The Norway Attacks

The terrifying and tragic events in Norway are still being played out. I would be surprised if the death toll does not continue to rise, and if by the end of the rescue operations more than a hundred haven't lost their lives at the hands of what now looks like being one evil man*. As such, any comments made may well be contradicted by what happens in the near future. Nonetheless, I'd like to make some observations of the events that started to unfold less than 24 hours ago.

Like most, I suppose, when this first happened I thought that it would have been an attack (and then attacks) perpetrated by Islamic Fundamentalists. Indiscriminate mass slaughter has tended to be the watchword and the calling cardss of the Muslim militants. A couple of things nagged at me, though. Because while the terror attacks of Islamic Fundamentalists tend to be abritrary on the surface, certain key things do emerge as themes when you study them. Firstly, when al Qaeda and its myriad of off-shoots and tangentially linked jihadists attack the West in the West, they tend to attack ordinary people. As such, they tend to attack mass transport systems. They also tend to time their attacks for the morning rush hour - in part to kill as many as possible and in part to get their attacks at the top of the media cycle and therefore in the faces of the public for as long as possible. This was an attack later in the day against the PM, the government, and the ruling party in a coalition. So the fact that this appears to be the work of one right-wing, Christian fundamentalist is not a total surprise. This may be Norway's Oklahoma City bombing rather than their 9/11 - although I have no doubt that this distinction will offer scant comfort to the newly bereaved.

After any terror attack, there is that burning temptation to blame certain freedoms for allowing it to happen. Any such actions - especially since it tends to end up in legislation - needs to be left until a calmer time for Norway; for a time when the initial panic, rage, fear and deeply felt loss are all a little less raw both for individuals and the mass psyche. There will be a temptation to adopt something like the Patrior Act or 42 Days Detention in the aftermath of this slaughter for some in Norway; the country as a whole would do well do resist that temptation. Good legislation happens after debate and thought, not after the jerking of a knee.

Likewise, there is the temptation to stigmatise the (more often than not minority) groups who are associated with the crimes. Witness the rise of Islamaphobia in the West after 9/11 - a rise that missed the point that it was not Islam that committed that crime, but a small bunch of Islamic fundamentalists with a clear political as well as religious agenda. So again there may be a temptation in the aftermath of these attacks to stigmatise conservatives, Christians, individualists, libertarians. Any such stigmatisation is likely to misrepresent all four positions. Furthermore, and far more importantly, any such stigmatisation is like to increase the radicalisation of affected minorities, and make further attacks more, not less, likely.

Finally, it is easy for those watching this drama from afar to get caught up in the political ramifications and the hysteria around it. However, this is not just the political - this is personal as well. Because with nearly 100 people dead, there are hundreds of people now in mourning. Family and friends, spouses and lovers, brothers and sisters have all lost someone through the brutal attacks of yesterday in shocking circumstances. So as fingers points and people pontificate, let's try to remember the appalling personal tragedies that also occurred yesterday, and the heart-breaking grief that so many must now be feeling.

*Although whether it is logistically possible for one man to carry out such slaughter is still understandably being questioned by some.

Can you be a libertarian and a conservative?

Before we start, let’s get a couple of things clear. The question is not can you be a libertarian and a member of the Conservative party – of course you can be, although quite why you would want to join or proactively support Cameron’s mob is utterly beyond me. Likewise, I would not deny that there is much to be gained from libertarian/conservative alliances – temporary or otherwise. Indeed, one of the few rays of light in the dark, depressing Brown years was the ability of libertarians and conservatives to put their differences to one side to point out the numerous shortcomings of Britain’s worst Prime Minister in living memory. Rather, what I want to consider is whether there are inherent contradictions in the idea of a libertarian conservative.

Of course, there are immediate problems with definitions here. “Libertarian” and “conservative” are big terms that could potentially encompass many different definitions. So for the purposes of this discussion I’d call someone who wants to maximise freedom as much as possible is a libertarian (someone like Hayek, for example) and someone who resists attempts to transform or plan society according to an idealistic blueprint is a conservative (such as Burke or Oakeshott, for example). No doubt some people would contest these definitions, but that’s the very nature of both politics and political philosophy.

Immediately, there are points of agreement between libertarians and conservatives. Economic freedom would be one of those points. A libertarian wants to reduce the tax burden and to limit government intervention in the economy because both are encroachments on individual freedom. A conservative might use similar rhetoric to justify their own resistance to state control of the economy – I also suspect that they would point out that state intervention in the economy is a relatively new phenomenon that denies the basic conservative truth that humans are fallible, and therefore their interventions in the economy will be equally fallible. Indeed, one of the points of agreement between the two political mindsets during the Brown era was that man’s hamfisted and utterly counter-productive attempts to manage the economy.

There is also a certain pragmatism inherent in both libertarian and conservative positions. Both proactively engage with reality to the extent that they accept that real life is messy and often involves uneasy compromises. This is clearly distinct from many socialist or anarchist positions, where the argument is that the creation right set of circumstances will lead to either a better form of humanity and/or a better society. Conservatives and libertarians do not slip into the idealistic utopian trap.

Yet there are clear points of departure. Firstly, libertarians offer a radical political position. They talk about a fundamental redress of the balance between state and individual power. A genuinely libertarian state would be a radical departure from any political settlement that has gone before. Conservatives, however, would be more likely to argue for a return to a previous political settlement – one where state intervention in some aspects of life was more limited.

Another, and perhaps the most fundamental, difference between conservatives and libertarians is in the realm of the private rather than the public. Here conservatives tend to look towards traditional views when it comes to issues such as gender roles and sexual orientation. A libertarian, however, would ignore such traditional ideals and leave what is private to the individual concerned, perhaps within the limitations of a very loose reading of the harm principle. Therefore, a conservative might buy into a campaign such as Major’s Back to Basics, whereas a libertarian would almost certainly tut at yet another example of a government attempting to tell us how to live our lives.

So can you be a libertarian conservative? Personally I struggle to see how, unless you are such a liberal conservative that the word conservative starts to lose all of its meaning. For me conservatism offers only a limited attempt to extend freedom, and misses the point that the purpose of maximising economic freedom is to maximise freedom in as many other areas of life as possible.

The Deserving Poor

It seems to be increasingly common for socialists and social democrats to shrilly denounce the incumbent government for trying to reintroduce the distinction between the deserving and the undeserving poor. My point isn't to debate whether or not the government is actually trying to do so. Rather, it is to say this - that I can't, for the life of me I can't work out why this distinction is such a problem for some.

I suppose that part of it may well be that there is an element of judgement involved in deciding who should and who shouldn't be poor. Who makes that judgement? It's important because it gives the judge considerable power over the person being judged. In an ideal world, it could be argued, no-one would have the power to judge whether someone deserves their status in society or not. Then again, in an ideal world poverty wouldn't exist, surely?

Furthermore, socialists and social democrats have few qualms about judging who among the wealthy deserve their wealth and who does not - for example, those who have inherited their wealth. Indeed, there are some who are less discerning, and see all those who are rich as undeserving of their wealth and, following on from this, that the wealth should be redistributed to those who deserve/need it more.

