Yet more unbearable blandness from a Tory moderniser

Posted by Guest Blogger on Wednesday, 21 December 2005 20:29.

Not content to sit on his laurels, Alex Zeka has contributed a second article to the blog. In this one, the new leader of the British Conservatives gets the treatment. I’ve told Alex this is the last time I am prepared to extend the Guest Blogger facility to him. Sorry, from now on he’ll just have to do the same as everybody else, and post the stuff himself as a full MR contributor. I only hope he doesn’t write too noticeably better than I do.

Welcome aboard, Alex.

Ex-Etonian, ex-Oxonian, self-styled man of the people David Cameron has kept his political proposals very much a secret. No doubt thinking policy details simply too gauche for a fully paid up member of the aristocracy to get into, he has preferred to reassure us that he believes neither in irresponsibility nor selfishness.

Such a happy state of affairs could not last indefinitely, and the Tuesday before last (13th Dec.) one of his advisors, Nick Boles, had to “come out” in front of the Adam Smith Institute. Not about his sexuality, you understand - that’s been known since his failed campaign for Parliament- but about his boss’s political philosophy. Reports the Spectator’s blog:-

While the hope of many Conservatives has been that Cameron is “really” on the Right but would use better PR to sell a Thatcherite agenda, Boles made clear to the audience that they would be disappointed.

The issues of tax cuts and school choice were raised. Mr Boles said that they would not campaign for vouchers and “choice” was not their priority. In reply to questions about tax, he said that tax pledges and guarantees had been tried before in previous elections, they had failed, and they could not commit themselves to cut taxes beyond the current aspiration.”

As the Spectator further reports, Mr. Boles went on to claim the mantel of “compassionate conservative” for his boss. This was misreported as “centrist”, and a row apparently ensued.

This is irrelevant. David Cameron can spend every waking moment of his claiming to be a compassionate conservative, or a centrist, or the poster-boy for the Say No To Drugs campaign. It will not move him one inch closer to actually being any of these things.

If he intends to continue the tax-and-spend polices of Gordon Brown, he is not a centrist nor any sort of Conservative, but a barely reformed Caledonian Socialist.

Tax is as much of a burden on the poorest in Britain as on the richest. And no wonder, for Britain has been turned into the spiritual successor of the Soviet Union, according to Sunday Times economics expert, Dave Smith.

The current government is not just fat, but gluttonous. Its take of the GDP has risen from 36% under the already high-spending Major to over 42%. Moreover, when it comes to government, Gordon Brown is a gourmand, rather than a gourmet. He prefers quantity to quality.

A bit of discernment, however, could effect considerable savings:-

· The Caledonian comrades could be ordered to raise funds for any future, extravagances from the Scottish tax-payers to whom they are accountable.

· The current army of civil servants, numbering in excess of 500,000 and increasing at a rate in excess of 12,000 a year, could be trimmed in size. Government functioned perfectly smoothly with a much smaller number.

· The EU could be withdrawn from. Membership is hugely expensive and getting more so, and largely benefits inefficient French farmers and the new Eastern members (who, of course, are busy building a more favourable business climate than Britain itself).

· The Commission for Racial Equality, whose intellectual output largely consists of opining about its own desirability and the undetectable “passive apartheid”, could have its funding curtailed.

· Trafalgar Square might have to do with fewer statues of foreigners and armless pregnant women.

· Gay and Lesbian and every other kind of Outreach Facilitators might have to learn how to outreach all by themselves.

· African dictators might have to get by without the British charity that can be so helpful in buying a fleet of Maybachs. These are hard times, you understand.

In four years time, egged on by a backbench of increasingly assertive old-Labourites, more eager than ever to prove their (usually non-existent) prole credentials, Brown will have added yet more boondoggles to these.

But … don’t expect any relief from a Tory government, and absolutely no retreat from the New Labour revolution. That seems to be Cameron’s message. On this, the alleged ex-coke-smelters on the Labour backbenches are in total agreement with the alleged ex-coke-smellers on the Tory frontbench.

