Well, that table wasn’t so successful! But I think you can see what it’s saying: the first number on each row is the % of people thinking the Tories are close to a given group, the second number is the % thinking they’re not close to that group, and the third number is the “proximity index”, which is the second number subtracted from the first.
Woweeeee………….Ghoul Britannia!
I’m gonna be right out front with this. I’m a Texan. Specifically, I’m a Houstonian.
For years I was disparaged for being an Oilers fan. (Those of you not from Texas and under the age of thirty are forgiven for not getting the reference.)
What always pissed me off was the insistance that I should root for a team that was winning. “You’re a loser, you root for ther Oilers.”
‘Nuff said.
When I vote Libertarian (consistantly), I’m asked “why do you vote for the losers?”
The answer is always the same – because I want them to win.
I’m gonna be right out front with this. I’m a Texan. Specifically, I’m a Houstonian.
For years I was disparaged for being an Oilers fan. (Those of you not from Texas and under the age of thirty are forgiven for not getting the reference.)
What always pissed me off was the insistance that I should root for a team that was winning. “You’re a loser, you root for ther Oilers.”
‘Nuff said.
When I vote Libertarian (consistantly), I’m asked “why do you vote for the losers?”
The answer is always the same – because I want them to win.
What Tomahawk said.
Further, I’d make a distinction, which Oliver Letwin appears to do, too, between differing motives for redistribution. He’s clever. It can be an object, instrument or consequence of broader policy.
Labour wants historically wanted to expropriate the rich because inequality offended it more than poverty for all. Redistribution was a goal. Half the LibDems and many Labour supporters still believe to be rich is a sin.
New Labour, on the other hand, is happy for its friends to be rich, but it cannot brook opposition, so massive redistribution from the poor and middle classes to other (and often the same) parts of the poor and middle classes is the order, because control of behaviour comes with money, and there is a clientele to be serviced. Redistribution is a source of power.
Letwin has noticed that if you succour the poor, without desire to soak the rich or to manage the middle, you still necessarily have to get the money from somewhere. This is consequential redistribution.
It is therefore politically possible for the Tories to be in favour of “redistribution”, and reform their image among voters without meaning by it what their opponents do. And the Tory version of redistribution always was supported by a majority of people, but political discourse over half a century has made many fear ostracism if they don’t say they are equalitarians.
This is politics. Express your views without inhibition and the polls are a lottery, with a similar likelihood of winning. In a system where people vote against more than they vote for, it is a matter of explaining your policies in such a way as to remove blocks to public acceptance.
And from the voter’s point of view, politics is politics too: We don’t get a completely free choice. Hence voting against. Even if I thought the Tories were a liberal socialist party, their opposition to Blair’s destruction of the constitution and personal liberty would still get my vote–though not my membership– just as given the choice between Blair and his friends Putin and Hu, Id have to pick Blair.
Of course, Oliver Letwin is a politician, so he’s probably lying. So don’t worry, it’s safe to vote Tory after all. No wait…
Bill wrote,
The Grosvenor Estate is exempt from those laws, you do not have the right to buy any lease out from the Duke of Westminster. Also it doesn’t apply to Smith Charity properties (Onslow Square etc), the Cadogan Estates, Portman Estates nor Crown Estates (Those Adam mansion blocks around Regent’s Park are Crown Estate).
But my whole point is who cares? Well obviously Tories care, but then I am one of those people trying to turn people off the whole system rather than spending time worrying who gets to run the damn system. If the Tories can be kept out of office long enough to make them implode, folks like me will have acchieved a major victory by shattering the illusion that the ‘system’ actually offers serious choices or empowers anyone execept members of a kleptocratic parasite class. It is only when enough people realise that NO ONE they can vote for will actually represent their interests meaningfully that… interesting… things can happen in Britain. My guess is that the Tories will win next time (in so far as they will get into office because Labour loses), and that is a pity, but I never thought this was going to be easy.
Perry
Now you’re starting to sound like the Labour left-wingers I’ve spent many years battling. For these people, the worse things are, the better they are. Things never really turn out like that. The system is not about to collapse.