Of course, someone judged to be as undeserving of their wealth is in rather an easier position to deal with it on the grounds of their wealth will mean they're faced with fewer problems than if they were living in poverty. But that doesn't change the fact that left or right, Labour or Conservative, rich or poor, the majority of us do make judgements as to the extent to which people deserve the circumstances in which they live.

Besides, might it not be helpful for someone living in relative poverty, (in part at least) through no fault of their own, but who has and is working hard to overcome that status to know that people see them as different to those who fail to do anything to alleviate their poverty? The tendency of socialists and social democrats to lump all people who could be considered to be poor together arguably damages the individuality of the poor and distorts the crucial reality that different people respond to being poor in different ways. Furthermore, surely the ways of dealing with people being poor differs depending on whether they are willing to work to change their circumstances or not? For example, someone who is poor and refuses to work is very different from someone who is poor and is desperately trying (successfully or otherwise) to find work, and the ways in which the wider community can help the different individuals must surely differ. Finally, it is worth noting that differentiating between the deserving and the undeserving poor does not necessarily condemn the latter to total deprivation and absolute rejection by society (even while acknowledging the fact that some who make the distinction want precisely that).

The point is that concepts of desert play a fundamental role in politics - and the poor represent no exception to this. To ignore this is to stick your head in the sand. So let's talk about the extent to which people might deserve to be poor or otherwise, and see where that leads political discourse.

Blue Labour: Reactionary, Unrealistic and Illiberal

Chuku Umunna on Blue Labour:

At the root of this is a belief in our innate mutual dependence. We believe individuals should be given the freedom to flourish, thrive and prosper, not just economically but in spirit and heart too. This can only be achieved in the context of a strong, cohesive society supporting each of us and our families in that endeavour, promoting the common good.

What sounds like the sort of typical blandishments and empty cant that you might expect from a politician from any one of the main parties is actually a front for a more controlling and dangerous ideology.

First up, the use of the word “dependence” is concerning. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that we are mutually interdependent. But the point is that it is interdependency. I may be dependent to some extent on the people around me but in other, no less important, ways they were dependent on me. The problem with phrasing the debate in terms of dependence is dependence automatically sets up a hierarchical power relation. If we are dependent on others with that dependence being in some reciprocal, then they have power over us. And that is the sort of mindset that has created a culture of welfare dependency among many people in our country.

Also, I get very uncomfortable when people – especially politicians – talk about the common good. Because, in short, it doesn’t exist. In a modern, plural, diverse and multi-cultural society the common good is a nonsense. A community as wide as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland will be able to find no consensus on what constitutes the common good. Hell, you’d struggle to find such a consensus on the common good in most families and friendship groups. And such diversity is fine; it allows people to have choice about the different ways in which they can live their lives.

But when a politician talks about the common good, you want to be asking them who decides on the common good. Because the answer will be them. And this is exactly what is happening here. There is no common good; we are simply seeing another politician saying what they think is good should be the conception of the good that everyone has to live under. What makes it worse is there is no pitch, no attempt to sell a common good to the people to create a consensus around it. No, this is what parties of all shapes, sizes, colours and creeds do – they try to force their conceptions of the common good on everyone else without really debating it. So this isn’t a politician explaining what he thinks we have in common with each other, it is a politician arrogantly assuming that his conception of the good life is one that everyone else should comply with.

And his whole mindset is accurately portrayed in the first line when he talks about people should be given freedom. The arrogance is so strong that it is almost audacious – you can only have freedom if someone Umunna decides to give it to you.

But this isn’t that surprising for a Labour politician – after all, they spent a large proportion of their time in power telling you how to live your life. What is surprising, though, is reading that a Labour party member like Umunna is actually a conservative at heart:

Glasman has been accused of indulging in nostalgia, which some cite as the “blue” in Blue Labour. This misses the point. When the case is made for the conservation of certain cherished national institutions such as our forests, the post office, Dover Port or, in London, the Billingsgate fish market porters, it is not made for tradition’s sake but because these institutions are part of the social fabric of our country that bind us together – they institutionalise our social democracy for future generations, something we failed to do sufficiently enough in government.

This has little to do with the Labour movement, and little to do with socialism. This could almost be the voice of the father of British conservatism, Edmund Burke, talking. Except it is arguably more reactionary than anything the deeply conservative Burke had to offer. Because this seems to be calling for the preservation of aspects of British life that have actually, in some cases, had their time and ended. Umunna is basically calling for certain, cherry-picked aspects to life to be preserved even in the face of overwhelming change. That is more than conservative. It is, as I’ve already mentioned, reactionary.

Of course, a case can be made for preserving, say, the forests. But it is a case that needs a more compelling logic than “it’s good because I happen to have deemed it a cherished national institution”. Again, there’s the problem of who chooses what is a cherished national institution. For some people, it might be the Church of England. Yet for others that might be the opposite of an institution that is cherished. Others still might not care in the slightest about that institution. The point is that the classification is based on subjective judgements and far from the sort of beliefs that everyone holds. The classification is very much in the eyes of the beholder, which leads us to question exactly why Umunna’s perception of a cherished national institution should be allowed to dominate over other opposing views.

Furthermore, the idea that these institutions “bind us together” is also problematic. Partly because, say, the fish porters do precisely nothing to bind me to anyone else in this country or beyond, but also because negative parts of life can bind people together just as surely as positive ones. The Blitz, for example, helped to bind many people together. Does that mean that we should recreate the circumstances when, on a nightly basis, death fell from the skies? Of course it doesn’t. But it does mean that Umunna’s arguments needs to be a little stronger that spurious, contestable claims about his own cherry-picked institutions creating a sense of community.

For me, “flag” talks to a sense of nationhood and togetherness. I was roundly condemned by some (on the Left) on twitter for attending street parties to celebrate the Royal Wedding in my constituency. I make no apology for doing so and am proud of the events that took place in my area. Thousands attended and what I witnessed was not some doe-eyed, adulatory worship of the Royal couple but a sense of pride in our country and a delight in the excuse to coalesce, relate, mingle and share some time with neighbours one often only sees in passing.

It strikes me that this is very much a pitch for typical conservative voters; it is all about national pride and preserving stuff associated with rural and/or disappearing parts to British life. Unfortunately, this doesn’t quite work, mainly because Umunna is having to project his own interpretations of events in order to make his arguments work. There is simply no evidence that the people who celebrated the Royal Wedding in street parties did so through some sort of sense of national pride. Some may have done it for exactly that reason, to be sure, but others might have done simply because they had the day off. Others still may have done it to follow a trend. Yet more people may have held a party to express republican sentiments. In order to make a shaky case for a nostalgic, self-serving pseudo-conservatism, Umunna is giving himself some sort of omniscience that he clearly does not, and cannot, have.

Furthermore, the line about spending “some time with neighbours one often only sees in passing” just doesn’t work. You may see your neighbours all the time; you may seldom see them. But the fact that you may or may not have spent some time with them when the Royal couple dominated the TV screens for a day means next to nothing, since we choose the relationships we have to a large extent. You choose your own community of friends. If that includes your neighbours, then that’s ‘cause you’ve chosen it. If it doesn’t, then the same logic applies. We don’t need an event like the Royal Wedding to create a sense of community among neighbours; that happens if we want it to happen.