Alex Zeka

Tags: British Politics

Comments:

Posted by Melba Peachtoast on Wed, 21 Dec 2005 21:01 | #

Yes, welcome Alex Zeka, you have arrived among us, which is not the worst you could have done and better than most, if you understand me. Tralala!

Posted by Mark Richardson on Wed, 21 Dec 2005 21:49 | #

In a speech in Hereford, Cameron said that the Conservatives stood for “liberal values” and he called for the creation of “a modern, progressive, liberal, mainstream opposition to Labour”.

He has also expressed the opinion that Parliament would be better off without as many white males.

Cameron is a liberal.

Posted by Phil on Wed, 21 Dec 2005 21:49 | #

Good stuff Alex!

But you really should be blogging as an MR blogger now and not as a mere guest.

Posted by Matra on Wed, 21 Dec 2005 21:55 | #

From last Sunday’s Observer:

His tone on immigration, however, best demonstrates Cameron’s courtship of liberal opinion. Praising the cultural and economic benefits of immigration, he added: ‘We will have a big amount of emigration and immigration, but will also recognise that a responsible government needs to look at the level of net migration in terms of also providing good public services and having good community relations.’

Defending the language on immigration in the last manifesto - which he wrote - Cameron admitted there was a ‘very deep perception problem’ over Tory handling of the issue, but said the politician who got immigration most ‘spectacularly wrong’ was the former Home Secretary, David Blunkett.

‘He was the person who talked about us being swamped: he used irresponsible language at the same time as having a chaotic immigration policy.

‘I want the Conservative party to do the opposite: use moderate, reasonable, sensible language, and to have a policy that actually delivers.’

Asked if he would ditch the quota policy, widely criticised for rejecting people who have suffered genuine persecution, he said it would be included in the policy rethink that he recently launched. ‘I want these policy reviews not to think “we’re committed to this”: I want them to think “this is the big challenge facing the country - what are the right ways of meeting [it]”?’.

Cameron said he was committed not just to giving genuine refugees asylum ‘but also to taking them to our hearts, and feeding and clothing and schooling them’.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,1670004,00.html

It seems to me (watching from abroad) as though Cameron’s plan to gain power is to jettison Toryism and get as close to Blair as possible in style as well as policy.

Posted by Phil on Wed, 21 Dec 2005 22:00 | #

If you’re a Guardian variety Liberal, there has probably never been a better time to be one in Britain. All the three major political parties now sound like clones of each other!

Posted by Alex Zeka on Wed, 21 Dec 2005 22:08 | #

Mark, Yes, he did voice support for “liberal values”, but follow that link, and see what he means by those: “green policies, localism and deregulation.” Nothing to terrify a conservative there. That speech gives hope that he might be veering away from Macmillan-style me-tooism, and towards a liberal conservatism.

Posted by Alex Zeka on Wed, 21 Dec 2005 22:12 | #

Guardian variety Liberal

Do those still exist? I was under the impression they’d all converted to Islam, and went to fight in Afghanistan.

Posted by Phil on Wed, 21 Dec 2005 22:19 | #

(chuckle)

Being a good liberal means being attached to your comforts. Afghanistan is a hostile, miserable, brutal country. Appreciating its “culture” from the wilds of Islington an infinitely better option than living on a subsistence diet and surviving on an AK47 all your life.

Posted by Phil on Wed, 21 Dec 2005 22:36 | #

It should give us pause for thought because it is basically varnish. Cameron is moving the party leftward constantly but does not want to lose the “core” Tory vote. One way of avoiding this is by raising some issues that appeal to both lefties and Conservatives.

But those things are obviously incompatible. Increasing government spending massively, introducing more draconian laws on so-called “hate”, all of those things militate against the localism that you refer to. Localism is nice in principle but it is a sham that conceals a more sinister Cultural Marxist agenda.

Actually I am glad that Cameron has come out with his true colours for all to see. If lots of Tory voters are still so stupid as to vote for that Party when they have better alternatives available, then Cultural Marxism is what they deserve to get.

I was dumb enough to vote for them many times. I am not doing that ever again!