A right-winger who withholds his support from the Tories simply increases the chances of Labour winning. (In the US in 2000, leftists who supported Ralph Nader deprived Al Gore of the White House and got George W. Bush instead.)
On the issue of redistribution, David Willetts pointed out some months ago that the state is not the only institution through which wealth can be redistributed; indeed, he said it’s not even the most effective one. The family has historically been one of the best means of redistributing wealth (I think he claimed that countries in which family structures are strong tend to be more equal than those where they are no, ceteris paribus). A degree of egalitarianism is no bad thing – more equal societies tend to have less crime.
Cameron’s Tories: Night of the Living Wet.
more equal societies tend to have less crime
Give us some statistics then…if you can.
Happy Christmas Tom,
I agree that wealth distributon is best done via families, as we always have done in mine.
As to the Govt’s role in this—
Any tips on how I avoid Inheritance Tax?
I agree with Tomahawk. In trying to turn people off politics altogether, Perry is simply being irresponsible. The only choice at the next election will be between a Conservative government, led in all probability by David Cameron, and a Labour one led by Blair or Brown. Taxes and spending might be rather lower under the former than the latter, so they get my vote. Nobody would chose the party leaders we have, but given that we have them, chosing somebody else is a little like ordering pizza at a sushi place.
Mrs Thatcher told us we could all be rich if we tried harder, and if we failed it was our own fault. Nobody believed that but a few yobboes in red braces, so when the illusion collapsed we went back to thinking of the national cake– correctly, absent the pollution and waste which makes up so much of ‘GDP’– as a fairly static thing, at least in the short to medium term which is as far as most folk’s financial horizon reaches.
It then became clear that Thatcher’s riches-for-all rhetoric obscured the reality of the already-rich being enabled to become richer faster than the rest of us, both relatively and (a fortiori) in absolute terms, with the vague apologia that their government-facilitated ‘success’ would trickle down to us debt-ridden peons. NuLab, which needed plutocrats’ financial support after the trade unions and rank-and-file individual membership could no longer sustain it financially, has kept up the riches-for-all talk while quietly soaking the less well off 20 different ways and allowing billionaires to cut deals with the Revenue.
Nobody buys voodoo economics any more except a few troglodytic libertarians. A good traditional conservative, respectful of the mutual obligations of the different orders of society and scornful of the over-advertised benefits of social mobility, will be glad that Mr Letwin is prepared to return to the old 1950s concept of a property-owning democracy– which is all this trendy talk of ‘redistribution’ amounts to.
By early middle age most people own a smidgin of equity in real estate, net of mortgage debt, plus a modicum of investment in productive assets at home and abroad: indirectly, through pension funds, insurance and the like. The Conservative goal must be to spread these resources further– into the hands of the bottom 20% who rent and do not save, above all– and to break the monopoly power of elite finance over the allocation and control of investment through so-called professional management of funds.
Individuals must be obliged not only to own financial assets in propria persona but to choose what they own, to buy and sell. If they can cope with the housing market, they can learn about the stock market. (Of course, the holdings would have to be in some form of trust to prevent the underclass blowing theirs on bling and tattoos, but they would still have an unwonted sense of ownership and self-reliance.)
There must no longer be double taxation on investment income from savings, nor penalties for those who select their own investments instead of paying commissions to middlemen. Inheritance and capital gains tax must be swept away. There must be a strong shift from imposts on saving to levies on consumption. Such direct taxes as remain must be sweepingly simplified and the army of parasitical accountants, avoidance-artists and suchlike starved of their carrion. Welfare payments and tax should be seamlessly and comprehensibly integrated, so that there is a minimum of giving with one hand and taking away with the other for the bureaucracy to wax fat upon.
If the Conservatives grasp the nettle of taxation and social security, instead of tinkering at the margins and creating only more loopholes and makework for white-collar leeches, it will do the nation good and make expropriation by a future socialistic administration far harder.
The absolutely, all-time fairest tax, if one must have taxes, is the consumer tax. No income tax whatsoever. Everyone takes home their entire income.