There’s a sense in which Unumma wants to foist a sense of community on people regardless of whether they want it or not. In that sense, I suppose, his project is very socialist – it wants to remake community and society in the image of what he believes is good, and what he believes is right. What is unpleasant, illiberal and dangerous about his logic is the extent to which it removes your right to choose the way in which you life your life. This Blue Labour nonsense – itself a dull rip-off of the equally odious Red Tory conception of Philip Blond – has little to do with freedom. Instead, it has everything to do with a state led by nostalgic idealists like Umunna nudging, cajoling, rebuking and even forcing you into doing what they think is right. As such, it is very much a continuation of what has gone before – business as usual for modern politics – on the grounds that you are treated like an infant by paternalistic politicians who have the arrogance to think they know better than you on the absolutely fundamental question of how you live your life. The fact that it is presented in a soft way with nice, nostalgic images should not disguise the fact that this is very different to any meaningful manifestation of liberty.

Voting Lib Dem

I voted Lib Dem at the last election. And I would be more than happy to do so again*.

It isn’t just down to the fact that they made the right decision after the last election and decided not to prop up the failed Labour government – although, had they decided to back Brown, then I would rather have set myself on fire than ever back them again. No, there is another reason why I’d vote Lib Dem again – it is because they have been fantastically entertaining in power. An ongoing comedic bout of political slapstick is the best way to describe the Lib Dem side of the coalition. And at a time when the Tories are quietly getting on with the process of remembering how to run the country and Labour are saying and doing precisely nothing, it is nice to have a party in power who increasingly represent an episode of The Brittas Empire.

They’ve always had a propensity toward comedy – witness their 2006 leadership election, which consisted of senior members of their party washing their dirty linen in public before that party elected a doddery old fool. But since coming to real power, the party has been funnier than ever. Right from the get-go, when Cameron and Clegg did their rose garden press conference, the Lib Dems have been shedding whatever credibility they might have had at a startling rate. That press conference reminded me of an early 1990’s romantic comedy, with Cameron representing a fat Tom Hanks with Nick Clegg as a bemused looking version of Meg Ryan. From there, they have been unstoppable – witness David Laws, and his 22 days in power – the shortest ministerial career in history? Or Simon Hughes lurking in the background, acting like some sort of shady but utterly ineffective nemesis of the coalition’s plans. A bit like the Child Catcher, but without the gravitas and menace. And most recently, that wonderful, wonderful footage of Cable explaining to the world why he might abstain from a parliamentary vote on his own fucking policy! Pure, pure comedy.

It may seem a bit off to be deciding who to vote for based on their entertainment value, but then since all parties do fuck all when they get into power other than make things just a little bit different (and, more often than not, a little bit worse) it is as good a way of making the decision as any. The Lib Dems have always been glorified amateurs at the political game; it is hugely entertaining to see such amateurish behaviour writ large on the national political stage.

*Providing they don’t ditch Clegg and elect a left-winger like Simon F*cking Hughes. And assuming that there wasn’t a Libertarian candidate running in my constituency.

Liberty's Blind Spot

To me, there are two components to freedom - and you need to have both in order to be truly free. The first is probably the non-controversial one; at least to Libertarians. It is the idea that you need to be economically free in order to enjoy liberty. Or to put it another way, you should be able to decide how you spend your money rather than the government deciding for you.

This simple view is the sort of thing that has motivated people across the world to fight for freedom, especially given governments have lost sight of the fact that tax money is not actually their own money - it is money they take from their citizens under duress. You can see an example of such a campaign in the Tea Party Movement over in the US. Whatever you might think of them, those guys are fighting for economic freedom from an ever-growing, money hungry state.

But there is a second component to liberty that is just as essential to meaningful freedom. And that is the freedom to live your life how you want to live it (within the constraints of something like the Harm Principle). And it is here that many supposed champions of freedom and those claiming to be Libertarian start to struggle with the practical reality of liberty. Because to actually embrace liberty means you are happy for people to have beliefs other than your own; to live alternative lifestyles and to do things that you would never do. Sure, you may not approve of what others do. However, if you are a true friend of liberty, you have to allow those people to live their life the way they want to even if their choices are completely alien to you.

And it is here that something like the Tea Party movement departs from a genuinely Libertarian agenda and drifts towards social conservatism. You only have to look at the views of one of their current media darlings - Christine O'Donnell. Her views on abortion, for example, are utterly illiberal. She would deny females the right to choose what happens to their own bodies - something that is completely alien to the concept of freedom. This seems to be fairly typical of many of the leading lights of that movement. It doesn't matter whether their views on abortion are down to deeply held religious beliefs or down to pragmatism in the search for votes from the Christian right - they are still illiberal.

Of course, that's not to say that there aren't genuine Libertarians in that movement. Rather, it is trying to point out the danger (which Libertarians so often fall foul of) assuming that your enemy's enemy must be your friend. You may not like much of what Obama does, for instance, but that doesn't mean that the natural recourse is to trust, and therefore back, Sarah Palin. Likewise, in this country a hatred of Gordon Brown does not make you a Tory. Nor does it make David Cameron and the rest of his party Libertarian.

The point is this - if you claim to be Libertarian, then don't fall foul of Liberty's Blind Spot. Social freedom is just as important as economic freedom, and if you truly feel the need to support the Conservatives or the Republicans, make sure that you do so with a full awareness that, at best, they support just about 50% of what is actually needed to make people free.

Genuine Libertarians - Neither Left nor Right

Sunny on Alex Massie:

I say Alex Massie is a left-libertarian. He’s just giving the right an undue good name by aligning himself with them.

Now, that's a phrase I'm hearing being used more and more - "left-libertarian". I suppose on one level it represents a step forward for the Libertarian cause: the left are starting to realise that libertarianism has something to offer. But the undertone is less positive - it represents the left trying to co-opt Libertarians of which they approve, and make them part of their crude and out-dated vision of political discourse. The identification of "left-libertarian" comfortably places anyone branded with that tag on the left side of the political spectrum, and as a result almost immediately negates the radical alternative offered by libertarianism.

That's not to say that I like the concept of a right-wing libertarian anymore than I do the idea of a left-libertarian. Right-wing libertarians are ultimately not libertarian at all. They tend to talk a good game on economic freedom, but end up being social conservatives or at the very least apologists for social conservatives. And it is amazing how many right-wing Libertarians end up becoming Republicans in the US or Conservatives in the UK - and in doing so miss the point that neither of those political movements is actually libertarian in any meaningful way or ever will be.

Put simply, a true Libertarian will simultaneously be right-wing and left-wing. I'm a libertarian, and I hold extremely left-wing views on immigration, LGBT issues, drug legalisation and in a number of other areas. But when it comes to economics, I'm right-wing - I believe in the free market, in lower taxes, and that nationalisation is, in the vast majority of cases, a bad idea. As a result, I automatically reject the terms "left" and "right" when someone tries to apply them to me.

