EU Referendum

Showing posts with label Tories. Show all posts

megrahiPM_r_k[i-megrahiPM_r_k]With the indignation of the Tories over the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed Megrahi last month fresh in the memory, events are turning in a way that may give them cause to regret they went so far out on a limb.

The first of these events is a story in The Guardian and The Times which report that Megrahi has published the papers he believes would have secured his release on appeal. Helpfully linked, this is a 300-page dossier which, the paper says, "challenges key planks of the prosecution case".

One recalls at the time of Megrahi's release, Tim Montgomerie of Conservative Home, storming with indignation, posting this quote on his site:

It seems to me an utter perversion of the meaning of compassion, both in law and morality, to suggest that an unrepentant, mass murderer of entirely innocent human beings should not be required to end his life in prison.

That was followed in short order by a piece from David Lidington MP, shadow foreign affairs minister, under the heading: "Megrahi: The British people deserve to be told the truth."

Shortly afterwards, David Cameron had dived in, feet first, demanding an independent inquiry into the release of Megrahi, accusing Brown of double dealing.

That perhaps should have been lodged in the category "be careful what you wish for", because Megrahi's dossier is but the first instalment in a rush of documents which are going to re-open old wounds, going back to the Thatcher era and into the Major years, proving – as The New Statesman has recently averred - that Megrahi was framed.

This is by no means the first time such a charge has been laid, the bulk of the work having been carried out by the late Paul Foot in 1995, a summary of which he published in The Guardian in 2004, only a few months before he died.

One of the central characters in this dark and murky tale was Montgomerie's heroine, Margaret Thatcher. She initiated a series of actions which, in the most level of terms, can only be described as a perversion of the course of justice – one that ensured that the guilty parties escaped while a man innocent of that particular crime ended up in a Scottish prison.

It should be recalled that, in order to secure his release, Megrahi was pressured into abandoning his appeal. But it is also important to recall that the case had been referred to the appeal court in 2007 by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. Its chairman, Graham Forbes, then observed: "... based upon our lengthy investigations, the new evidence we have found and other evidence which was not before the trial court, that the applicant may have suffered a miscarriage of justice."

To have gained the support of the Commission, Megrahi's lawyers would have had to have presented some powerful evidence and it is some of that same evidence that has just now been published.

Combined with Foot's earlier, impeccable work, this takes the case way beyond "conspiracy theory" territory and lodges it firmly as an example of the utter degradation of the Scottish judiciary, and of the lengths to which the political establishments in Scotland and England will go to protect their own.

It requires no great leap of faith to believe that the real reason why Megrahi was released was precisely to prevent the appeal going ahead, when much of the evidence which has been so assiduously suppressed for the better part of two decades would have emerged in open court. With the prospect of Megrahi then being found innocent, the establishment went into overdrive in an attempt to ensure that the appeal was closed down.

Thus, when the Tories decided to extract what short-term political advantage they could gain out of Megrahi's release, they perhaps forgot something. Even if inadvertently, Brown, in seeking to keep embarrassing details out of the public domain - which would, of course, have reflected badly on himself and Tony Blair – was also protecting the reputations of both Thatcher and Major.

Having made such a fuss, however, the Tories have contributed to raising the profile of the issue to its current elevated state, negating the attempts to keep the it low-key. The affair now has the potential to wreck many reputations, and rightly so. Political perversion of the justice system, for whatever reasons – and there were many – is always unacceptable.

Now, some very plump chickens, it seems, are about to come storming home to roost. The Tories should have kept quiet.

COMMENT THREAD

trident_faslane[i-trident_faslane]The Times is putting out a story this morning that the Conservative leadership is "backtracking on spending commitments for Britain's Armed Forces and could yet shelve plans to replace Trident."

The trouble with these sort of stories – this one by Tom Baldwin – is that you really do not know whether this is for real, or whether this is the Tory party testing the water in order to gauge public reaction.

What is becoming very clear is that the Tories are all over the place when it comes to defence. Only last year – and for some time before that – Liam Fox was pledging that the three main "big ticket" defence projects would be carried over. These were the Trident programme, the navy's carriers and the army's FRES programme. And then there was talk of increasing the size of the army.

Although commonly cited as costing £5 billion, the carrier programme is more like £20 billion if you include the aircraft and infrastructure costs. This with FRES at £16 billion and Trident puts the commitment close to £60 billion, tying up the procurement budget for many years to come.

Now, it seems, the Tory hierarchy are not quite so sure, and – we are told – are relying of their commitment to a strategic defence review (SDR) to hold off having to make any firm commitments. But then, if the Party is really testing the water, and the public reaction to any cutbacks is hostile, they have a problem.

The "big ticket" programmes, for all their eye-watering costs, are only part of the equation. The accumulation of small and medium projects – not least the MARS replenishment fleet replacement for the navy, the A400M air transports for the RAF and the Future Lynx programme for the army all add up to a tidy penny.

Then there remains more than a little strategic confusion. Fox, in a recent speech was anxious to talk up the Russian threat, with reminders of that country's "re-armament" programme.

This threat, we have considered to be somewhat overstated, especially when Putin had to call on elite troops from the Moscow region to overpower Georgia last year. And a recent report on the state of Russian defence industries lends credence to the view that the Bear is no longer a significant conventional military threat.

That Fox seems to feel the need to talk it up suggests that he is listening very closely to the UK defence industry, which would much prefer spending on conventional capabilities to deal with inter-state wars, rather than see the focus on counter-insurgency, from which there are lean pickings for domestic producers. But then, with Charles Guthrie advising the Tory team, this is only to be expected.

The Tories could, of course, put the speculation to bed by declaring their hand now – making it clear that the UK can no longer afford to finance a military capable of autonomous action in a high-intensity inter-state war. This, though, would need a further declaration of where Britain sees itself in future conflicts, how it would manage its alliances and what precise capabilities it deems essential.

These grown-up questions, however, demand a level of clarity and – to an extent – political courage, which has not yet been apparent from the Tory opposition. And while deferring decisions until after the election may seem an easy way out, events seem to be forcing the pace.

And then, of course, there is the Irish referendum on the horizon. If the Irish fail to deliver a "no" vote and the "colleagues" gets their treaty ratified, the EU military ambitions will climb higher up the political agenda – with profound spending implications.

Having made a meal of attacking Labour on its defence credentials, the electorate may be in the mood to demand something a little more substantive from the Tories than the fare on offer, especially if there is an undeclared agenda to cut spending or, even worse, an intention to buy in to the EU's martial ambitions.

Silence on these issues would appear no longer to be a credible option.

COMMENT THREAD

Simon Heffer says that David Cameron and his friends are not Tories. But, he says, little Dave doesn't care.

Heffer thinks he should. Fringe parties like UKIP, usually only given big support during marginal electoral contests, could find themselves the repository of protest votes by those who wish – as a result of the widespread disillusion caused by the expenses scandal – to smash up the old, cosy system.

It won't happen in time for the next election but, with a low turnout and a significant proportion of votes going to fringe parties, any hold on power that the Tories have will be fragile, and their supporters not remotely loyal.

More and more people who should be traditional Tory supporters are no longer – a terrifying number see the only way out is for the system to self-destruct. And there's the rub. They know Dave doesn't care. The thing is, neither do they ... about him or his friends.

COMMENT THREAD

Lord-Patten[i-Lord-Patten]The Daily Mail informs us (and this must be the first time in many a long month that I noticed anything in the news that is of any interest whatsoever in that paper) that Lord Patten (former Tory MP, former Governor of Hong Kong, former Eurocrat, now Chancellor of the University of Oxford) may well be interested in becoming the EU Foreign Minister, should such a position come into existence on the Constitutional Lisbon Treaty becoming law.

This, Ms Kirsty Walker tells us helpfully, has rather annoyed the Boy-King of the Conservative Party as it is that party's settled policy to oppose the Constitutional Lisbon Treaty or, at least, to make sure that it is not left there.