If you choose to save or invest most of it, it will increase. But every item you buy will cost its price plus tax. Texas has a sales tax instead of an income tax. So if you spend $100 at the supermarket or the tie shop and the tax was set at, say, 15%, you will hand over $115.
PJ writes:
“The only choice at the next election will be between a Conservative government, led in all probability by David Cameron, and a Labour one led by Blair or Brown.”
It is a matter of supreme indifference to me whether I am taxed and oppressed by a fuckwit wearing a red rosette or a blue one.
Perhaps those with more meretricious leanings can take solace in the distinction. It was always the way of the harlot to pretend she had a choice who screwed her.
Verity,
We already do 17.5% VAT,so that will be the floor that taxation that a consumer tax would begin.
Nice idea,but we would have to ditch Brussels first.
I think it’s important to recognise why the Tories have chosen this path. Many of the comments here hinted at it, but I’d like to make it explicit.
Simply put, Britons like socialist policies. Wealth redistribution has become a fixture in the minds of many Britons, and those who vote for Labor obviously support such policies. “Why don’t we do something for the poor?” is an emotional appeal fallacy that for all its illogic, maintains a powerful hold on people.
They either don’t care or don’t know that their stance is wrecking the economy; they think there are other causes.
And since Labor is in power, it stands to reason that a significant portion of Britons belong to this group. In other words, if you want to get into power, you have to pander to the socialists. The Tories have thrown their principles away because they have recognised that the longer they stay out of power, the less able they are to change the minds of people because they’re so effectively marginalized(would the papers publish as often the speeches of the shadow cabinet compared to the ministers in government?). So they are desperate to get into power. Because once you have the power, you can spin things to your heart’s content. Your speeches and ideas get spread around more.
Maybe as before, during Thatcher’s rise, people will come to their senses. But things have to get REALLY bad first. And if this happens while the Tories have been occupying the same ideological ground as Labor, then I think there could be an unprecedented opportunity for a new major policital party to rise to power.
It’s an ideological war, and the socialists are winning right now. Why, I have no idea. But the way the left had taken over the education industry could be a big reason.
I think Perry’s probably right when he says that we need to wait for things to get really bad before people will countenance voting for a truly right-wing party.
There is a soft-left consensus in this country at the moment – we pay lip service to free-markets while at the same talk about public spending as though it had a mildly sacred quality and to reduce it would be to do harm to our fellow countrymen. We seem fairly happy to let the government control things for us. We are docile little sheep shepherded about by the government, educationalists and the media.
Why does this consensus exist? It exists because people like us haven’t done enough to challenge it. It exists because of a dumbed down and biased education system and because there is no right of centre TV programming. There is a hegemony of leftist thinking and only the most exceptionally independent minded people (everyone reading this, give yourselves a pat on the back!) will dare to challenge the consensus.
Perhaps, since we are the anti-establishment revolutionaries now, we could learn a thing or two from the revolutionaries who went before. Just imagine it – crowds outside BBC headquarters calling for it to be torn down, people chipping away at the walls with chisels!
Henry – chanting crowds outside the Beeb’s HQ – cheering thought but it isn’t ever going to happen. Brits just don’t take to the streets – except in the case of the polite, orderly crowd who turned up for the Countryside Alliance demonstration, who picked up their litter as they left. But unruly mobs – no.
Also, I think most British really don’t understand that the BBC is a radical left organisation and always has been. Most Brits are rather proud of it, and think it is, along with the NHS, a national treasure. They don’t think it’s radical left, because they’ve spent their lives being indoctrinated by it. And being indoctrinated at school.
I despair for Britain. I really do. They are not independent thinkers, most of them. They have opinions on individual things, of course, but they don’t get the overall picture and the damage that radical socialism is doing to Britain. T Bliar and the fishwife are corrupt and money-grubbing. T Bliar has curtailed ancient British liberties (like free speech, to take one huge example). He has taken a wrecking ball to our constitution. He has wrecked the House of Lords and stuffed, absolutely stuffed, it with his hangers on. He’s created hundreds more “peers” ha ha ha ha than any other prime minister. Bliar has corrupted the Civil Service. Bliar managed to paper over the death of David Kelly, although it will haunt him forever.