This isn't a case of political schizophrenia - that libertarians like myself cannot make up our minds between the two sides of the political spectrum. Because there is a theme running through my beliefs - the theme of freedom. I take the left-wing views that say that the state should not tell me how to live socially, and I take the right-wing views that say that the state should not tell me how live economically (or, to put it another way, the state should not tell me how to spend my money). Fundamentally, I cannot be left-wing or right-wing since they both advocate intensive control of the lives of citizens, albeit in different ways.

Indeed, the concept of the difference between left and right is actually all smoke and mirrors - there is remarkably little difference actually there. Those on the left and the right vie for control of the state and argue over the best way to run that state. Yet they seldom, if ever, challenge the fundamental assumption underpinning both of their beliefs - that the state, run in the correct way, is a good thing. Genuine libertarians understand that the state is a human construct, and therefore must always be subordinate to its people rather than becoming more important than its creators. Genuine libertarians also understand that the state, as a human construct, reflects many of the flaws of its creators. By definition, it cannot be neutral and it cannot be without flaws. As such, libertarians realise that the state is not automatically benign in its dealings with its people, and history is littered with examples of where states have become actively malign.

I honestly believe that the radical alternative to the bloated, ineffectual political status quo is being offered by Libertarians. As such, I believe it is important for libertarians to reject those tags that would make them part of the current status quo. Genuine libertarians are neither right-wing or left-wing; their fundamental belief should be in rescuing the concept of liberty from an ever-expanding and increasingly controlling state. The fundamental political question of our time isn't whether you're left or right. It is whether you favour state control or freedom.

The Authoritarian Iain Dale

Iain Dale has gone all authoritarian on us, demanding that something is done about those Parliament Square protestors in an open letter to BoJo. Let's see what he has to say:

I'm sure that like me, you cherish our right to protest. But like me you also believe people should obey the law. And also like me, you will no doubt believe that those who have the power to enforce the law should do so.

Tomorrow, the State Opening of Parliament takes place. It will be a magnet for the many tourists who visit the Capital. They will line the route to watch the Queen as she proceeds from Buckingham Palace through Parliament Square.

And what faces her when she gets to Parliament Square? A mini hippy camp. Over the last few years a few tents have been allowed to go up on the edge of Parliament Square. But in recent weeks the whole of the grass of Parliament Square has been taken over by people who don't seem to be there to protest about anything in particular. They even drape the statue of Winston Churchill with their banners.

Right, where to begin... where to begin? I dislike so much about these three paragraphs that I genuinely don't know where to start with this. So let's just start with a random thing; let's start with the pointless royalism. I don't give a fuck what the Queen has to see in her journey from one palace to another. And as someone who used to live in Westminster, allow me to say that I found the tourists far more of a hassle than I ever did the protestors.

And the term "mini hippy camp" sounds like Nixon in his prime. If people are camping outside the Houses of Parliament, then it is always going to look like a campsite. I mean, what does Dale want? People to build houses there? Of course not! He just wants the filthy protestors sent away, so Queenie doesn't have to see the riff-raff on her way to open up the all-new Con-Dem parliament.

The whole Square is an embarrassment to our city and our nation.

Don't be bloody silly. You might find it embarrassing, but you don't have the right to speak on behalf of the city and/or the nation. Personally, I find it a point of pride for this nation that people still want to protest, but that is only my opinion. Like Dale, I don't have the right to speak for everyone in the country. I just don't pretend that I do.

What I don't understand is why you and the Metropolitan Police have done nothing to enforce the law. If you or I launched a one man protest in Parliament Sqaure or Whitehall we'd be swiftly moved on under anti terrorism laws. Why is the law different for these people who now inhabit the Square? I don't happen to agree with the anti terrorism laws, but there are other byelaws which are being blatantly transgressed too. You know that and so do I.

But all this is predicated on the assumption that those laws are just and right. That simply isn't the case. The anti-terrorism laws are not just, they are not right. The laws restricting protest around the Houses of Parliament are an egregious restriction of our right to protest, and a crude attempt on the part of the Nu Labour to remove those dirty hippy protestors from their eyesight when they arrive and leave work. And guess what? Now Nu Labour has been replaced, one of the top bloggers of the dominant party in the Commons now wants to restrict protest around Parliament. Is that the warm, pungent aroma of naked hypocrisy I smell in the air? Maybe not, maybe Dale's always wanted to restrict protest in Parliament Square. But I can't help but feel that the message is that it's alright to protest under Labour, but when Dale's party is in power, then you need to move along.

This is a great example of where we need to change the law. Rather than accept the law unquestioningly for the sake of the Queen and some tourists.

I'm all for a quiet life and am well aware that the people now residing (and that's the right word) in Parliament Square would not go quietly. But a line has to be drawn, and you should draw it now.

I'm not surprised that Dale doesn't care about the forced removal of protestors from Parliament Square provoking protests - after all, his entire post is about restricting protest at the supposed heart of British democracy.

Like most people I am am (sic) embarassed whenever I pass the site, and yet I should feel proud of a Square that is home to the Houses of Parliament, the Supreme Court, Westminster Abbey together with many historical statues.

Once again, Dale feels he can talk on behalf of "most people". Where's the evidence that most people feel that way when they walk past the site? And even if they do, does that makes the protest wrong?

The site outside of Parliament is not just about pretty buildings and pretty statues. It has also come to represent protest, and protest is a vital, essential part of British democracy. It might be unsightly, unseemly, but fuck it. To have a political voice someone doesn't have to be wearing a suit and working in Parliament. Those damned "hippies" in the square are participating in democracy, even if Dale sees them as an eyesore.

Please do something about it. The time for action is long overdue

The time for action is long overdue. We should all be in Parliament Square, demanding our right to protest in front of the so-called "Mother of all Parliaments". We should be protesting for this new government to overturn all the draconian policies of the last administration, and reinstating our right to make our voices heard in arguably the most political space in the whole country. Dale's pathetic post is an example of someone hiding behind the law not because the law is right, or good, but because the law happens to back up his deeply conservative, even reactionary, concerns for the aesthetics of the Queen's view as she comes to Parliament.

In the very first line, Dale states that he cherishes the right to protest. Unfortunately, his letter suggests that he actually cherishes the right of people to protest within the law - which means they have to protest out of his eyeline when he strolls through Parliament Square. I write a lot on this blog about how the Tories at heart are deeply socially conservative, and this is a great example of that. The right to protest is less important to Dale than the right to have your views of those nice old buildings around Parliament unimpeded by those dirty hippies.

The Death of the Word "Liberal"

The Guardian has an article up praising a Democrat who manages to be just as unpleasant as the Republicans. Go him! But it also has an interesting phrase in it that really caught my eye:

Democrats have effectively allowed Republicans to elide the word "liberal" from an adjective into a smear.

Now, this piece of analysis is spot-on. The Democrats have allowed the Republicans to take the word "liberal" and turn it into a political curse. Most Democrats would be afraid of being classed as "liberal", since this creates images of a vast, intrusive state; of socialism, and the degradation of the American way of life. Liberal means a socialist or even a communist in the US political vocabulary. Which is, of course, not what the word means at all.

