Has anyone else seen the supposedly devastating exposé that Gordon Brown’s pals at Compass have cobbled together? I say exposé but of course, seeing as everything they uncovered was in the public domain it should come as no surprise that Boris held some of these views. The fact that the left are resorting to publishing this now and attempting to label him “a type of Norman Tebbit in a clown’s uniform” suggests they really are scared of his candidacy getting past the upcoming selection stage.
I think they are making a mistake here. On the one hand they want is to believe that Boris is a buffoon, a jester, a part-time politico who wouldn’t take Ken’s job (as they see the mayoralty) seriously, and then on the other give him the credibility of identifying him as the biggest threat to London since the Blitz. That’s some achievement for a joke!
Anyway, I read their report and one thing struck me. As I read down their list of devastatingly embarrassing quotes I found myself nodding in agreement with many of them. He’s not a card-carrying member of the far right in any sense other than that which a card-carrying member of the far left would recognise.
Read the report for the full effect, but here are some I’ve chosen.
On opposing Kyoto:
“But of all the tough-guy acts that Bush has performed in his first few months, of all the pieces of exuberant Reaganism, nothing has so intoxicated the world with hate as his decision to scrumple up the Kyoto protocol and use it for putting practice in the White House… Because we still need a rich, confident America; not just to provide the cash for the global military leadership that the United States has to give from the Gulf to Kosovo, but also to keep the world economy moving… If America were to meet its Kyoto targets now, it would require a cut of 30 per cent in emissions, and how, exactly, is that supposed to work in the current economic downturn… It would exacerbate the recession, and when Bush says no, he is doing what is right not just for America but for the world.”
Tick!
On supporting nuclear power:
“There is now a growing agreement that for the first time in a quarter of a century we must build nuclear reactors; there can be argument about how many, but they must be a part of the solution to our increasing energy problems… We need an alternative, and one that doesn’t involve crucifying our landscape with wind farms which, even when they are in motion, would barely pull the skin off a rice pudding.”
Tick!
Is a fanatical Thatcherite:
“Mrs Thatcher pioneered a revolution that was imitated in one way or another, around the world.”
Tick!
On tackling inequality:
“…material inequality is inevitable, and that trouble comes from too zealous an attempt to change this”.
Tick!
On hunting:
“I will never vote to ban hunting. It is a piece of spite that has nothing to do with animal welfare, and everything to do with Blair’s manipulation of rank-and-file Labour chippiness and class hatred.”
Tick!
On Islam:
“When is Little Britain going to do a sketch, starring Matt Lucas as one of the virgins? Islam will only be truly acculturated to our way of life when you could expect a Bradford audience to roll in the aisles at Monty Python’s Life of Mohammed.”
Tick!
On Liberal Democrats:
“…there is a third group, a minority, but a minority that possesses a characteristic human psychological deformity. They can’t stand the pettiness of intellectual consistency. They want it all ways, and are capable of holding mutually contradictory positions at once. There policy on cake is pro-having it and pro-eating it, and they need a party that reflects them and their politically schizophrenic personalities.”
Tick!
On Polly Toynbee:
“She incarnates all the nannying, high-taxing, high-spending schoolmarminess of Blair’s Britian. She is the defender and friend of everyone whose non-job has ever been advertised in the Guardian appointments page… Polly is the high priestess of our paranoid, mollycoddled, risk-averse, airbagged, booster-seated culture of political correctness and ‘elf’n’safety fascism.”
Tick!
On those running the BBC:
“…former crypto communists…”
Tick! Tick! Tick! Tick!