Yet, the British voters have voted him in three times. The first time, I could understand – barely. I saw him for what he was the first time I laid eyes on him, but people were ready to be taken in. Some had wee epiphanies along the way and fewer people turned up to vote next time. The third time, practically no one in Britain turned up to vote. Bliar got back in with some help from crooked postal ballots by hundreds, maybe thousands, of his Muslim protegés. He has sold Britain down the river to further his personal ambitions and those of the fishwife in Europe.
And the electorate still isn’t anywhere near discontented enough to drive him out in ignomy. It is terribly depressing because I just do not understand it.
It only takes one person with vision to turn everything around.Look what Thatcher achieved.
One person to say the Emperor ain’t wearing any clothes (or rather is wearing stolen clothes) and the whole pack of Jokers cards will come tumbling down.(Trust me on this one. Just be patient….!)
Camoron, Blair’s evil twin (the Blair Switch Project if you will) will be exposed soon enough.
The Cameronies are desperately worried about “someone with vision” rising in their party that is why they are culling the candidates list of clever and driven. Instead they are retaining the politically correct (ie: gay, female or ethnic…preferably all three) and the complete sycophants. They are attempting to make sure there is no fresh assualt on the soppy nu-Labour lite. It seems as if the nu-Tory Party is attempting to make their nickname of the stupid party a reality.
As I said before its: The Night of the Living Wets.
Alas the death of Heath has not marked the end of them but seemed to have spured their return.
Expect lots of converts to UKIP under their new leader David Campbell Bannerman (ex Bow Group).
Andrew Ian Dodge writes:
“Expect lots of converts to UKIP under their new leader David Campbell Bannerman…”
I’m certainly among their number. I decided to get behind UKIP (again) the moment it became obvious that the Notting Hill putsch was going to succeed.
Had Davis won, things might have been different, but Lord Snooty of Coke is just too much for me.
When Dave first noted that he was determined to run 50% women candidates, I went to the Tory website and clicked on David Cameron to send an email to. It was brief. Around three sentences, saying this is a bad idea and that the British people want the cleverest and strongest MPs in government, no matter what their sex or ethnicity. The letter was very easy to understand.
About a week later, I got a reply from his secretary reassuring me that Dave is aware that there is a lot more work to be done to get the Tory party “to reflect today’s Britain”. I zapped off a response saying ‘your reply has just lost you my vote’.
I, too, will be voting for UKIP.
Verity – thanks for putting my feet back on the ground. I forgot that only a certain type of person in this country is inclined to protest. People who want to trangress the accepted social and moral norms, self-styled revolutionaries, those types are inclined to protest and they know how to do it. They know that adolescent displays of emotion, however bathetic, play well in front of the TV cameras. Crusty country types, people with stiff upper lips, refuse to let their emotions boil over. They’re just too civilized and nice to have any time for this protesting business.
I think that we’re sleepwalking towards a situation where the vast majority of the population regard the entire political system as a sham. No wonder the BNP and the Islamists are gaining adherents. If I were a Jew, I’d be getting out of this country pronto. Until opinions like ours are in the mainstream (and they won’t be as long as the BBC is around – hence one of the reasons why it ought to be got rid of) there is no hope of a resurgence of true liberalism.
I agree about Cameron being a Wet. I can’t imagine the Emperor’s new clothes scenario involving Cameron. What we need is someone from the school of hard knocks who is a great communicator. At the moment the choice is between a decadent and corrupt political elite who keep avoiding the hard issues about the future of this country and those on the fringes who have a very clear view of what we ought to do. BNP – kick the foreigners out. Islamists – establish a caliphate.
In the meantime, I think the best thing that we can do is to challenge the hegemony of thought which prevails around us. If nothing else, it’s great fun to wind up socialist muppets.
What about the Countryside Alliance demo a couple of years ago or the anti-fuel-tax protest in 2000? Both were led by crusty right-wing types – the post-1997 weakness of the Conservative Party in parliament led to the emergence of an extra-parliamentary movement run mainly by grassroots Tories. They grumpily took to the streets as their party was rejected by the electorate, and they can regularly be found griping outside the Labour Party conference.