Yet the Democrats have opened up the word to the sort of abuse Republicans have heaped on it by trying to co-opt it as their own. They tried to make it a label for social democracy, for higher taxes and state intervention. They tried to make liberalism into their watered down version of socialism. That's why the Republicans have shat on the concept - not because of what liberalism actually means, but because the Democrats corrupted the word.

See, I'm a liberal - I believe in freedom. I don't believe in the corruption of the word espoused by the Democrats or by the Liberal Democrats in this country. Rather, I believe in maximising the freedom of the individuals in this country by respecting basic rights and limiting the intrusive government. I believe that "freedom from" will lead to "freedom to." I call myself The Nameless Libertarian because I am a liberal. However, I am not a liberal in the sense that the word has come to mean. That is why I have to clarify and call myself a Libertarian.

Liberal should be a great, evocative word that means something more than narrow, state-serving Social Democracy. Just as the word conservative should mean something different that the amorphous, soulless pragmatism of the Tory party in this country - a party that would be happily led by anyone from Ted Heath to David Cameron via Margaret Thatcher as long as the leader looks like they could win an election. Or the curious compassionate conservatism of George W Bush that involved a radical increase in state power and a crusade against other sovereign nations. Conservatism used to mean a particular attitude towards the development of the state, and a hostility to revolution. It has now been used by so many different people in so many different ways that it has lost that meaning, and become just another catchword used to score political points.

Perhaps it is the zeitgeist; that words that once had a political potency are now devalued to such a point that they are utterly meaningless. A "conservative" at once describes both Compromise Cameron and the Imperialist tendencies of Bush The Junior. A "liberal" describes Nick Clegg, Vince Cable and various other social democrats in the USA. The words no longer mean what they once meant. They have been co-opted by those who do not understand those words in order to add legitimacy to their spurious ideological claims. It is probably pointless to lament the debasement of a political label, but I wish I could describe myself as a liberal without making people think I am a Social Democrat. Just as I am sure that there are conservatives who wish that using that term didn't evoke images in the minds of many people of one George W Bush.

Hannan, Cameron, and the Leech that is the NHS

Make no mistake about it, I am no fan of the NHS. It is a colossal, glaring, idiotic waste of money these days. Sure, I know that there are people within the NHS who work hard and do good deeds. But the whole thing is a bureaucratic nightmare; a money pit capable of consuming this country's whole economy before burping, then demanding the same thing again. It is not a national treasure; it is a drain on the nation and our failure to debate the rights and the wrongs of the NHS is a national disgrace. At its most effective - which was probably sometime in 1947 - the NHS was a useful entity. Now, when we see it at its worst - which is a lot of the time - it resembles nothing more than a festering sore on the United Kingdom. Or a virulent infection. Possibly caught from a dirty ward in an NHS hospital. 

And as a result of the above I believe that Daniel Hannan's comments on the NHS represent common sense*. He seems to be one of the few politicians who embrace the idea that the future of healthcare might not be entirely down to the NHS. Sure, I don't think his actual words - which show the same rhetorical flourish that made his vicious yet entertaining attack on Gordon Brown so famous - help the cause of having a debate in this country, but I think his sentiments are spot on. 

Inevitably, though, not everyone agrees. Particularly not the person most likely to be our next Prime Minister. Cameron writes:

Millions of people are grateful for the care they have received from the NHS - including my own family. One of the wonderful things about living in this country is that the moment you're injured or fall ill - no matter who you are, where you are from, or how much money you've got - you know that the NHS will look after you.

Now, it is pushing it a bit to say I am grateful for what the NHS has done for me in the past. It provides a service, like other service providers that help me in day to day life, I'm glad that they are there. But to say I am grateful is really pushing it. After all, I go to Sainsbury's and get a service from them. In return for taking my money, they provide food. I'm not grateful for what they do, just pleased that the transaction is done and I get what I've paid for. Which is exactly how I feel when I have used the NHS. See, I pay for the NHS, so I expect some sort of service in return. Cameron's use of the word "grateful" makes me think that the NHS is doing me some sort of favour when they treat me. They aren't. They are providing the service I pay for through taxes and National Insurance. 

Furthermore, being grateful would actually mean I get a good service. Sadly, with the NHS, that seldom happens these days. It doesn't matter where you are from, or who you are, or what money you have - you are still going to get generally rather shitty service from the NHS. It will look after you; often in a slipshod, disinterested, condescending and utterly inhuman way. Don't believe me? Well, walk into A&E with a non-threatening illness/injury and see how you get on. 

This idea - espoused by leading politicians of all parties in this country - that the NHS deserves to be treated with reverence because it is free at the generally rather shitty point of service. Despite the flaws in the way he delivered his message, Hannan has simply voiced the thoughts of many people in this country who see the NHS as something in desperate need of radical reform, rather than being promoted as the best this country has to offer and a model for other countries to use for their healthcare systems. Cameron's empty cant highlights he has nothing to offer other than the status quo on one of the key issues facing us today - namely, what the hell we do with the NHS. 

*They certainly aren't unpatriotic. And when Andy Burnham and other stupid tools like him spout that sort of rhetoric, they come across as the sort of unthinking idiotic drones who should only exist in the former Soviet Union. They have nothing to do with Britain in the 21st Century.

The Tories and Tax Cuts

They’ve started. Before they’ve even hit power, there is a real sense that the Tories are backing away from any tax cuts they may have pledged or even hinted at. In fact, they may be going the other way and be starting to think about tax increases. Ken Clarke’s comments about inheritance tax aren’t an aberration for that party, they are a pretty clear statement of intent. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if Clarke was floating a test balloon for the party. If his comments were ignored, then the Tories might quite happily have dropped their Inheritance Tax plans. When the predictable outrage hit, the Tory leadership did what it was always going to do; blamed it on the loose cannon in Ken Clarke.

Of course the Tories have a way of justifying their lack of tax cuts and their potential tax increases. It is all about being responsible, see? They can’t cut taxes unless they can afford to do it. And given the current economic situation, they simply won’t be able to afford it. It isn’t their fault; they’ll just be playing the hand that fate (in the guise of Gordon Brown) has dealt them.

There is something they can do, of course. They could reduce spending. They could cut taxes after they cut some of the things money is being wasted on. After all, Brown has spent money like a drunken sailor in a whorehouse. There should be no shortage of potential targets for spending cuts.

But the Tories are scared of pledging spending cuts. In fact, they are more than scared. They are absolutely terrified of talking about cuts in spending. They see such rhetoric as one of the reasons for their crushing defeats in both 1997 and 2001; and those defeats traumatised them. They are determined to sit in the middle ground, determined to use the Blairite consensus and the rhetoric of Gordon Brown to appear non-threatening and responsible.

Yet is it really responsible to not be aggressively cutting spending at the moment? Surely a Tory government should, as a matter of priority, be slashing government budgets and returning the money saved to the taxpayer? Actually, isn’t it a moral imperative as well as the responsible thing to do? Isn’t it right to return some of the money the government has effectively stolen from the people to waste on needless and pointless projects?