So the first question is will this mean that there will be calls for the whip to be removed from Lord Patten as he is opposing party policy.

The second question is inevitably about the Shadow Foreign Secretary: does Mr Hague ever listen to himself? This was his comment on the possibility of Lord Patten (who is not campaigning for the job, oh dear me, no) being tapped by the hand of fate:

Speculation about who should fill a post whose shape we do not yet know is certainly unwise and, given the nature of European politics, likely to be unhelpful to any possible candidate.

That sounds like he is worried about Lord Patten spoiling his chances by declaring his interest too early. Does this mean that our William is not on message either when it comes to the Conservative Party's attitude to that pesky treaty?

As for me, I cannot think of a better person than Lord Patten to bloviate on the subject of European foreign policy, which does not exist as there are no European interests. He will look very good in all those meetings. Well, no worse than all the other Eurocrats.

Oh and by the way, I do not think former Prime Minister now totally forgotten international statesman Tony Blair has any chances of becoming European Council President, so there is no reason why Lord Patten should not be Foreign Minister.

COMMENT THREAD

William_Hague_pie[i-William_Hague_pie]William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, lives up to that rhyme again. Before the ending of this parliamentary session he will make a major speech about the changes in foreign policy we are likely to see when he is in place. He does make speeches once every year or so, none of them memorable and all rather vague on matters of reality.

He has given ConHome a taster of what he will say and answered a few questions. Three main changes are being promised:

First, we would create a fully fledged National Security Council, comprising all relevant senior ministers and chaired by the Prime Minister. This would be a decisive break from the sofa style decision making of the last twelve years, which has often led to decisions being made without all the necessary information being considered or understood. Second, we would be firmly opposed to the greater centralisation of power in EU institutions, which reduces democratic accountability in Britain. Third, we would give a greater emphasis than in recent years to the role of the Commonwealth, a unique network covering a quarter of the world's population. These are a few examples but I will be making a major speech defining our whole approach to foreign policy before Parliament rises for the summer recess.

Hmmm. Why do I feel underwhelmed by these ideas? Well, let us have a closer look at them.

Number one is not precisely a policy, more of an administrative arrangement. Creating a National Security Council for no particular reason that I can see is something any Prime Minister and any Foreign Secretary can do at any time without changing or even announcing policies. The two take decisions about foreign policy and whom they consult is entirely up to them.

What of number two? Another Conservative prevarication about the EU, I am afraid. Being “firmly opposed to the greater centralisation of power in EU institutions” is very nice, indeed, but what will they do? Policy implies some action or attempted action and some commitment to a course of those actions.

What will the Conservative government and its Foreign Secretary do to prevent further centralisation of power and what methods will they use to reverse that trend? That is the question Mr Hague ought to be answering; that is the problem he ought to be working on if he wants to be taken seriously as a real Foreign Secretary rather than just a man who will say anything that comes into his head.

Number three may resound with some Conservative core voters but ever fewer, I suspect. What on earth does he mean by giving "a greater emphasis than in recent years to the role of the Commonwealth"? Greater emphasis in what way?

Does he mean that the Commonwealth will put pressure on certain members, such as Zimbabwe to clean up their political act and actually succeed? Because if he believes that I have a very nice bridge I can sell him.

Does he mean some kind of preferential agreements? Apart from the sheer stupidity of that and the unlikelihood of Commonwealth countries changing their trading patterns to suit us (especially as those memories of Britain changing her patterns in the seventies still rankle), there is the minor problem that international trade is EU competence and has been since Britain's accession.

If he is thinking about a defence network then he had better remember that there is this little problem called the United States. At least two important Commonwealth countries, India and Australia, are now major regional powers and have their own agreements and arrangements with the United States. Their interests are in the Pacific Ocean and South-East Asia; their worry is China and its client state, North Korea; their view of the world has little to do with Britain or Europe. Are they really going to change all that and start tugging their forelocks to the British government? I think not.

Does this mean that our future Foreign Secretary really has no idea what foreign policy is or what is going on in the world? I am afraid the rest of the interview, which gives plenty of opportunity for Mr Hague to make rather hackneyed and extremely vague comments about slavery and NATO as well as show his misunderstanding of China merely confirm that. Can't wait for the speech itself.

COMMENT THREAD

BBC+EU+flag[i-BBC+EU+flag]Once again we doff our caps to Lord Pearson of Rannoch in recognition of his continuing battle with the BBC and his absolute determination to make that organization live up to its Charter and broadcast in a more or less balanced way on the European Union. At least, he maintains, the BBC should learn some facts.

He has once again written to Sir Michael Lyons, Chairman of the BBC Trust, with copies to all sorts of worthies who work for Auntie (the letter will be on Global Britain website very soon, I am told), in which he professed himself to be in despair over the BBC's coverage of the European election.

The final straw, as he explained, was an interview with David Cameron on the Today Programme yesterday, 2 June. In it the Boy-King explained that once the Conservatives sweep into the European Parliament and form their new group, they will be able to introduce all sorts of reforms. Nobody, in particular not Jim Naughtie, pointed out to him that any change of that kind requires an IGC and a unanimous agreement from all 27 members.

In other words, ladies and gentlemen of the Conservative Party, Libertas.eu, Open Europe and the Taxpayers' Alliance reforming the European Union in the opposite direction from the one it is going, that is ever closer union, is not possible. Which part of it is so hard to understand.

Anyway, just in case our readers are interested, here is the transcript of the relevant section:

JN: On, more or less, the eve of an election, let me just ask you a couple of things about Europe, since we’re having a Euro Election.

DC: Well, we're having an election, why not?

JN: Absolutely. Now look, you lead a party which is pretty well Eurosceptic these days. You're leading the main centre-right grouping in the European Parliament, and you think very clearly, that the Lisbon Treaty goes too far. Now, if you come to power and that Treaty has been ratified – the process hasn’t been completed yet – will you try to renegotiate it, or will you accept it?

DC: Well, what we’ve said is we will not let matters rest, because . . . .

JN: And I'm asking you what that means.

DC: Well, I'm going to answer. What I mean by that is too much power would have been passed from Brussels to Westminster, and we want some of that power back. Now, I don't want to go into every last detail of what happens if a series of things happen. If there isn't an early election, if the Irish vote "yes" in a second referendum, if the Poles decide to ratify this treaty, if the Czechs decide to ratify this treaty. That is four "ifs". I would rather than focusing on all those "ifs" focus on the hear and now, and today we are publishing a bill that could go through parliament right now to allow us to hold the referendum on the European Constitution that everyone promised, particularly the prime minister, and we can hold it on the same day as the Irish referendum. Now I know that, of course, my opponents would love me to focus on what happens if all of those things happen subsequently. Well actually, I’m not going to.

JN: Well ...

DC: I'm going to focus on the here and now, because on Thursday people can go into those voting booths, vote Conservative and pile the pressure on Gordon Brown to hold a referendum.

JN: Well ... well ...

DC: And I don't want to let him off the hook.

JN: Okay, that's a fair enough political point, but people have a right to know what you’d do if Mr Brown doesn’t ring you up and say, "oh, I think you're right, we're going to have an election tomorrow". If you go in, on the crucial part of Britain's relationship with the outside world, they will need to know how you deal with a piece of legislation that has been ratified, and the unravelling of which would mean, in the view of many people in your own party as well as outside, effectively challenging our membership of the EU.

DC: Well it isn't that, I mean every treaty is an effective renegotiation, and if we had a Conservative government we'd be going into those sorts of negotiations with a list of powers we’d want to have returned to the UK, because we think that we believe in being members of the European Union, but we want it to be about more ...

JN: How do you ...

DC: (continues) trade and cooperation, rather than this endless process of building a superstate. And one of the reasons, in fact the main reason for leaving the EPP and forming this new group, is that it will bring to European politics I centre-right group of parties that are committed to reform in Europe and change in Europe. It won’t just be the British Conservatives, it will be other parties ...