The real problem with “direct action” these days, whether left-wing or right-wing, is that it rarely achieves much. Fox hunting was banned; fuel duty remains high; Stop the War didn’t stop the war; Globalise Resistance haven’t reversed globalisation. Protesters can take to the streets for a day, but then they go home and the organisers must decide whether to try to mobilise them again – and if they do, whether the turnout will be down. Mass movements have no institutions in which to operate: parties have legislatures, lobby groups have the civil service (e.g. NFU and DEFRA), trade unions have annual rounds of collective bargaining. Protesters have only the streets, unless they mutate into conventional pressure groups or parties, as StWC/Respect did.
The thing that most protest movements share in common is a burning sense of self-righteousness (more often than not misplaced). This is obviously true of StWC, but also it applies to the right-wingers of the CA and the fuel lobby: their main motivation (widely shared by commenters on this site) appears to be that the very notion of a Labour government is illegitimate. Now that the Conservative Party is doing the sensible thing and trying to distance itself from the louder crusties, a lot of them are becoming Ukippers. Master Cameron has calculated that his centrist shift will win more moderate converts than it loses dyed-in-the-wool reactionaries (most of whom, at any rate, are literally dying out – the Ukippers’ conference delegates look like the living dead). But what he needs is a symbolic row with the reactionaries still in his own party to make his change of direction of look authentic: how about a race row ending in the expulsion of Norman Tebbit?
Henry – The Islamists aren’t “gaining adherents”. They are, though, under this “government” if you’ll forgive the term, getting ever more confident and upping their demands.
I think David Cameron is a nasty piece of work, as I think Tony Blair is a nasty piece of work. They both have a world view they are going to impose on the country because, well, they are too wonderful to be wrong. Dave is every bit as self-regarding as Tone.
The idea of getting 50% women candidates is beyond laughable. It’s loony. It doesn’t hold together for several reasons. Inevitably, it will mean that some – possibly many – very able and ambitious (meaning they will work long hours) men will be turned away so a vapid Theresa May can get in.
So few women are interested in standing for Parliament, meaning Dave will be scraping the bottom of the barrel, as Labour has done. Can you name one “Blair’s Babe”? Unless she is your MP, I mean it; can you name one of these oxygen thieves who are being paid for by the British taxpayer to do nothing? What kind of a woman with a serious career in mind and a burning interest in politics would submit to being called a Blair’s Babe? They’re less than mediocrities, which is what will turn up in the Tory party if someone doesn’t hit Dave over the head.
Finally, here’s a big secret (which isn’t true in the US, but certainly is in Britain), women do not, by and large, want to be governed by other women. Sorry to sound disloyal to my sex and apologies also for generalising, but women tend to be bossy. They think small. Men tend to think in big ideas that they are keen to execute. Women reduce big ideas, miniaturise and personalise them. I think it has something to do with testosterone, but I don’t know. Yes, of course, there are very clever and competent female politicians – although not in Britain at the moment – but they are a rarity. As I say, I am speaking in generalities.
Anyway, Dave’s Darlings are going to turn the voters off, mark my words.
I would be interested in reading what others think.
Verity writes:
“Anyway, Dave’s Darlings are going to turn the voters off, mark my words.
I would be interested in reading what others think.”
I actually think there’s a pretty good chance of Cameron winning the next election. Once Bliar has been sent off to get his cardiac problems fixed, Brown in the driving seat is going to be the most awful shock for the braindead sections of the electorate who have kept Za-NuLabour in power because they were too busy enjoying the fruits of cheap Chinese imports to realise how wretched is the state of the British economy.
Where the game gets interesting is what happens once Cameron and his cronies are exposed as the vapid bunch of twerps they are.
GCooper – I think Cameron et Cie will be exposed for the vapid bunch of twerps they are before the next election.
The electorate is going to be faced with a choice between the dire, economically illiterate Gordon Brown whose failures should be up in neon lights by then, and a vapid Toneclone.