Also, from an economic perspective, it might help if the people were allowed to spend a little bit more of their own money. Confidence needs to be restored before people are willing to start spending again. One way to restore that confidence is to say to the people that they aren’t going to face further tax rises, and actually the opposite is going to happen. How powerful would it be to say to the great British public that if they vote Tory in 2010, they will have x percent more of their income to spend than they do right now?

Of course, the Tories will tell you that it isn’t that simple. And one of the problems faced by the Tories isn’t so much that people are opposed to spending cuts, but rather that they don’t understand why such cuts are so vital. And one of the reasons for that is the fact that the Tories haven’t made the case for spending cuts. Again, their pathological desire to not be seen as a tax cutting and spending cutting party means that the many people won’t understand that there is another way.

Much has been made of Danial Hannan's impassioned speech criticising Gordon Brown – which is good, because he is making a valid point. But his party needs to listen not just to the jibes at old Gordo, but also the underlying policy message. In short, the Tory party needs to get a fucking grip on itself. This is not the time for consensus. It is not the time for procrastination, for moderation and for meekness. The country needs a radical change, but unless the Tories change themselves and their ideas then quite simply their coming administration will be more of the same.

Cameron: Meet the new boss...

William Hague on David Cameron:

"I can see him as prime minister and I think he is now ready to be prime minister."

Frankly, I can't see why Hague would say anything different. This would have been more of a news story if Hague had said "he's not quite ready yet" or "you know what, he's an ok choice - but I think I would be a better one."

But how, precisely, has Cameron shown himself to be ready for the job of PM? What has he done? He's popular at the moment, but that in itself is not a great reason to claim to be ready for the job of PM. The Artic Monkeys are popular; no-one is suggesting that they are ready to be Prime Minister. Cameron's popularity is based purely on not being Gordon Brown; which is a bollocks reason for making someone PM. You may as well make Cameron PM for not being Peter Sutcliffe.

However some would argue, including Hague, that is it also Tory policy that has caused the change in the party's fortunes:

He said Tory plans to raise the inheritance tax threshold, abolish stamp duty for first-time buyers and scrap the ID card scheme had helped towards that "switch".

Good policies, but, fuck me, it is hardly a radical, bold argument for the Tories, is it? A couple of tax cuts and the summary elimination of ID cards is hardly the radical solutions that modern Britain is in need of.

After over a decade of patronising, oppressive Nu Labour rule, this country is crying out for a Libertarian government. But, as Guido and DK note, freedom doesn't seem to be on the Tories' agenda. In fact, with unmitigated bollocks like Gove's attack on lads' magazines, the opposite seems to be true. At a time when they have the popularity and the opportunity to fight for social as well as economic freedom, they are shrinking in their ambition, and are becoming the sort of tedious social conservatives whose moralising would be better placed in Victorian times rather than in 21st Century Britain.

The sales exercise of making the Tories warm and fluffy is over - people trust them again, people no longer see them as pure evil, they no longer feel they eat babies for fun in the corridors of power. The Tories - particularly given Labour is currently about a popular as herpes in a nunnery - can afford to be bold, and could offer real change. But they won't.

Because, fundamentally, they don't want to. The party is innately conservative - it doesn't like change. The thought of being radical is alien to them. They will tinker with the Nu Labour legacy, and perhaps remove some of the worst excesses of this illiberal incumbent government. But there won't be a major change. Things will stay, in the now very likely Tory government, pretty much the same.

Which is why I am the member of a party who, if they can truly get off the ground, actually offer a substantial departure to the status quo. And I know that those who have fallen under the spell of Cameron and neutered Tory party will ultimately end up disappointed. There is nothing radical on the horizon; just a more photogenic Prime Minister and minor tinkering with a system that is clearly, and obviously, corrupt, fucked and rotten to the core.

The Labour Party: Shafted, but not dead

This is something you don’t see often – rats running not just towards a sinking ship, but actively looking to captain it. If you are at all cynical (and I am – sometimes I think it is my defining feature) then you would wonder why on earth anyone would want to lead the party that is incapable of retaining their third safest seat and can boast the like of Terry “I’m A Socialist Moron” Kelly as not just a member but key cheerleader. On paper, it is a lot like becoming leader of the Soviet Communist Party. Or winning the job of guitarist in Deep Purple 30 years after they were last worth listening to.

But then again, is being the Scottish Labour leader really such a bad deal? Yeah, you’ve not going to do well in the near future. But if you can hang on – perhaps by using radical means such as not accepting illegal donations – then maybe you can slowly bring about the resurrection of the once dominant force in Scottish politics.

The same is true of the Labour party at the moment. One of the reasons why the Brown administration is still dragging on is because no-one really wants the job. I mean, what politician actively wants to lead their party to electoral defeat? But then again, defeat is now so certain that a new leader could win a strong reputation by minimising the extent of the coming disaster, and rebuild the party slowly but surely. It is not a dream job for anyone – make no mistake about that. But equally it is not the worst job in the world – it has potential, if you make the best of it.

Because, whilst Labour is in a bad state, it certainly isn’t a terminal case. As much as I would like to be predicting the glorious end of this dismal political party, it just isn’t going to happen. They will lose the next election, but not be wiped out.

There are several reasons for this:

Gordon will go

The Labour party has shown a real appetite for regicide in history, but equally they have never really been this unpopular before. They are swimming in uncharted waters, and they will want someone to blame for their current woes. Brown is the obvious candidate, not least because he is the one responsible for the disaster the Labour party is enduring.

So the party’s senior politicians may pull their finger out of their arseholes and go to Gordon, tell him to go, and then sack him when he refuses. A new leader would almost certainly be better for the party’s fortunes – even Harman would be preferable for the party than the execrable Brown. The party is full of talentless shits, true, but no-one is shitter than the man who clawed his way to the top of that tree. A new leader before the election could save the party from a 1997 style electoral wipe out.

And if they decide that Brown is the best option to take them into the next election (which would be a lot like the Titanic stating that it really like icebergs and thinks they are the way forward) he will last roughly five hours after the election results come in and Cameron becomes Prime Minister. Brown’s time as Labour leader is finite – it isn’t a case of “if he gets binned”, much more of “when he gets binned.” And once the cuntiest cunt of the party brimming over with cunts falls, someone more capable (even the aforementioned twat Terry Kelly would struggle to do a worst job) will take over.

It took four Tory leaders and well over a decade for the Conservative party to tear themselves from the electoral doldrums. It may take Labour a similar amount of time and heartbreak to so the same thing. But at some point they will turn it around, and become a credible political force once again.

Cameron isn’t good enough

Seriously, he isn’t. He lacks the killer instinct to truly fuck the Labour party. He performs ok at PMQs, he is riding high in the polls. But, as I have said time and again, that is not about who he is, but rather who he isn’t. Just as Blair pulled off a stunning victory in 1997 by simply not being John Major, so Cameron will almost certainly trounce Labour at the next election for not being Gordon Brown. You can argue that winning is everything in politics, but some victories are certainly more hollow than others. I’d argue (and some will no doubt disagree) that I am more popular than Peter Sutcliffe and Gary Glitter. But I don’t put that meaningless achievement on my CV.