JN: (speaking over) You describe the Latvian Fatherland and Freedom Party as centre-right?

DC: We've announced the two major parties that we’re going to be linking with. That is Law and Justice in Poland and the Czech ODS parties, that are parties of government, that are centre-right parties and that with us share the view that Europe needs to be reformed.

JN: Well, I ...

DC: We ought to be dispersing power more widely, that we want a Europe about trade and cooperation, not about creating a superstate.

JN: Do you think that if you became prime minister, at some point, you would have a referendum on "in or out"?

DC: No, I don't think that's right, because I don’t want us to ...

JN: You wouldn't want one?

DC: Well, I don't want us to leave the European Union.

JN: How deep is your commitment?

DC: Well, I thought that if being a member of the European Union was against the national interest, I would argue for us to come out.

JN: Can you see any circumstances in which it would be?

DC: Right now, I can't. I think we're right to be in this organisation, we want to be fighting to change it, and we're now going to have some partners to help us in that fight . . .

JN: What if you fail to change the Lisbon Treaty? Would you think that that made it not right.

DC: I don't go into things in life thinking I'm going to fail. I think ...

JN: But there's no evidence that anybody else would be with you on that.

DC: Well, I don't accept that at all. Britain is a strong member of the European Union, and has a lot to bring, is an important trading partner. There's a very big negotiation coming up on the future funding of the European Union, and I don't want to see us increasing the funding at all, and it gives us enormous leverage in terms of making sure we get a good deal for Britain, and we build the sort of European Union that, not just the British Conservatives, but other parties in Europe want to see as well.

JN: David Cameron, thank you very much.

DC: Thank you.

As I said, that's the BBC for you. And the Conservative Party.

COMMENT THREAD

Caucus+race[i-Caucus+race]
No this is not a posting about Kipling's great poem (that would not belong to this blog) but a short musing on the Conservative Party's change of heart (if there is, indeed, a change) over governance and, in particular, the European issue.

In preparation to the debate on the BBC I thought I had better glance through the Boy-King's speech about which the boss has blogged several times. (In particular, here.) On the whole, I avoid politicians' speeches, on the grounds that they rarely say anything of interest and are, in any case, written by a team of talented speech writers. (No, not Daniel Hannan or Douglas Carswell, as ConHome pointed out.)

My first reaction was that it was not too bad a speech for the Boy-King, though the routine attack on bankers was tiresome. No, they did not break the economy - that was the governments, both in Brussels and nearer home - and they pay a very high level of taxes on their salary, bonuses and benefits in kind. Can Mr Cameron say the same about himself and his colleagues?

Nor am I too impressed by the crocodile tear shed over the fact that people now see the state for the enemy that it is and not an ally. Historically, the state was seen as the enemy by the English (and the Scots and the Welsh, and let's not even talk about the Irish in that respect). The fact that there was a relatively short blip from, roughly speaking, the 1820s to, again roughly speaking, the 1930s during which Britain, almost uniquely, had good governance, that is light but ever-growing governance is irrelevant. The surprising thing that it has taken this long for people to shake off the ideas they acquired in the space of just one century.

Most of the rest of the speech is blather. But if he really means what he says about the need for "massive, sweeping, radical redistribution of power"; if he really means that we need to take back power from Brussels (method, as usual unspecified); if the Conservative Party is really going to put the idea of returning power to the people and making government once more accountable by restoring it to these shores then we need to ask what is the motivation here.

Well, of course, we all know the answer. There is only one thing that motivates politicians and that is fear of losing votes. The Conservatives are rightly worried about those eurosceptic votes that they thought belonged to them. These may well go somewhere else next week with far fewer Tory members in the Toy Parliament than expected.

So, we can conclude that support for those small parties does work, no matter what the Tory boys and girls tell us: it puts pressure on the party to change its policies. Of course, we do not know yet whether the Boy-King's pronouncements will find their way into specific policies but there is only one way of making sure they do: keep the pressure on them. It really can work.

Which reminds me, ToryBoy blog has also alerted everyone to another pronouncement by the ineffable John Redwood. I am grateful to Jonathan Isaby because I do not consider the man's self-promoting blog essential reading.

In a posting, entitled "Power to the People" (dear, oh dear - that was cool aeons ago) John Redwood informs his readers that he has already outlined what the next Conservative government will have to do to reclaim power from Brussels.

Easy - don't give away any more vetoes and take some back.

Restoring the veto for future laws is no longer sufficient, as too many laws of a kind we do not want have been passed already. A renegotiation for powers back has to encompass the right to remove EU laws we do not like in areas where the veto has been restored.

Two big areas of spending are fishing and agriculture. Neither of these policies have worked well. We need our own control of our fishing grounds, as I have often argued. We need agricultural reform, which should include more being done nationally and locally.

And we are going to do this how?

COMMENT THREAD

Tebbit+01[i-Tebbit+01]One could almost feel sorry for David Cameron. No sooner was he swamped by the wholly predictable stories of the way Conservative MPs have been abusing the expenses system (with James Gray nominated as duty sh*t) than he has the Chingford skinhead or, as Michael Foot put it, with the usual left-wing contempt for the working class, the semi-domesticated polecat.

Yes, indeed, it is of Lord Tebbit we speak who has just ruffled every single Tory feather. No wonder he had a big smile on his face when I saw him yesterday at the launch of Marta Andreasen's book. He knew trouble was coming and it was coming from him.

Most people know the story. In the wake of the spreading expenses scandal Lord Tebbit has called on people not to vote for any of the main parties in the coming European election. Reasonable enough and, as so often with Tebbo, a sentiment that echoes much of what the electorate feels. Furthermore, he very carefully did not suggest that they should vote for any other party but the general feeling is that he was covertly promoting UKIP, whose officials are purring with delight even as I write this.

Despite that there have been calls for the whip to be withdrawn from Lord Tebbit, as it was withdrawn from Stuart Wheeler, who was also there yesterday and did not seem too upset about no longer having to give large sums of money to the Tories. (We covered that story here and here.)

Jonathan Isaby has called for the man's head ... errm, whip ... and raised quite a storm in the comments section. Tim Montgomerie, the online begetter of ToryBoy blog disagrees and thinks this is a storm in a teacup that should be left to die out.

Most other commentators seem to think Isaby is wrong for various reasons, not least because some understand how throwing Tebbit out of the Conservative Party will play with the electorate. Some think he should be left in the exile he is in, which appears to be on the pages of the Daily Mail. Some exile. Is that not the second most popular daily newspaper in the country?

There is one chap who says this is only Tebbit's effort to drag the European issue into the discussion and thus split the party. It was rightly pointed out by another commenter that we are about to have European elections and, therefore, the European issue might be of some interest.

David Cameron, it would appear, is also threatening to make Lord Tebbit into an Independent. Well, well. Can the man be really that stupid?

The truth is that, no matter what the various posters say on ToryBoy Blog, Cameron's promises to deal with his MPs may sound good but who is actually going to believe them? Tebbit has left the party in something of a quandary.

Cameron's instinct, one assumes, is to throw the man out, not least because he reminds people of what the Conservative Party once was. But that very fact makes the action quite difficult. Just a few days ago the entire Conservative Party, many rather nauseatingly and hypocritically, was celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the first Thatcher victory with more than a few drooling comments on how it will be just the same next year. (Cameron as the new Thatcher? I think not.)

How will it play now if Thatcher's closest lieutenant, the man who resolutely has resolutely fought and still fights all enemies of true conservatism, who suffered shockingly in the Brighton bomb, is thrown out of the party because he dares to point out that politicians who were caught with their hands in the till (entirely within the rules, naturellement) should not receive the electorate's approval.

