The return of Tory Britain

There is an interesting piece by Seumas Milne in today’s Guardian, Seumas being the former Comment Editor of the Guardian and Business Manager of Straight Left.

In attempting to predict what the future holds for a new Tory Britain, Mystic Milne gives us all a list of reasons to work for that very outcome.  

After tiresomely restating the executive summary to the Compass report on Boris Johnson – these days the Left doesn’t even feel the need to offer their evidence, they just state their accusations as fact – Seumas the Soothsayer widens his attack to the Tory right “flexing its muscles” and imposing its “traditional agenda”.  

The fact that this agenda, namely strong stances on tax cuts, crime, immigration and Europe, are mainstream Tory policies and not in fact sole reserves of the right is lost on the author.  

According to Seumas “senior Tory figures say they will go “some of the way” with Redwood’s ultra-Thatcherite programme, and the shadow chancellor George Osborne has made clear he finds Redwood’s plan to sweep away inheritance tax particularly appealing”. Well what did he expect?  Senior Tory figures to say they reject the well-thought out and warmly-received Redwood report?  He also ignores the fact that Osborne is only talking about death tax relief on first homes and has no plans to “sweep away” with it entirely.

Although he opened his piece with the line:  

“Along with his fellow Cameroons, [Cameron] paraded his green credentials, made liberal noises about sexuality and, even if he never actually said he would “hug a hoodie”, was at pains to emphasise the social and emotional roots of youth criminality.”

And went on to cite Cameroons and Tim Montgomerie identifying the rebalancing of Tory policy (i.e. not a retreat to a core vote strategy) he then moans that the changes have all been merely presentational.

If that’s the case then how can he make the following comment in the next breath?  

“Cameron has been at pains to show that his kind of Tory party cuts with the more liberal cultural grain of modern Britain – as well as the country’s social democratic instincts on public services. And, as this week’s Guardian ICM poll showed, that has helped him take back Liberal Democrat voters in the south.”

There is only one conclusion to draw from this dreary jeremiad, Seumas and his ilk fear that on what he regards as “the crucial economic, social and class issues” of the day, Cameron’s Conservatives are finally in a position to steal the ground from Gordon Brown’s government.  

I suspect for Seumas and his comrades an October election couldn’t come soon enough, for the rest of us who want to see a Tory Government let’s hope we’ve a while longer yet to bed down the gains we will make over the coming months.

Recession? What recession?

You may have picked up in recent weeks that there is a bit of grumble in the markets. Share prices are fluctuating wildly as a result of bad lending by US banks and poor investment decisions by hedge fund managers worldwide.

But things may not be as bad as all that. It’s reported today that GDP in the United States rose to 4 per cent in the second quarter of 2007, up from the Department of Commerce’s initial estimate of 3.4 per cent.

I’m sure you heard this on the BBC earlier today: no? Well, here is the story so you get both sides of the argument.

Letter of the Day

Letter to the Editor of The Independent: 

Sir: In Johann Hari’s piece on the Heathrow protesters (20 August), he says that most scientists share his view of climate change as though all scientists are disinterested pursuers of the truth.  

But this ignores a significant trend in recruitment to university science courses over the past 25 years. In the 1970s, people (including me) who had broadly left-wing views about things like welfare and crime, opted for courses in the social sciences, knowing that the content would reinforce our prejudices.  

In the 1980s, as the focus of left-wing thinking shifted to green issues, many people with concerns about the environment chose to study earth and environmental sciences for similar ideological reasons, and I suspect that today’s scientific establishment includes a considerable number of these people.  

Kevin Mahoney, Sheffield

Liberty Quote #3

Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have.

 Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969)

Trust the people, Gordon, you said you would

Today sees a welcome intervention into the EU Constitution debate by David Cameron.  In an article in The Sun he points out that Gordon Brown and his fellow MPs were elected on a pledge to offer the new EU Constitution to us all in a referendum.  The Labour hierarchy have been attempting to weasel out of the unambiguous manifesto promise by claiming it is a reforming treaty and not now a constitution, but other EU leaders have not been playing ball. 

As Cameron says in The Sun: 

What makes you think you can break your promises to the British people? And what makes you think you can change the way our country is governed without asking the British people first?

There’s a simple answer to both questions: Arrogance.

And when it comes to Europe, arrogance is what we’ve seen from Labour time and time again.

It’s the arrogance that says: “We, the powerful elites, know best.”

It’s the arrogance that puts more and more decisions in the hands of bureaucrats that no one’s ever heard of and no one can ever get rid of if they do a bad job.