A ruthless Tory leader would be looking beyond just winning the next election. They’d be looking to slash the throat of the Labour party once and for all, and leave the fetid corpse of that out dated and ideologically bankrupt party to slowly rot away to nothing. However Cameron, both instinctively and in terms of competence, is not able to do that.

Clegg isn’t good enough

One of the startling things about the woes of the current Labour party is that the Liberal Democrats are not capitalising on the governments numerous failings. In fact, it is difficult to know exactly what the Liberal Democrats are doing these days. They are faced with a Labour party that has been utterly discredited and a Tory leader with all the ideological gravitas and political experience of a toddler. They should be relishing this moment, and going in for the kill. Instead, they seem to be hiding underneath a big rock doing, precisely, nothing.

Clegg has some half-decent proposals, but seems incapable of getting himself into the media spotlight with those proposals. He has all the media savvy of a cucumber. For a party that is reliant on the leader being able to steal column inches and get onto the news, Clegg was a poor choice. And the Liberal Democrats are now paying for that. At a time when they should be pushing towards their breakthrough moment and become the second party in this country, they are actually stagnating. Their big moment will pass straight by them, and they will be left nursing broken dreams and wondering, now and forever, “What if…”

Barring miracles (if you can call something really shitty happening a miracle) Labour will lose the next election. Right-wingers, and right minded people, can and should relish this moment. And they can look forward to dancing on the (political) grave of Gordon Brown. But it is wrong and naïve to write Labour off forever. With the tedious regularity and determination of a Terminator, they’ll find a way. They’ll be back.

42 Days: For Fuck's Sake

So he won. Gordon Brown managed to break his losing streak, and managed to win something. And, Christ help us, it was the vote on 42 days detention. And how did he achieve this? Bribery, of course! This will be the major policy innovation of the Brown years. If there is a problem, if there is a potential defeat, throw money at it. After all, there is a limitless amount of money the government can get if they want it - their source, the taxpayer, is obliged to fund them. As David Davis notes, the government bought the vote after they lost the argument.

But I'm not going to gripe about the government bribing people with the taxpayer's money too much. We should all be fucking used to that by now. Rather, my complaint is against every single fucking MP who managed voted for this. Those Nu Labour whores, the ironically named Democratic Unionists, that short, fat testicle of a woman Anne fucking Widdecombe - they are either brazenly corrupt, staggeringly naive or terrifyingly stupid.

Or, thinking about it, all of the above.

There is no excuse for this; none whatsoever. Parliament has handed yet more power to the state, and this power is wide open to abuse and will, I don't doubt for a second, be abused by someone somewhere some time soon. And the police don't need extra time to interrogate terror suspects - they have foiled enough plots, and caught enough criminals, with the law as it was before this fuck awful new law. If the Libertarian party want a great policy to nail their colours to, then a loud, determined and eloquent call for the repeal of this law would be a great place to start. Hell, if the Tories and the Lib Dems want to seperate themselves from this shitting government, they should stick the repeal of this law into their next election manifestos as well. Fighting this change to the law is not over, and it should be a point of principle for any incoming government to want to reverse this naive, paranoid and dictatorial little policy.

We all wake up this morning to a country that is a little less free, a little less liberal. That is the tragedy, and the ongoing battle will be to stop further erosions of freedom in this country.

Touchy Feely Tories

David Cameron:

"The big idea is not for more state cash but to encourage more voluntary and community action - the welfare society. In order to deal with social breakdown, everybody, and I mean everybody, has got their part to play."

I'm not a big fan of Cameron banging on about poverty, as I've touched on in the past, but I won't go over that ground again. But I will point out that this is an interesting way to sell your party - the implication is almost "if we win the election, then you will have to give your time to voluntary organisations designed to reduce poverty." Also, it completely forgets the other issues that affect the country, like education, terrorism, the NHS. "Social breakdown" - that nebulous, almost meaningless, term is being pushed by the Tories as far more important than how our children are educated or the fact that people have tried to drive cars filled with explosives into airports.

Ignoring the party politics and ideological concerns (and, indeed, the passion that these concerns create) if this is Cameron's big plan for the next election then it is an audacious one to say the least. He is going after the Guardian reading, Liberal Democrat supporting voter. But in doing so he may well alienate the Telegraph reading traditional Tory. It will be fascinating to see how this one pans out - after the next election we could be praising Cameron's genius at electioneering. Or sneering at the elementary mistake he made in chasing the middle ground. However from a popularity point of view I can't help but think of Hague's blunder in 2001 of fighting the election based on saving the pound - people wanted to save the pound, but it didn't matter to them enough to change their vote. For Cameron the question is not whether people care about social breakdown or not, but rather how much it matters to them.

So much hot air

Brown is proving that he is a servant of the people and not a "centralising autocrat" by suggesting constitutional reform. Forgive me if I sound cynical, but haven't we heard all this before? Wasn't Major going to change the balance of power between citizens and leaders, and ended up implementing a traffic cone hotline? It is easy for an incoming PM to say they was to decentralise power and limit the reach of the executive. But once they have got used to that power they are a lot less likely to give it away.

Also, what precisely would a written Bill of Rights do? Would having the right to life on a bit of paper stop murder? No, it wouldn't. And does the lack of a Bill of Rights mean the government commits mass murder of the voters? No, it doesn't. A Bill of Rights/constitution is a meaningless piece of paper. Don't forget that under Uncle Joe Stalin the USSR had a constitution. Didn't stop prison camps and mass murder.

It is also telling that Brown's first announcement is about changing the constitution and shifting the powers/rights of the government. He is talking about doing cerebral things on a legal level. Nothing he says will really change life in Britian. It is also telling that the opposition parties have, conditionally, supported his non proposals. They would all rather discuss legalistic issues like the constitution than discuss real, practical policies.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the politicians of the Brown era (who are not unlike the politicians of the Blair era): Just so much hot air.

Go Boris!

Boris Johnson is being considered for London Mayor. Frankly I think he is an awesome choice. If people aren't going to follow my advice and make him party leader. Can you imagine anyone better to represent the varied metropolis of London than the larger than life, charismatic, erratic MP for Henley? He could become a London landmark - I mean, let's face it, he is already pretty much a British Institution!

Go go Boris! You'd get my vote.

Time to change leaders?

Apparently Cameron's reshuffle does not reflect panic about Brown's slight upturn in the polls and the slanging match over grammar schools. Well, no shit, Sherlock. I don't like the guy and frequently disagree with him, but actually he's not doing too badly. Brown was always going to get a bounce in the polls when he got into Number 10, and there was always going to be a Shadow Cabinet reshuffle to reflect what happened in the real Cabinet. Like him or not, Cameron is safe where he is despite Brown becoming PM, despite grammar school debates and despite defections.

It is the Liberal Democrats who should be looking at their leader with a view to change.

I mean, seriously, where is the Minger? No-one has heard from him in ages. If IDS was the "quiet man" then Ming the Merciful is the "silent man." Brown ascends to PM, and the Tories lose one point in the polls. The Lib Dems lose three. He was supposed to be a safe pair of hands, but he is doing worse than the permanently pissed up Charlie boy.