How will it play if Cameron is seen to be tougher with the man who points to the wrong-doing and points out that in a democracy the electorate can deal with these matters than with the wrong-doers themselves? Will that bring in the Conservative vote? Again, I think not. No wonder UKIP is purring.

Then there is another aspect that we referred to when the Wheeler saga unfolded. After all, Ken Clarke once opposed a core Conservative policy on the referendum and sided with the Labour government. Did he lose the whip? There was the unfortunate episode of Patrick Mercer and John Bercow joining Gordon Brown's big tent circus though Mr Mercer realized after 33 days that he had been had. Did they lose the whip? No sirreee. Siding with the main opponent, the Labour Party is no longer a cardinal sin in the Conservative Party but even the slightest hint that UKIP should be the choice in the European elections is.

What other evidence would the electorate need for the fact that there is no difference between the main parties. There is just us and them.

COMMENT THREAD

William_Hague[i-William_Hague]Speaking at the Tories' Spring Conference in Cheltenham, William Hague, the part-time Shadow Foreign Secretary and full time after-dinner speaker, has attacked the Labour Government for not giving the people a referendum on the Constitutional Lisbon Treaty.

Arguing that the Euro-elections will be "a campaign about trust", Mr Hague will say: "It is the saddest of all truths about this Government that faced with disillusionment with politics they have only added to it, faced with mistrust they have only justified it, and beset with cynicism they have opted only to exhibit it.

"They have not only devalued the currency of the nation, but their breaking of promises has been so brazen, and in the case of the referendum so inexcusable, that they have debased the coinage of politics itself. Their legacy will be to leave office with the word of government less believed than at any time in our lifetimes - another aspect of the scorched earth they will leave behind them, on which only a new government can plant the seeds of trust and belief afresh."

I must say if I were planning the Conservative campaign I would refrain from putting trust at the heart of it but politicians and their strategists seem to suffer from a semi-permanent state of amnesia.

One must admit there is a good rhythm to that speech. Hague is definitely the Tories' best speaker and one can quite see why he is in demand at various dinners and events.

However, blathering about that referendum is all well and good but only up to a point. The deed is done and the instruments have been lodged in Rome. The Tories are hoping that the Irish vote no again and the Czechs, the Poles and the Germans, therefore, do not ratify. The Treaty remains in limbo and nothing much will have to be done about it by the Conservative government until another IGC is called after another bout of dialogue, undoubtedly initiated by the Fragrant Commissar for Propaganda.

Yet, it is not impossible to imagine a different scenario with the Constitutional Lisbon Treaty done and dusted by next May when the the Labour Government, if things go as they do now, will most probably lose the election. We shall then have a Conservative government (at least in name) under a new constitution imposed on us by the Treaty for which the promised referendum had not been held. What will Cameron, Hague et al do then?

COMMENT THREAD

pol-nigelfarage045a[i-pol-nigelfarage045a]Just to prove that what I sounded (for the time being) was the Reveille, not the Last Post, here is an article about the latests brouhaha between UKIP and the Conservatives. Disregarding past experience the Tories have decided to go for what they consider to be their greatest enemy - UKIP.

Tactically, this is about as stupid a thing to do as anyone can think of. Firstly, UKIP is a small party and, therefore, it does not appear to be quite the most appropriate thing for Her Majesty's Opposition to concentrate fire on it. Secondly, the Tories are trying to build up their image as the "real" eurosceptic party. From their point of view, therefore, it appears to make sense to attack the one rival in that field (actually, now there are two with the BNP acquiring a following) but from the point of view of the electorate it seems rather odd that the fire should be reserved for their putative allies rather than their enemy. Thirdly, providing UKIP with badly needed publicity may not be quite what the Tories really want.

As it happens, I do not agree with the boss about Robin Page. I consider the man to be a crashing bore with the political nous of a backward gnat. His whining about his maltreatment at the hands of UKIP leaves me cold as, I suspect from past experience, that he is really miffed because of not being given sufficient respect. Tant pis.

Whoever engineered the Robin Page story may well live to regret it. The net result of it has been more coverage of UKIP in the media, both old and new, than it has had for a long time with Nigel Farage coming out fighting in the Daily Telegraph. I think the boss is wrong - neither UKIP nor Farage are finished any more than they were finished all those other times it was predicted by many.

I had better declare something resembling an interest here. In a way, I am responsible for recruiting Nigel Farage into what was then the Anti-Federalist League and he played some part in my purge from what afterwards became the UK Independence Party. Therefore, I have known about the Farage problem (if I may call it that) and the general UKIP problem for some time - longer than most people who sound off on the subject. And I still think the Tories are making a tactical mistake but there is very little space for them to manoeuvre in.

At present, the Conservative campaign for the European Parliament seems to be, roughly speaking, vote for us or you will get socialism and federalism with the rider that if you vote UKIP then you will also get socialism and federalism because Labour will get more seats. There are so many things wrong with that argument that it is difficult to know where to start.

Let me make a few points. Anyone who argues that MEPs can or that Tory MEPs will alter the EU's development either knows nothing about that organization or does not care about the truth as long as he or she can get in there. Furthermore, federalism is somewhat outdated; it is many years since most of us have realized that the EU is not intending to be a federalist state in the way the USA or Canada are.

In fact it matters very little who gets in to the Toy Parliament but, rightly or wrongly and I think wrongly, the Tories see the forthcoming June election as a trial run for next year's general one. If they do well in the European and local elections then the road to Number 10 will be open, which is the only thing they care about. What they will do when they get there is anybody's guess.

One of the bloggers to pick up the story is Iain Dale, who has a higher opinion of Nigel Farage than the boss does and has interviewed the man for next month's GQ Magazine. He, too, links to the article in the Independent, not precisely the best source for accurate information about politics in general and UKIP in particular, mostly because they have been wrong so often about so many things.

In this article we also have a throw-away comment about Professor Tim Congdon rejoining the Conservative Party. There have been rumours about disagreements between UKIP leadership and Professor Congdon before and the boss duly documented them at the time. It is hard to tell whether the good professor has gone the whole hog and rejoined the Tories as this is the only official claim I have seen of such a development.

When Professor Congdon left the Tories and joined UKIP he did so with flags flying and guns blazing. There was a long article in the Daily Telegraph that listed all the many things he found wrong with the Boy-King and his party. Most, if not all of those things are still there. That may be the reason why there has been so little publicity about the prodigal's return if, indeed, it has happened. Professor Congdon may not like the idea of having to explain why he has now decided to overlook all the problems he thought to be insurmountable two years ago.

Iain Dale also suggests that Malcolm Pearson may well be the next to follow. This is wishful thinking. In the first place, given the Lord Pearson's track record on the European issue from Maastricht onwards, the Tories would not really want him back but, more to the point, he really cares very passionately about it, believing not just that Britain must come out of the EU but that the entire Treaty of Rome should be torn up and we must start again.

In other words, both he and his colleague, Lord Willoughby de Broke are men of principle. That is about as far from the Conservative "eurosceptics" as one can be. I suspect that Nigel Farage will work considerably harder to keep the two peers on board than he would ever have bothered with the tiresome Robin Page, as they are of far greater use to UKIP and as he, though, perhaps, not every Tory, knows there are alternatives for them: the House of Lords still has a section for Cross-Bench, that is independent peers, a very valuable part of the House. Let us hope neither Gordon Brown nor David Cameron (if it be he after the next election) get round to abolishing them.

The real problem the Tories have is that they have become a one-issue party as well. Their issue is "get rid of Gordon Brown". Nothing wrong with that and it will probably win them the next election though one can never be quite certain in a democracy but it is not sufficient for the future as John O'Sullivan, for one, has pointed out.

Why, I keep asking various ToryBoys and Girls, should I vote for you in the European election? Come to think of it, what are you going to do when you have got your snouts in the trough and your leader is in Number 10? Maybe, instead of telling us that a vote for UKIP is a vote for socialism (as, let's face it, a vote for the Tories is a vote for socialism) they should concentrate on answering that question.