What to do, what to do? I would say the party might beg Tone to stay on, but Tone wants to move on – one of his favourite things to do is “move on” and he often advises other people to do it, too – to be [unelected] president of the EUSSR, or be lionised on the US after-dinner circuit.
Will the Tories dare to choose a new leader before the next election? I don’t share your confidence that Dave can win it. I think he will be revealed as rubbish by then. He will not be able to score any good points off Blair at PMQ because he honestly doesn’t think that Blair is wrong.
Anyway, I predict a rise in UKIP membership.
BTW, I do not believe Bliar has a heart condition and never did believe it. If he had really had a heart condition, he’d have had a heart attack on that plane to Japan when they told him Dr David Kelly was dead.
Verity writes:
“Anyway, I predict a rise in UKIP membership.”
I certainly think that’s a given. I’ve already decided to give them more than my vote and I know I’m not alone.
On that point, I was interested in Andrew Ian Dodge’s comments, earlier today and wonder if he might care to expand on Campbell Bannerman?
Who is Campbell Bannerman?
Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Scottish Liberal prime minster , in favour of home rule for Ireland, against the Boer War andf the house of Lords. Died in 1908 in 10 Downing Street 3 weeks after he resigned.
Dangerfield wrotes:
“Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Scottish Liberal prime minster ”
Err, no. Andrew Campbell Bannerman, as I said, intriguingly referred to in Andrew Ian Dodge’s comment posted here earlier today.
It would be interesting to learn if IAD has any tips from the stable lads.
I repeat, who is this fellow?
Second, this Henry Campbell-Bannerman who died at No 10 three weeks after he resigned. What was he doing still in Downing St three weeks after he resigned? They’re supposed to order the movers round on the same day. In fact, I think the movers come round whether the ex-incumbent orders them in or not.
Even Ayn Rand said there should be no Female President (and what more impeccable reasons for kicking that one in to the very long grass?)
Most Tory women would be happy leaving it to their men-folk anyway.Thatcher said the only reason she became PM was because there were no men to do the job.
A quick glance at Camoron would tell us that that is still unfortunately the case.
Sorry I missed the point last time. Is this what Verity is looking for, from UKIP’s website:
David Campbell Bannerman is the 45 year old, great-great-nephew of the Liberal Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. He was educated in Dorset, then Edinburgh and Pennsylvania Universities.
A potted history of his Tory involvement:
Elections Asst to Malcolm Rifkind, 1992
Ex-Chairman, Bow Group, 1993-94
Head of Correspondence, Conservative Central Office, Euro Elections 1994
Former ‘Special Advisor’ to Sir Patrick Mayhew, 1996-97
Tunbridge Wells Borough Councillor, 1992-96
Ex-Conservative PPC, 1997 – Glasgow Rutherglen; 2001 – Warwick & Leamington
He floated the idea of Rail Privatisation ‘as early as 1987’ (local press article) and possibly lost the 2001 election due to the negative local press on the subject. The local Tories were hunting for a new candidate in 2002…
Sorry I misunderstood last time. Re Verity’s question, the UKIP website has info on the new chairman, Campbell Bannerman:
David Campbell Bannerman is the 45 year old, great-great-nephew of the Liberal Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. He was educated in Dorset, then Edinburgh and Pennsylvania Universities.
A potted history of his Tory involvement:
Elections Asst to Malcolm Rifkind, 1992
Ex-Chairman, Bow Group, 1993-94
Head of Correspondence, Conservative Central Office, Euro Elections 1994
Former ‘Special Advisor’ to Sir Patrick Mayhew, 1996-97
Tunbridge Wells Borough Councillor, 1992-96
Ex-Conservative PPC, 1997 – Glasgow Rutherglen; 2001 – Warwick & Leamington
He floated the idea of Rail Privatisation ‘as early as 1987’ (local press article) and possibly lost the 2001 election due to the negative local press on the subject. The local Tories were hunting for a new candidate in 2002…
Dangerfield – Has he ever had a job? I really don’t care about people’s involvement in the Conservative Party. I would make the assumption that, if they are running for office, under the banner of one party or the other, they largely adhere to the principles of that party. (Except in the case of Dave.) What I care about are achievements out in the real world. What experience, what successes can they bring to the table?