Posted by Guessedworker on Wed, 21 Dec 2005 22:39 | #

Well, the Head Cameroon is calculating that the Conservative Party will vote for him because he can split the political centre and even the centre-left from the other two parties’ support ... and thereby WIN. But long before that happens there are going to be some destructive tensions at work on this hypothesis.

First, as Alex says in quoting the Spectator article, the Party is being told perfectly plainly that under Cameroonism it will be a liberal Party. I don’t think this is like anything that has been encountered before in the long history of Conservatism. This isn’t Heathism sans Europe, for example. This is new. This IS leftism. In essence, the Party will be tossed aside as Old Tory in the same way that Blair, Mandelson, Campbell and Brown tossed aside the Labour Party in July 1994. It may not not be said publicly, but it will be so and the membership will have three to four years to reflect upon it. That could be productive of much uncertainty. Why, the membership and the support in the country will ask itself, should I follow Mr Cool to a national political settlement I already find distasteful?

Second, the Cameroons have a strategy and some vague, elitist bon mots. But firm principles, no. Til now you’ve been able to get away with that kind of thing in the Conservative Party. Always a pragmatic philosophy, Conservatism has never had a very fixed ideology. Its decline hasn’t, in fact, flowed from that but from the triumph of liberalism in toto.

Now, right on cue given the time remaining to liberalism in its current, advanced phase, the right of the Party is suddenly freed from the long trek east in pursuit of a permanently radicalising centre-ground. It can pause and take stock philosophically in a way it has not been able to do for several generations.

Actually, this is what it is has needed. The Cameroons, therefore, might revivify Conservatism in a much more permanent sense than merely that of winning one election.

Posted by Mark Richardson on Wed, 21 Dec 2005 22:59 | #

BTW, although Thatcher had some good points, I don’t think there’s much hope for the Conservatives if the best that the right wing of the party can aim for is a “Thatcherite agenda”.

Thatcher herself seems to stand mostly in a kind of classical, right-wing liberal tradition (free market, individual choice) rather than a traditionalist conservative one.

Thatcher gave a speech outlining her political philosophy on a visit to Melbourne, which I have discussed here.

Posted by Martin Hutchinson on Thu, 22 Dec 2005 03:11 | #

Thatcher was by instinct a Conservative but was constantly being sandbagged by the lefties in her Cabinet and by the Civil Service. Nonsense like the 1986 Financial Services Act was pure Cobdenite destruction, but she didn’t have the wit to see the problem. Her education was excellent but limited; her father was a Gladstonian and she’d never figured out that the real answer was not Disraeli or Peel but Liverpool.

It’s not true that the Tory party has never gone left like this; Macmillan wrote a book trying to abolish the Stock Exchange and replace it with a National Investment Board. Macmillan/Butler period Conservatives were WAY left of Cameron.

The BNP have to become economically literate before they’re worth supporting. They have about 2 years to achieve this, no more. Under the British system, there’s no point in a protest vote that returns another Labour government, certainly to the left of this one. The reality is that immigration hasn’t gone as far as in the US in terms of numbers; if you have the sense to avoid London, and stay out of the industrial bits of the Midlands and North, you can prettyy well stick to traditional culture, albeit modified by naff europop.

Cameron’s nauseating, but so are most democratic electorates—they deserve each other.

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Thu, 22 Dec 2005 04:57 | #

That was another really first-rate log entry, Alex. It’s good that we can expect to be reading more from you here.

As the Tories dig their own grave by adopting a version of the left’s Marxism-lite, the BNP ought to wax stronger and prosper better.

“He has also expressed the opinion that Parliament would be better off without as many white males.” (—Mark Richardson)

He WHAAAAAT?????? He said THAT????? Ab-fricking-solutely nauseating! Can someone pass the vomit bucket please?

The guy’s a George Bush clone: thinks the way to get on politically is to make sure at least two thirds of what you do amounts to an attempt to out-left the left and hope the right doesn’t notice.