COMMENT THREAD

Judging by Charles Tannock's posting on CentreRight Blog, the Conservative Party has begun its withdrawal from that (second) promise to pull out of the EPP-ED. It is easy to dismiss the subject as being of little real importance in the whole question of Britain's membership of the EU. That would ignore Conservative grass-roots anger that the one and only promise David Cameron had made during his leadership campaign was broken almost immediately and is now on way to being broken the second time. (What he did was to explain after an indecent interval that the withdrawal will be accomplished after the 2009 elections.)

Even those who are fanatical supporters of the Cameroonies can be silenced by the question of "well how can we trust him when he would not fulfil the one promise he made". Mr Tannock was given a severe pasting by all those who commented on his piece.

A follow-up posting by Matthew Sinclair focuses on two responses from Roger Helmer and Dan Hannan. Both oppose Charles Tannock's position but their position will be rather difficult if, after the 2009 elections, the Conservatives will stay in the EPP-ED because they will not be able to form another group of their own and do not want either to sit alone or to join already existing groups. Effectively that is what Mr Tannock is saying.

The problem, as one hears, is that the negotiations with like-minded East European and other politicians tend to bog down for one very good reason: those like-minded politicians do not trust the Conservative Party, and who can blame them. We do not trust it either.

Just to remind our readers, here is a piece I wrote some time ago about the way the Conservative Party betrayed the East European free-market, eurosceptic groups back in 2004.

Most of the East European sceptics realized very early that they stood no chance of getting a no vote in their countries’ referendums on accession. There were many reasons for this: a desire to belong fully to the West; fear of Russia; the impossibility of having any other agreements with West European countries as the EU had decreed that no other relationship was possible; and,not least, the fact that in most of those countries the outright opponents of membership were either very nasty nationalist or unreconstructed communist parties. As it is, most of the referendums had a low turn-out, thus registering a certain lack of enthusiasm for the whole project.

On the other hand, it was felt, the influx of the new countries and new politicians after the European elections of June would mark a new beginning for the whole right-of-centre movement inside the EU, particularly the European Parliament. Plans were laid for a new grouping that would be led by the British Conservatives and would include various parties such as the Czech ODS and the Hungarian FIDESZ as well as a few genuinely conservative West Europeans. The East Europeans talked excitedly of this new grouping and the fact that through it they would be able to work together with the people they perceived as their friends and allies.

In the existing members and among some outside observers, mostly in the United States, there was a feeling that this would be a definitive and important change in the politics of the EU. This was the way those ideas the East Europeans had worked out for themselves in their ten years of independence would enter the political bloodstream of the tired old Union.

Alas for high hopes. Before the European election Michael Howard, the Conservative leader and he who will allegedly lead us into the newly negotiated free trade alliance with the Continental countries, issued his diktat: the Conservative MEPs would go back into the European People's Party and stay in that federalist grouping.

What could the Tory eurosceptics have done? Well, they could have said no. There were about half a dozen of them in leading positions on the lists and many more in slightly lower places. They could not have all been fired. They all, they assure us, fought like tigers, had rows, screaming matches, what have you. But the sad truth is that like little lambkins they all agreed to go back into the federalist EPP.

When the new right-of-centre, eurosceptic politicians from the East European countries appeared in Brussels they were met with a, to them, stunning situation. The British Conservatives, who had been scheduled to lead the new grouping, were not there. They were in the old grouping and a federalist one at that.

The new members accommodated themselves as best they could and dispersed between one or two more or less right-wing groups. The great revolution in EU parliamentary politics never happened. And the East Europeans were betrayed again – by their supposed allies the British Conservative eurosceptics.

Are there any reasons why the situation should be any different next year?

donkeymain[i-donkeymain]Oh the vicissitudes of writing about the European Union and actually understanding most of it (nobody understands all of it, not even Jacques Delors).

My colleague and I spend a good deal of every day clutching our respective heads and wondering why we bother. That is when we do not "celebrate" anniversaries: ten years since my first briefing on the Meat Hygiene Service (my colleague got on to that long before me); so many years since the first position paper for the Countryside Alliance on FMD; and ten years since I first wrote about the British art market and the likely effects of EU legislation on it.

In April I put up a posting because the Financial Times in its infinite wisdom published an article that "sounded the alarm" about the full version of the droit de suite legislation. The posting explains what the fuss is all about.

Then I added:

Well, I never. So the droit de suite, opposed by every British political party but passed through QMV by the Council of Ministers mostly representing countries that have no art markets, is going to harm the successful British one. Where have I heard this before?

Actually, more to the point, where have I written this before? Well, apart from articles in the European Journal and eurofacts in the past (first time in 1998), as well as several briefing papers for friendly peers, I wrote about it on EU Referendum on February 15, 2005, December 20, 2005, December 22, 2005, January 25, 2006. On the One London blog I wrote only twice, in connection with the fatuous report produced by Angie Bray, that stalwart member of the Conservative Party, on December 21, 2005 and on February 1, 2006, the latter showing some choice examples of fatuousness both on the part of Ms Bray and of Hizonner the Mayor.

Over and above that I wrote the One London Minority Report that was attached to Ms Bray’s rather idiotic (I have overused the word fatuous) official report.

Earlier today I received a press release from the European Foundation, whose European Journal clearly has no archives.

The press release tells me that in the next issue of the European Journal, shadow minister for science and innovation (the jobs these people have!), Adam Afriyie, will ask "if a new EU Directive will damage Britain's £8.5 billion art market". Please don't let this be true, I said. Please, just for once, could we have evidence of intelligence and knowledge on the part of a Conservative politician and a Conservative Eurosceptic outlet, to wit the European Journal?

It seems my pleas to whatever powers there might be is about as effective as the little boy's to the famous baseball player "Shoeless Joe" Jackson. Allegedly, when he came out of the courthouse after admitting to being part of a fix, the boy said to him: "Say it ain't so, Joe". The story may or may not be true but "say it ain't so" has become a well-known phrase. Of course, the point is that the reply would have been: "sure it is, kid".

That is presumably all I can expect from the Conservative Shadow Minister and the European Journal:

"Sure it is. We have just discovered Directive 2001/84/EC and we are going to be shocked and horrified by what it might do to a successful business in the country, now that we cannot do anything about it.

Of course, we never could do anything about it, as this is a Single Market legislation and is, therefore subject to qualified majority voting procedure but we are not too clear what that means in real terms, so let's just forget about that.

Naturally, we assume that everybody else is just as stupid and ignorant as we are and will not notice that we are wasting our time and stretching everybody else's credulity trying to acquire some eurosceptic kudos."

Oh dear. Say it ain’t so.

Bob+Spink[i-Bob+Spink]We have just received the following press release from the office of Dr Bob Spink, committed eurosceptic and Chairman of the Campaign for an Independent Britain:

Dr Bob Spink MP for Castle Point has resigned the Conservative Whip

Bob says:

“The Party has failed to deal with local breaches of its rules and electoral irregularities,and with criminal activities over a long period and there are now corruption and other investigations, surrounding certain senior members of my local Association.

“It is with great sadness that I therefore felt compelled to resign the Party whip. I hope my action in resigning will bring the necessary changes and therefore be in both the public and the Party’s best interests.”Tories lose another MP at Westminster

MP Dr Bob Spink has resigned the Conservative Party whip because he is disappointed with the Party’s failure to address crime and corruption within the Party.

Dr Spink remains a committed and principled Conservative.

ENDS

As our colleagues over the Pond say: DEVELOPING

UPDATE: According to the BBC the Conservative Party announced that they had withdrawn the whip from Dr Spink, after he was cut off while making his statement by the Deputy Speaker. Hmmm. Still developing.

MORE UPDATE: The story is discussed at length on ConservativeHome and Iain Dale's Diary. We shall await developments before posting on the subject again.