Of course, Labour and the Tories aren't going to point out how bad Ming is. This is a dream come true for them - the Minger means that the Lib Dems are not so much going to fail to make progress at the next General Election as struggle to contest it at all. Ming has made them an irrelevance, and an irrelevant Liberal Democrat party means more seats for Labour and the Tories. Forget the Lib Dems trying to collect Tory scalps at the next General Election - they'll be too busy protecting their own.

The best thing the Lib Dems could do now is depose Ming. But they seem to be stuck in some sort of stupor - unable to do anything as their leader is unable to lead them. And without the jibes of the Tories and Labour, the Lib Dems are sleepwalking their way to catastrophe at the next election.

Crossing the Floor

Quentin Davies has left the Tory party to join the Labour. No doubt there will be a whole raft of posts along the lines of "turncoat bastard" but I have some sympathy with the man - at least until you hear what he actually has to say.

This brings a wry smile to my lips:

"Although you have many positive qualities you have three, superficiality, unreliability and an apparent lack of any clear convictions, which in my view ought to exclude you from the position of national leadership to which you aspire and which it is the presumed purpose of the Conservative Party to achieve."

I kind of agree with this, although I would point out that Davies is a supporter of Ken Clarke, who also seems to embody "superficiality, unreliability and an apparent lack of any clear convictions". To me, Cameron is the heir apparent to the pro-European, One Nation spineless conservatism of Ken Clarke and Ted Heath. Davies should be embracing Cameron as "Ken Clarke: The Next Generation" rather than fleeing into the suffocating embrace of Gordon Brown.
And I lose any agreement when I read this -

"...a leader I have always greatly admired, who I believe is entirely straightforward, and who has a towering record, and a clear vision for the future of our country which I fully share".

Believe it or not, he is talking about Gordon Brown. That's right, Gordon Brown. Anyone who is frankly delusional enough to call Brown entirely straightforward and believe the money grabbing, charismaless, mis-shapen ape of a man has a"towering record" and "a clear vision for the future" needs a sound beating with a baseball bat.

On a superficial level at least, the Tory party is now the most left-wing it has been since the dreaded days of Ted Heath. So any Tory MP who leaves the Conservative Party at the moment is either doesn't (to quote Mr Davies) "believe in anything, or to stand for anything" or was in the wrong party in the first place.

And neither represents a particularly strong argument for the morals, political acumen or general intelligence of Quentin Davies. I hope that the constituents of whichever safe seat Brown drops Davies into realise this, and soundly kick him out of Parliament at the next election.

Voting for Self-Interest

One of the fundamental questions of modern politics is why people actually go out and vote. It is the issue that obsesses our political parties to the extent where, like Nu Labour in 1997, they almost cannot think of anything else (even core issues, like policy). So why do people vote?

The answer, as far as I can see, is naked self interest. People vote based on what is best for their families and what is best for them as an individual. In order for people to get off their butts and go out to vote for a particular party, that party has to appeal directly to their self interest.

You just have to look at post-war electoral history for good examples. In 1945 the voters loved Winston Churchill, but wanted the Welfare State as offered by Labour. Their self-interest over-rode their love of Churchill and their patriotic pride at having won the war. In the 1980’s, the working classes should have been deeply opposed to the extremely Conservative Thatcherite governments. But large numbers of them turned their back on the Labour and voted for the Tories. Why? Well, the Falkland’s War helped, but above all it was the right to buy council houses that allowed Thatcher to gain working class support throughout the 1980’s. Voting because of self-interest – the right to buy. And 1992 may be the best example of self interest voting. The Tories were tired, had been massively unpopular during the 1987 to 1992 administration and it appeared to be time for the Labour party appeared to be ready for power. And yet Major managed to win one of the largest popular votes in history and a slim working majority in the election. Why? Well, his relative humility next to the astounding arrogance of Kinnock will have helped, but ultimately it was the fear of how much a Labour government would cost. The “Double Whammy” posters about Labour tax increases and general economic performance, combined with John Smith’s publication of the Labour spending plans prior to the election, convinced the British public that a Kinnock administration would cost them more money. Whatever the thoughts on the Tories, naked self interest returned them to government. Vote Tory, and save money on a personal basis.

But what about those voters who genuinely do vote based on ideological concerns? Those in the middle class who vote Labour or Lib Dem, to help the less well off, for example? That sort of mind set does not seem to suggest self-interest. But, then again, what, fundamentally, is the motive for voting in this way? By voting for an ideology rather than for own personal gain is still based on self-interest. It is allowing the voter to feel good about themselves, to meet their ideological beliefs and feel “right on”*.

And what about those who don’t vote? Again, self-interest. The standard reason for not voting is “I won’t vote because it is not worth it.” The parties fail to provide some people to make the effort to go out and vote, so they don’t.

So, how can you apply these ideas to political parties today? Well, take a look at a couple of the right of centre political parties** in the UK today. UKIP are failing to meet this self interest requirement. The perception of UKIP is as a European focussed party. And, despite the ever increasing control that the EU has over the UK’s political system and economy, most people do not understand the effect the EU has on their lives. As an issue, it doesn’t appeal to their self-interest. So until UKIP can find someway of either making people understand how the EU affects them personally, or can find a way to appeal to voters’ self-interest in other ways, then they will remain a minor party. Sure, they do have other policies, but they need to communicate that message to voters and make them understand how voting for UKIP is a vote for their own benefit.

Likewise, Cameron’s Conservatives arguably do themselves a favour by carping on about the environment. It will strike a chord with the “right-on” centrist or left of centre voters mentioned above, and as long as they do not focus too much on the environmental tax side of things, they will not be having an impact on the self-interest of their right wing base.

However, the grammar schools issue may cost Cameron votes from the right, and may give UKIP the chance to snatch those votes. Sure, the Tory announcement (that they would support existing grammar schools but just not open any new ones) is in keeping with the Tory actions the last time they were in office. But the problem Cameron may have lies in the perceptions of the policies. Those who, through self-interest in their families well being, had an aspiration to send their kid to a grammar school and supported the Tories because of their perceived commitment to grammar schools, may find this policy announcement to be crucial in deciding who it is best to vote for in relation to their families. Their perception of the policy may be wrong, but Cameron’s surprisingly cack handed approach to announcing this policy may lose him some votes. And it gives UKIP the chance to capitalise on those votes if they can publicise their support for Grammar Schools effectively***.

Put simply, the grammar schools issue (or non-issue) gives UKIP the chance to appeal to the self-interest of some voters and take them from the Tories. And, likewise, the Tories have the chance to keep some voters from defecting to UKIP. All by appealing to people’s self interest on an issue that doesn’t really represent a change in policy. Parties succeed and fail based on whether they can appeal to that self-interest.

*I’m not being overly cynical about this group. As I have mentioned in the past, when it comes to voting, I am focussed on ideology rather than pragmatism. I am right of centre, but I will vote for the right of centre party that most closely resembles my ideological beliefs rather than the right of centre party that is most likely to win.
**i.e. the ones I have an interest in doing well at elections.
***I know there is something on the UKIP website but they need to do a lot more to publicise it than that.