Malcolm Rifkind’s a lefty.
Inevitably, it will mean that some – possibly many – very able and ambitious (meaning they will work long hours) men will be turned away so a vapid Theresa May can get in.
They are culling the candidates list of white, straight non-women at an alarming pace. Even if you stood at the last election in a shitty seat and made a good crack at it but you happen to prefer women, are middle class & white and not a woman you are being punted.
Granted some of the protential candidates are a waste of space but are all 400 or so they are ditching crap? I personally know at least 3 who got punted and are well qualified men. (You know the wrong type ie not only the things above but intelligent, well-educated, successful & hard-working.)
UKIP may have a decent share of loons in past but quite a few of them followed the tanned one to Veritas.
I suspect that UKIP will have a nice selection of very able candidates; especially if they tweak their policies to make them a bit less one-dimensional as their new leader is suggesting they will.
If Cameron does not deliver the EPP promise things are going to get rather ugly for him rather quickly.
I don’t really know.
According to the Yorkshire & North Lincolnshire party of UKIP, “he has a successful career in news media”.
David Campbell Bannerman was
1. a screenwriter/producer for Vantagepoint Films.
2. a communicastions/external affairs director of the Association of Train-operating Companies
3. head of communications, United News and Media plc
but apart from being a Tory candidate I know nothing of him after 2001.
Fact of life – on the whole, men make better leaders. They are more focused. They are good at seeing the whole picture. I think, in the main, women are miniaturists. Even most very successful women politicians are miniaturists. Hillary Clinton spends a lot of her time focussing on family issues, which are not her business, rather than international political issues, in which she seems to have little interest.
I am absolutely indifferent as to whether the man is white or black or Indian. They all share the same characteristics, one of which is, an ability not to get distracted by side issues. To cull so many able men so a bunch of what will inevitably be a large clutch of second-raters (I’m not saying they’ll all be second rate; but experience tells us that most of them will be) is suicide for our country.
I am second to none in my admiration and fondness for Lady Thatcher, but she is a very rare bird. Angela Merkel, for example, is not cut from the same cloth.
People with the potential to be great successes do not need quotas. Those that need quotas, we don’t want.
Re: the comments about women – I’ve been wondering for some time whether castration is a condition of membership of the house of commons. I can’t think of a single MP who has a pair. They all seem so impotent. The sanctimonious anti-war types particularly so.
I don’t think we’ll get any decent politicians until mass civil unrest begins. Only when we realise we’re in serious trouble will we wake up. In the meantime, stability is what most people seem to want. And with the three main political parties, an illusion of stability is what they will get.
Once the trouble starts, either a great man will surface, or else we’re stuck with a Neville Chamberlain. This women candidates malarkey is just a distraction. Only when the country is in deep trouble will talented people feel obliged to get involved in politics.
Who would want to get involved in politics right now? The media will pry into your private life. Every statement you make will be sifted by Guardian journos for evidence of your prejudices. And if they discover even the slightest thing, it will be all over the papers and your life is wrecked. Only desperadoes and prigs enter politics these days.
Hope that’s cheered everyone up.
Henry, that’s a good point. Who on earth would want their entire life held up to scrutiny by a vicious press? People would come out of the woodwork to sell stories about you to The Guardian, po-faced presenters would read news stories out about you with a sneer in their voices. God, it would be hell!
Still, if one were going to run, better be a desperado than a prig! In fact, it might be quite good fun to be a bandido.
It gets worse…Camoron has brought in Geldof to advise.
Who is he going to call in next? Arthur Scargill?
Andrew Ian Dodge wrtes:
“It gets worse…Camoron has brought in Geldof to advise.”
I laughed out loud when I heard that announcement last night.
I wonder when the Cameron apologists will be along, doing their ‘it doesn’t matter as long as we win the next election’ routine?
Well to (mis)quote the man himself: ‘Yes, it fokkin’ does!’