Jungle_Book_Kaa+02[i-Jungle_Book_Kaa+02]Whenever I hear politicians talk about trust I think of that wonderful scene in the Disney "Jungle Book" where Kaa, the python, whom I found infinitely more frightening in both the book and the film than Shere Khan, sings to the monkeys:

Trust in me, just in me
Shut your eyes and trust in me
You can sleep safe and sound
Knowing I am around

I thought that during that pathetic episode of Tony Blair and Formula One, when the man actually said in an interview that people could trust him as he was a regular kinda guy. Anything more like a snake-oil salesman's talk I have yet to hear.

Then again, the Boy-King of the Conservative Party has come close. As the Toryboy blog tells us, Cameron has been speaking to Welsh Conservatives on St David’s Day about the need to restore trust in politics and politicians.

My colleague has already written about the subject of trust in connection with the well-meaning letter by a number of younger Conservative MPs. For all of that, the subject bears covering again, especially as there is now a speech by the leader himself.

One cannot help wondering about this sudden interest in the word "trust". This government has not been trusted for some time and neither have politicians or anyone else in the political establishment, which includes the political media. To be fair, very many people who say they don't trust the media do nothing but quote the BBC/Channel 4/selected newspapers without once bothering to scrutinize what they saw/read/heard.

Could it be that the Conservative Party is rather belatedly jumping on the bandwagon that was first rolled by Francis Fukuyama in 1995? If so, they are off base. I did not read the book because I was not completely impressed by his magnum opus "The End of History and the Last Man" but as I understand it from comments, Fukuyama's thesis is that in order to move forward societies must be based on the notion of trust whether this is true in every single case or not.

Without going into the details of the subject, it is clear that this is a large and fascinating topic, of particular interest to those of us who support the Anglosphere. (Perhaps I shall have to read it after all.)

The subject cropped up in the Reith Lectures of 2002, given by Professor Onora O’Neill, now Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve. These I did listen to and came away with a feeling of complete bemusement that a lady with such very impressive credentials in philosophy could talk such mush.

As I recall, the lectures (by this time reduced to 30 minutes or so and turned into a travelling circus) consisted mainly of a prolonged whinge about the lack of trust displayed by the public (that's us) towards the various institutions that had always been trusted in the past. Only someone with no knowledge of literature could believe that politicians, educators of various kind, the law or the police were always trusted in the past.

I have no memory of Professor O'Neill once discussing the need for reciprocity in trust and the importance of deserving it.

Cameron, one must admit, has advanced a little beyond that point of view. He seems to accept, though one hears the reluctance in the tone of the speech, that if politicians are to be trusted they must do something to deserve that.

Problem is, he does not seem to have understood why it is they are distrusted. To put it another way, why it is that the whole political process is distrusted to the point when ever more people opt out completely without even pretending that there might be some way of changing things. To be fair to the Boy again, none of the commenters, apart from my colleague, on the posting seem to have grasped the point either. Instead, there is a great deal of rejoicing in how well Cameron has spoken or some criticism on the edges.

One hears a great deal about the lack of trust in politicians because they do not tell the truth. Did they ever? No, as a matter of fact, they did not. Did politicians of the calibre of Gladstone, Salisbury or Churchill tell lies? You bet they did, not least because telling the truth at certain times demoralizes the country beyond recall.

Often politicians tell lies because politics consists of trying to reconcile irreconcilable interests, for instance those of the country as a whole and the constituency a politician represents. Often they tell lies for less respectable reasons, wanting to get re-elected or staying in power being the most obvious ones.

Are politicians venal? You bet. Nothing annoys the public more than watching those drongoes voting themselves ever higher salaries, expenses and other perks, including a very handsome pension, all of which the ever harder pressed taxpayer has to fund.

To those who say we must go on paying MPs ever more because if we pay peanuts we get monkeys, there are three responses. First of all, when you add up handsome salary, handsome expenses and no supervision we are not talking peanuts; secondly, the number of people who want to be MPs is absolutely enormous, so clearly the conditions are attractive; and thirdly, I’d rather have a bunch of monkeys there than the useless misfits we have now.

House_of_Commons01[i-House_of_Commons01]Which brings me to the main point not made either by the signatories of that letter or the commenters on the Toryboy blog or by David Cameron himself. You can mess around with salaries, expenses, telling the truth in Budget speeches (that’ll be the day) and getting rid of spin doctors (ditto).

The truth, the harsh, unvarnished truth is that there is no point to the House of Commons or to MPs.

Let us go through it systematically. The House of Commons is supposed to legislate and hold the Executive to account. It never does the latter. The only body within the British constitutional structure that still does it to an extent is the unpaid House of Lords and, with the help of the House of Commons, it has been emasculated and is to be destroyed completely.

Legislation no longer happens in the Commons. Between seventy and eighty per cent of it comes from Brussels, often bypassing Parliament completely. Even if it does hit Parliament, it cannot be rejected. Scrutiny, even if there were time to do it thoroughly, without the right of rejection or amendment is not legislation. It is akin to rearranging those famous deckchairs on the Titanic.

A good deal of the legislation both European and domestic, often intermingled, is produced by quangos, who are also responsible for implementing laws and rules. A good deal of the legislation that does go through Parliament is nothing more than the implementation of rules created by tranzis, starting with the UN and its many off-shoots.

In other words, MPs have abandoned all their duties and, while most people probably do not know the details of the EU or suchlike matters there is a widespread if unfocused understanding that there is no point in voting as that changes nothing. This is not because they are all the same, though that is true as well, but because they, the politicians, are not in a position to change anything and when they tell us otherwise, they are lying on a scale no politician has lied before.

This situation means that there is no trust in the political process either. What is the point of those constitutional structures, worked out over the centuries, if none of them function in any acceptable way?

The other side of the coin is that in the little that has been left to the politicians to deal with, they micromanage. No part of our lives is safe from their grubby little fingers: not education, not behaviour, not whether we need plastic carrier bags or not.

For a lot of people politics begins at home or as near to home as possible. I don’t mean local government, which is often more corrupt than the national one, but local institutions that people should run themselves – charities, organizations, schools, playgroups etc.

It has become impossible to keep politicians, pettifogging regulators and legislators to keep out of any of this. So, people who might contribute a great deal to society by involving themselves in those organizations, do not do so. They opt out and concentrate on their own and their families' lives, while the bureaucrats produce ever more forms and MPs, having voluntarily surrendered all their real powers, fill up their time by passing more and more fiddling legislation that takes up other people's time, money and energy.

No, we do not trust politics or politicians, Mr Cameron and ladies and gentlemen of the Conservative Party. Nor shall we until you at least show some understanding of where the problem lies. Oh and stop fiddling while Rome burns. It is not an edifying sight.

COMMENT THREAD

George+Osborne[i-George+Osborne]I did go to the Policy Exchange to listen to the Shadow Chancellor discussing his ideas on taxation when and if there is a Conservative government. As, at present, it looks like Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling are bigger losers than David Cameron and George Osborne, this is of some interest.

As I also stopped off for a cup of tea and had to do some day-jobbing, I expect several bloggers like Tim Montgomerie have got there ahead of me.

Our readers will not be surprised to hear that I was somewhat underwhelmed by the speech and by the answers to questions afterwards. It was not out and out bad but neither was it particularly good. Would these ideas make me consider voting Conservative? Not without a great deal more coming from that party.

First of all, I cannot help feeling that a Conservative Shadow Chancellor whose ideas, by his own account, are similar to those of the Lib-Dims, is not one whom I can support wholeheartedly.

Secondly, few of the statements were particularly bold. The Conservative Party is still content with fiddling about on the edges, talking about the need to preserve stability as if that and serious tax cuts and tax reforms were somehow antithetical and transfer money from one pot to another. Thus, the biggest idea seems to be to substitute environmental taxation, without any real calculation of how it might affect the economy and society, for onerous business taxes.