And it’s the arrogance that Gordon Brown displays when he says we don’t need a referendum on the European constitution.

It is to be hoped that this represents a new front in the political battle against a federal European Union increasingly encroaching on British sovereignty.  Whilst some may fear that resurrecting Europe as an issue is a retreat to a discredited core vote strategy I think they are wrong.  The problem in the past was a sometimes shrill anti-EU message which was easy to paint as being small-minded or old-fashioned, but here we have the perfect European message: 

“Trust the people, Gordon, you said you would.” 

To add your voice to the campaign just download the template letter (extract from text below) and post or e-mail it to your Labour MP. 

Labour MPs in Parliament today were elected on a manifesto promise that their government would hold a referendum on the European constitution. That promise could not have been clearer. It said: “We will put it to the British people in a referendum, and campaign wholeheartedly for a Yes vote.”

And just two months ago, Gordon Brown said: “The manifesto is what we put to the public. We’ve got to honour that manifesto. That is an issue of trust with me and the electorate.”

As one of your constituents, I am calling on you to make sure your Party honours its pledge, and gives the electorate a right to vote on this crucial issue.

Is Europe doomed to continued economic stagnation?

So asks Sally McNamara, a Brit working for the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom in Washington DC. In her lecture delivered in June and published on the Heritage Foundation website this week, McNamara notes that the EU’s grandiose ambitions for economic domination have foundered, yet again.

She notes that

- 22 of the EU’s 27 member states have higher rates of unemployment than the United States;
- only 63% of people aged 15 to 64 are working, compared to 72% in the US;
- annual growth in the EU has averaged 2.1% compared to 3.3% in the US.

The reasons for this comparative stagnation? Strong state sectors and rigid labour markets. Also in the firing line was the Common Agricultural Policy.

Next time you wonder why we are fighting…

If you ever wonder why we are fighting the Jihadist bigots, just remember this latest testament to their intolerance.

Iran is closing down barber shops that offer “unconventional western hair styles” in a crackdown on un-Islamic dress.

Police Commander Mohammed Ali Najafi said that the barbers’ union banned “deviant Western styles”. And who says they’re stuck in the dark ages?

How green are you really?

For a long time now we’ve all had to put up with the chattering classes prattling on about how much they recycle, their use of environmentally friendly lightbulbs, their hatred of 4x4s and the food miles they save by buying from that lovely organic delicatessen in Islington (“oh you must try their Colchester Fetta, it’s simply divine”).  The environmental one-upmanship was becoming unbearable.  It has even reached the stage where most people consider unethical living more socially unacceptable than drink-driving! 

But now we know their dirty little secret, the guilty shadow hanging over their lives which wakes them every night screaming from nightmares of George Monbiot and Al Gore… 

They are liars. 

Dr Peter Marsh, co-director of the Social Issues Research Council, said that the issue of being greener than the Joneses cropped up frequently during lifestyle studies:

“People have to demonstrate to others that they are in one way or another good people. It now expresses itself in environmental concerns. Before, it might have involved peace campaigning or women’s rights. Green is the flavour of the new millennium.”

However as the recent SIRC survey commissioned by Norwich Union shows, 9 in 10 respondents tell “little green lies” to exaggerate their commitment to saving the planet. Paul Stokes, of Norwich Union, said:

“From protesting that our children eat nothing but organic food, to bumping up our charitable donations or from claiming to be rigorous recyclers, and talking about our wind turbine plans, we are all probably a little guilty about telling a few green lies from time to time. However, what our study shows is that people are consistently pretending to have changed their behaviour rather than actually doing it.”

No doubt this survey will now lead to calls for the Government to do more to invade our lives and dictate to us our consumer choices, and all at a time when the scientific case for environmentalism is being questioned more and more vigorously. 

So, here’s the question to ask your neighbours next time they start eco-bleating, how green are you really?  And how convinced of the arguments are you that you want Government to encroach yet further into your lives?

The importance of marriage

A story out of Russia about a woman who set fire to her ex-husband’s penis is a salutary reminder of the need to adhere to marriage vows.

Hat Tip: Drudge Report

Police prioritization

You may have noticed that there is a bit of a crime problem in Britain at the moment, in particular in our cities. Not that the Metropolitan Police has noticed. They arrested someone for using another person’s wireless internet connection without their permission. That person was arrested on police bail.

Yes it is technically a crime. Yes we should adopt a zero tolerance on crime. But arrested? Police bail?

Hat Tip: Jeremy Cape