I respectfully disagree with Martin’s recommendation to hold your nose and vote Tory instead of who you really want, the BNP, so as to keep even worse leftists, the Laborites, out. At some point you have to start voting for whom you believe in. If voters do that, things will start to change and if they don’t, things will never change. Your vote declares what it is that you want. Election analysts and party strategists look at vote tallies of the losers as well as the winnners. Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan didn’t win anything but their vote tallies helped change a few directions in the way things were going in general. If I were a Brit I’d vote a straight BNP ticket, from local dog catcher all the way up, and let the chips fall where they may. The “vote for the lesser of two evils” strategy only makes sense when there’s sufficient difference between the two evils to make distinguishing between them worth anyone’s while. The way this guy is shaping up, that seems very unlikely to turn out to be the case.

By the way, the appropriate word to describe David Cameron isn’t “blandness.” The appropriate words to describe him are “extreme radical leftwing backstabbing traitor to the party and all it stands for.” I view this man as a swine deserving of no respect whatsoever. This party-traitor should be sent packing, the sooner the better. Elect this guy and you might as well elect “Simon,” of recent memory in these threads. I’d no more vote Tory with this character as leader than I would with Simon or June Gordon as leader.

Posted by Phil on Thu, 22 Dec 2005 09:11 | #

I’ll never vote Tory again. Not going to make that mistake.

Posted by Alex Zeka on Thu, 22 Dec 2005 10:33 | #

He has also expressed the opinion that Parliament would be better off without as many white males

I agree entirely-him for instance.

Posted by Martin Hutchinson on Thu, 22 Dec 2005 14:22 | #

It’s a close decision, I agree. The most useful thing we can do in 2006-07 is try to help the BNP develop its economic agenda and make itself worth electing—if they went Thatcherite on economics and UKIP on Europe they would be a much better balanced party and there would be HUGE pressure on Cameron.

Cameron is intelligent and sells himself superbly to the great majority of the electorate. The real question is: what does he really believe? The answer’s probably “nothing much” in which case does he understand how damaging leftist politics are in reality, however well they sell to the media, and is he concerned enough about getting it right to care.

Having one of his leftist minions PO the Adam Smith Institute (in a meeting he knew would be reported—look what happened to poor Howard Flight) is not a problem. (The Adam Smith Institute in any case deserves to live in infamy for having dreamed up the appalling botched 1996 Heseltine rail privatisation.)

We are used to Tory leaders announcing draconian policies to universal derision and then compromising while in office, because that’s how Maggie operated, and than Major gave us the rhetoric while actually pushing in the wrong direction in practice. However that’s not actually an intelligent way to operate. Much better to approach the electorate as a soggy liberal, and then reveal your inner Hayek once you’ve been elected. Best example is probably Adenauer/Erhard in Germany, who blathered on about the “social market economy” but actually ran the closest thing to free enterprise Europe has seen since about 1880. Neville Chamberlain, gaining a reputation as a health reformer and then running the economy as an Iron Chancellor from 1931-37 is another good example.

Which Cameron chooses depends fundamentally on who he is, which is very difficult to determine. However, gingering up the BNP will maximise the probability of him doing what we want. With his present approach, he will get loads of votes from disgruntled LibDems, so won’t need the few siphoned off to the BNP; if we play our crads right, we can make some form of Conservatism a majority ruling force rather than an endless minority, in a Britain ruled forever by Labour white witches, in which it is always winter but never Christmas.

Cameron’s no Aslan, but maybe we can defeat the White Witch without sitting around waiting for Aslan.

Posted by Guessedworker on Thu, 22 Dec 2005 15:01 | #

Martin,

I am not opposed to a strategem for gaining power so long as, in office, Conservatives strive to re-Conservatise politics and destroy the electoral bias of OMOV. Modernistic Conservatives seem to be quite oblivious to that highly desirable end, and I am certain Cameron is, too.

Obviously, I agree that a historic opportunity is opening up on the political “right”, for want of a better word. Whether the BNP can take advantage of it, and develop a broader appeal, depends on whether they are a Party of the state or not. John Tyndall’s original name for his creation, which he was prevented from using, was the British National Labour Party!