The notion that, perhaps, the government does not actually need to raise quite as much money as it does at the moment for its own purposes may be there in the background but is struggling to emerge.

Mr Osborne started with the four basic principles of taxation enunciated by Adam Smith: efficiency, certainty, transparency and fairness. Then he explained how he was going to apply those principles. Of course, he was not going to ask for ideas from the Taxpayers’ Alliance or any other organization that has been working on the subject for some time.

No, sirree, he is setting up another group under Geoffrey Howe to work out long-term tax reform proposals.

So, how is Mr Osborne going to ensure that his policies stay with the four principles?

As far as efficiency is concerned he is going to look at corporation tax. As he rightly pointed out, Britain is lagging behind other countries with ever higher business taxation. Therefore, the Conservative government will aim at a lower rate and broader base for corporation tax.

This may or may not work. The question that was not even raised is what will Mr Osborne or, for that matter, any other Chancellor of the Exchequer do if the EU finally manages to harmonize either the base or the rate of corporation tax across the whole of the Union? Does Mr Osborne even know that these moves are afoot?

When it comes to certainly, Mr Osborne could really rip. After all, he did not have to propose anything, merely rubbish Mr Darling’s recent record and that of Mr Brown before him. It is entirely shambolic in its inability to stick to one particular line either on capital gains tax or on the subject of non-doms, together with numerous other fiascos.

Such things will not happen under the Conservatives, we were assured. Lord Howe and his “group of senior tax specialists and experienced politicians will propose long term tax reforms to the way we make tax law in this country”. Then again, long-term tax reform to the way the people of this country are over-taxed might also be quite a good idea but that did not figure in Mr Osborne’s speech.

The third principle is transparency and this is where those environmental taxes come into play. Mr Osborne is determined that emphasis should shift to them from business (little enough was said about other kind of taxation though, apparently, those promises about inheritance tax and stamp duty will be kept).

There will be no stealth taxes. Every new green tax will be clearly noted as to what it replaces.

That is why I have pledged that any new environmental taxes that we propose will be replacement taxes not additional stealth taxes. Any additional revenues will go into an independently audited Family Fund that can only be used to reduce other taxes on families.

Sounds a bit fiddly and will require a great deal of administration. What of cutting a bit of waste in the treasury?

So we come to the undeniable length and complexity of our taxation system.

That is why we are working with the experts to do the long term thinking on simplification.

With PWC on simplifying corporation tax.

And with Grant Thornton on simplifying income tax and National Insurance, and the administration of VAT.

And it is why the final aspect of the proposals being examined by Geoffrey Howe’s group will be so important – the establishment of a new Office of Tax Simplification with a remit to examine the existing tax system and make proposals for simplification.

With a permanent staff of tax specialists aided by secondees from the tax professions, this will create a powerful institutional momentum towards a simpler tax system.

Oh goody. Another Office and this one for Tax Simplification. Another bunch of civil servants plus secondees who will create another bunch of rules. As Cole Porter said, “another opening of another show”. That show will be more government and more elaborate ways of confusing the taxpayer so the realization of just exactly how much money is handed over to the government to misuse will be obfuscated.

Oh, and by the way, VAT is an EU tax. There is not much anyone can do about it, though he does say that it will only be the administration that will be examined and “simplified”.

The last item is fairness and this is covered by the need to raise the threshold for inheritance tax and stamp duty as these have not kept pace with rising asset prices. One cannot argue with that. There are various ways of taxing non-doms, which will, apparently be fair without driving people away from the country but no questions as to whether a serious reform, which would take people at the lower end of the income tax out of the system so they did not have to claim benefits would not be a good idea.

And above all, all tax reductions must be lasting and sustainable while the proceeds of economic growth must be shared.

David Cameron and I have been arguing for this long term approach to sustainable public spending for years.

Now the Labour Government have been forced by their own profligacy to adopt plans for the coming three years that halve the growth rate of government spending from 4% to 2.1%.

They too will be sharing the proceeds of growth. Not through choice but by necessity.We do have a choice.

We can either: stick with our long term course; stick with the commitment I made to spending growth of 2.1% for the coming three years; review the final year when we know the state of the public finances; and understand that in an economic slowdown this will mean tight spending plans and difficult decisions about government priorities.

Or we can head off onto the margins of the political debate and reduce spending growth even further for the sake of a short term argument.

Never mind that it would probably be unachievable in a slowdown, when tax revenues fall and welfare spending rises. Never mind that it would be lower than anything Margaret Thatcher achieved during the economic turbulence she faced in her first parliament. At least, we are told, it will give us 'a dividing line'.

Gordon Brown believes in the politics of 'dividing lines'. I've seen where it has got him: the most unsuccessful start of a premiership in modern British history.

We are not going to follow him down that dead end. We are a serious and credible alternative government. We will do what is right for the country.

On the whole, I am glad I am not a Tory. Here is the whole speech.

Lenin_education[i-Lenin_education]Though there was a rumour in the late nineties that this inane phrase was invented by Prime Minister Tony Blair, those of us who had been schooled under the Communist system knew better. It was, in actual fact, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (shown here leaving the House of Unions after a session of the First All-Russia Congress on education in 1919) who first pronounced those words and every classroom across that empire had a poster at the back with them translated into the appropriate language.

To be fair to the Communist empire, after the early experiments in the Soviet Union, it reverted to the old-fashioned German teaching method and school discipline. Unpleasant it may all have been (no corporal punishment though, so there had been some progress) and the schools may have resembled prisons more than anything else, but the pupils emerged literate, numerate and in possession of, at least, some basic knowledge.

As we all know things are not like that in Britain but far otherwise. Although there has been a distinct worsening in the last ten years under the Labour government, the Conservative lot were no better; possibly less actively malevolent. At least they had assisted places and left the existing grammar and independent schools alone. On the other hand, there was no talk of extending assisted places to a full-scale voucher system or opening more grammar schools.

Who can forget the particular joy of so-called Baker days when teachers suddenly announced that they were not teaching but doing something else? Who can forget the primary schools which sent half the children to secondary ones unable to read or write? Still, I do admit that it has all become much worse.

Furthermore, as I mentioned above, there is a spitefulness about the Labour attitude to anything that comes anywhere near quality in education that is quite disgusting. This was more or less controlled under Blair, though the destruction went on but under Brown it is full-blown, possibly because the man is a fully fledged socialist not of the “workers must have everything that is good and attractive” school but of the “I must destroy everything good and attractive to ensure that nobody has more of it”.

Then again, I sense a feeling of desperation as the government flails around, coming up with one nasty and idiotic initiative after another either directly or through its useful idiots. Could it have sunk in that ten years of Labour rule have improved nothing and made much a great deal worse?

Recent ideas, if one can call them that without guffaws all round the room, include an underhand attack on independent schools, which are threatened with loss of charitable status unless they can prove in some carefully defined Stalinist fashion that they are doing their duty by society. As if providing good education was not doing that duty.

Many of those schools would dearly love to have more children from poorer or underprivileged homes but who is to pay for it? Assisted places have been abolished, vouchers are an anathema, government funded scholarships all but non-existent. There are scholarships in many schools for this purpose but they go only so far.

A few libertarians, getting hold of the wrong end of the stick, have been dismissing the need for charitable status. Let those schools take their chances. The answer is that the schools will not suffer if they have to raise their fees sky-high on losing their charitable status but a good many people in this country will. The pupils will have to come from the ultra-rich in this country and from outside.

My colleague has already written about the attack on the small primary schools in the country, which are cost-effective and of high quality. Away with them. Fortunately, there seems to have been a hitch in the government’s plans. Not only democracy but education matters – it is our future.

The latest wonderful idea comes to us indirectly from the Sheffield Hallam University and the National Centre for Social Research in a report that was commissioned by the Swiftian Department for Children, Schools and Families, which is looking at the proposals very seriously. I’ll bet.

To sum up, the report wants the abolition of grammar schools because they are populated by middle class children and make faith schools take a certain proportion of pupils from all faiths and none. Furthermore, places in the better and therefore more popular schools should be allocated according to a state-run lottery (fixed, surely) in order to make sure that they are not packed with children from aspirational middle class families.

Other people have already dealt with the obvious point that a good school is not something that exists magically in complete independence of its staff and pupils. The state messes around with either and the good school ceases to be that. Then again, this may not be all that obvious to our political leaders.

Shirley_Williams[i-Shirley_Williams]I should like to add another point. It is extremely insulting to working class or, perhaps, lower-middle class parents to assume that they do not care about their children’s education. It is just that they are often not in a position to do anything about it, not always being as mobile as people who are better off. There is, however, a good deal of evidence that non-middle class parents want the best education for their children and are prevented from giving it by the state and its control of schools and colleges.

The argument that grammar schools do not help bright children from poorer homes is nonsensical. If those schools are packed with more privileged offsprings it is because there are not enough of them. If there were grammar schools in every town and several in the bigger ones, they would not be dominated by any class.

So, with all that in mind, let me turn to another recent story about a Conservative politician. This time it is George Osborne, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer and, in general, rather a waste of rations politically speaking.

Norland_Place[i-Norland_Place]Mr Osborne has announced that he intends to send his children to the highly regarded (not entirely accurately in my opinion but let that pass) and very expensive Norland Place School. This, I must admit, makes a refreshing change from his leader’s mental convolutions whereby it has been made clear that the little Camerons will be sent to schools in the state sector, as long as these are ones the parents can choose freely anywhere in West London and have a very good reputation. This, let me explain to our non-British readers, is not something that is open to most other people and reminds one of the similar contortions the Blairs went through with their offspring.

The discussion on ToryBoy blog made me feel that, by and large, there is a certain amount of sense in the Tory grassroots, which has to be a good thing. (Please, don’t tell my colleague I said so.)

Apart from one or two trolls who spit imprecations at private education (would they like to see the buying of books nationalized, one wonders) and a few Tory trolls who just go dulalee about anything their leaders do and tell us that this has nothing to do with anyone else, the commenters have largely approved Osborne’s decision with the proviso that he should now start campaigning for the availaibility of good and personally chosen education to all families.

This is really the problem with all these sagas. Osborne, like Blair or Harriet Harman or Diane Abbott, uses the obvious argument: I want the best for my children. Fair enough. We all do.

His choice of schooling is of importance to us all not because he is a public figure as some rather fatuous people have it. It is of little significance where most public figures send their children.

Crosland[i-Crosland]His choice is of importance because he is a politician and as such has inordinate control over the choices other people are allowed to make.

Back in the sixties when the Labour government started the destruction of grammar schools, a campaign that was led by the Highgate School-educated Anthony Crosland and the St Paul’s-educated Shirley Williams, who prefers not to mention this fact, (and not reversed by the grammar school-educated Margaret Thatcher) many people knew that politicians continued to send their own children to independent schools. That egalitarian they were not. The media, still in the supposed halcyon days of respecting politicians, rarely discussed this hypocrisy and arrogance.

Next time any of our readers start to sigh for the good old days of “honourable” politicians, they might like to contemplate, instead, this fact. Politicians were no more honourable – we just knew less.

Anyway, back to the present, where the media is not particularly respectful to politicians (and how they hate it); nor are the rest of us impressed by them.

The point the Conservatives might like to contemplate if they are serious about wanting to be re-elected is one that we have made a few times before (and shall make again): we, the electorate, owe them nothing. Even those of us who dislike the present government and its disastrous policies do not necessarily think that the alternative would be any better, unless Her Majesty’s Opposition demonstrate this fact by their ideas and policies. Let me spell it out: while we owe them nothing, they owe us an explanation and a reason as to why we should vote for them.

Given that the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer has now made a point of telling us how important it is for parents to be able to choose the best possible education for their offsping, I am looking forward to the Conservative Party producing some ideas on educational reform, by which I do not mean tinkering round the edges or telling us pompously that a Conservative government will ensure that schools will start teaching children and universities will become centres of excellence (just like they ensured so in the past). I mean some carefully worked out ideas as to how to take the state out of education, starting by how to make sure that the money follows the pupil not gets filtered to schools through LEAs.

No need for researchers to do any work on this – there are plenty of ideas floating around, not least papers produced by Reform.

I might even consider voting Conservative next time though not if they continue to produce inane ideas on the role of the state in childhood.

George+Osborne[i-George+Osborne]There is a certain amount of excitement on Toryboy blog about Georgie-Porgie Osborne telling Fraser Nelson in an interview that he is not an über-moderniser. To be fair, the excitement seems to have engulfed some of the clog-writers like the Daily Mail’s Ben Brogan, much quoted in Conservative circles.

Is this the first crack between the two leaders (well, three, if you count Steve Hilton, according to some the real power in the Party Formerly Known As Conservative)? Is Osborne positioning himself for a leadership challenge? Has he lost his marbles? These are the questions people are asking themselves.

Much good may it do them. For myself I should like to know what being a moderniser means. Answer comes there none, whenever I ask this question, apart from the odd waffle about having different candidates. Actually, I am in favour of that and so are many Conservatives on the grounds that the candidates picked by the local associations in the last ten years have been utter losers. Think Bob Neill, who reduced one of the biggest Conservative majorities to a margin of just a few hundred. Think Steve Norris, who lost to Hizonner Ken Livingstone twice.

What is Osborne’s definition of what he is not an über-member of?

I don’t take the kind of über-modernising view that some have had, that you can’t talk about crime or immigration or lower taxes. It is just that you can’t do so to the exclusion of the NHS, the environment and economic stability. I have always argued for a more balanced message, and that is what I hope you would see at this party conference.

Errm, who actually says that Conservatives must not talk about the NHS, the environment or economic stability? In any case, are those ideas not somewhat old-fashioned and anti-modern in the way they are presented by the Boy-King and his pet modernisers (the name Goldsmith springs to mind)?

If any of these people were really radical and modernising they would start talking about health care and not the NHS; they would abandon 1970s shibboleths and talk about the environment prospering in private hands and through new technology; they would stop blathering about economic stability and lower taxes being antithetical. Alas, they are not modernising enough. In fact, they are not modernisers at all, whether they wear ties with their expensive shirts or not.

Then Georgie-Porgie became really daring and started talking about … deep breath …. immigration. I wish these people wouldn’t. They really have no clue what they are talking about, whatever they happen to be arguing.

I don’t think we were ready for the impact on public services of a very large number of people coming to this country. Immigration from eastern Europe was 100 times, well maybe 50 times greater than the government predicted it was going to be. So there was a complete failure to anticipate the impact on our public services or indeed the impact on our economy.’ Immigration has been a ‘broad benefit’, he says. ‘But it has put an enormous pressure on some of our low-skilled British citizens who have found themselves in some parts of Britain priced out of the job market. I don’t think we have done enough as a country to give these people the right education or skills. It is no good Gordon Brown saying, “British jobs for British workers”, when he has singly failed to prepare British workers for the ten year he’s been chancellor.

Well, of course, the previous Conservative government did not do much to prepare British workers for being able to get jobs but I have heard nothing from the modernisers about any radical ideas of reform in the educational sector. In fact, there seems to be a rather old-fashioned One Nation Tory attitude of making sure the poor stay in their social position and not think about achieving anything.

As it happens, there is another problem with “British jobs for British workers” as a slogan, apart from the practicalities (what if they don’t want to get jobs or are not qualified for them?) and that is the sad fact that it is illegal under EU rules. Yes, I am afraid, we are not allowed to discriminate against other EU citizens on the grounds of their nationality.

I wonder why the non-über-moderniser has not seen fit to mention any of this.

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