:: Conservative Revival ::

:: Friday, June 29, 2001 ::

Leadership votes and transfers

Someone who should have got into Parliament at the last election if there'd been any justice pointed out this article in The Independent on how the leadership votes are stacking up. It seems I underestimated Duncan Smith's support and (probably) overestimated Clarke's and Ancram's. Given that people like Virginia Bottomley have not declared for Clarke yet (and Peter Bottomley's declared for Ancram!) I'd say that Clarke is looking even shakier. It could yet be a Portillo - Duncan Smith race...
:: Swordsman 6/29/2001 09:20:00 AM [+] ::
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Whiggery!

Geoffrey Wheatcroft's article on the Glorious Revolution in The Guardian aerves as an excellent primer for what the alternative was. In many ways the choice between the US/ Anglophere and Europe as the future direction for Britain represents a modern choice between the same alternatives: common law, democracy and freedom or absolutism, decrees and repression. With any luck our rich anarchists will learn this as they ride their 60,000 pound charter train to Austria to be shot (probably in the back).
:: Swordsman 6/29/2001 08:57:00 AM [+] ::
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Leadership Thoughts

Mary Ann Sieghart, probably the most interesting of the Blairite columnists, writes in today's Times that both Clarke and Portillo have a strength that Major and Hague lacked. Probably true, but the piece is at its most perceptive when it says the following:

"Mr Clarke wants to wring the Euroscepticism out of the party. That would be equally painful, but ultimately destructive. The trouble is that his diagnosis, and therefore his prescription, is wrong. Voters might have felt uncomfortable with the more xenophobic elements of the Tory campaign at the last election. But an intelligent, rather than raving, scepticism about the euro in particular, and the governance of the EU in general, is one of the few attractive policies the Tories can still offer which differentiates them from Labour."

Which all leads me to mull about the MPs' ballot. Let's say the first round splits as follows: 60 for Portillo, 40 (olds wets plus the Boris Johnson wing) for Clarke, 30 for Ancram (Hague-Widdecombe loyalists and aristos), 20 for Davis and 10 for Duncan Smith. Duncan Smith is excluded, and 5 of his votes go to Davis, 5 to Portillo. Davis is then excluded and the vital thing is what happens to his votes. If they go to Ancram, Clarke will not get on the party-wide ballot. I can't imagine any of them will be "Stop Portillo" votes. If Ancram is weaker than I suspect, the question will be different. I'd imagine many of his votes would go to Clarke, although they might go to Davis. There's lots of room for politicking here yet.
:: Swordsman 6/29/2001 08:30:00 AM [+] ::
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Time to be Local Heroes?

New Local Government Secretary Stephen Byers gets tough with badly-run councils according to the Telegraph. He's going to usurp the functions of local government and send in private companies to run their services. Despite the Tory history of doing (or at least threatening) similar things, I think here's a chance to put some clear blue water between Labour and us. The real solution to poor local government is in the hands of the electors, should be the cry. If people want good local services they should vote for them, and not use local elections as a glorified opinion poll on the national government. Local democracy must be strengthened, and the way to do this is to make local councils more accountable to the electorate, not less (by giving the impression that central government will sort out any mess). Strong city/ borough/ county managers should be introduced to fulfill local executive functions, working with, not for (or against) local councils. Elected mayors are a great start in this respect, so let's push for them. Perhaps if Tory mayors start being elected in big cities people will see that Tories can run things efficiently again. And it would really put the Lib Dem's "champion of local government" label to the test.
:: Swordsman 6/28/2001 07:39:00 AM [+] ::
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And so it begins...

David Blunkett allegedly threatened to make Jack Straw "look like a liberal." It didn't take very long. The Daily Telegraph's second leader today looks at Blunkett's involvement in the sacking of Britain's most politically correct police chief. Police forces in the UK are notionally independent of central government. Blunkett seems set to change that. The Telegraph's conclusion must serve as a warning: this affair "raises the spectre of a reorganisation of the criminal justice system on continental lines, with ministers of the interior and of justice to replace the Home Secretary and the Lord Chancellor. Above all, it points towards a national police force. The police should never be identified with the state, but that is the way we are tending."
:: Swordsman 6/27/2001 07:35:00 AM [+] ::
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"I am not obsessed with Europe, mon ami"

According to this Ananova story, Ken Clarke has set out his stall. He is going to make Europe a leadership election issue. This is going to be disastrous either for him or the party. By doing so, he might alienate enough MPs that he'll come a cropper in the first stage of the election, unless the "Stop Portillo" bandwagon is big enough (and I can't see it being so at the moment as the MPs want to be seen to be "inclusive"). If he does get through to the membership ballot and wins, then according to all the polls, some 20% of party supporters will leave. I'd imagine that those 20% form a significant proportion of the activists, leaving the party in a perilous position. Portillo turns off only slightly fewer supporters, but I have the suspicion that those are mostly the "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells" types who support the party but don't really do much for it. All in all, I find this a silly decision. If Europe isn't an important issue, then don't go on about it.

Supplementary: This Telegraph op/ed by my old acquaintance Stephen Pollard states bluntly why Clarke would be a disaster as leader without even mentioning the Europe issue. I still think Clarke would be an asset to the Party as a elder statesman in the Shadow Cabinet, but he can't be allowed to set the direction on Europe. His insistence that the UK Parliament cannot overturn decisions of the European Court is an utter affront to democracy.
:: Swordsman 6/27/2001 06:55:00 AM [+] ::
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The Magdalen Techno-Machine

Former Oxford Union President Andrew Sullivan's daily weblog is an excellent source of conservative ideas that, er, includes inclusiveness (Sullivan is gay, for the 3% of you who didn't know) but does not make it the ends, rather the means, of policy. Here's an excellent commentary on the Republican candidate for New Jersey Governor:

A CONVICTION POLITICIAN: "Folks, we have a moral responsibility to get taxes down." When did you last hear that kind of clarity? Of course giving people back real control over their own lives is a moral issue. If people want to know why Bret Schundler won the Republican primary for New Jersey governor last night, that sentence will tell them a lot. So too will these from his victory speech: "I want there to be a day when African- American children in the lowest-income sections of this state don't feel that there is a wall separating them from the opportunities other children have. I want senior citizens to know that they will not have to worry about paying their taxes or feeding themselves or losing their homes. And I want each one of you to know that New Jersey will not become one great L.A. sprawl out to every corner and paving over every green space." It's a good conservative combo: school vouchers, social security privatization, environmental concern. President Bush placed a congratulatory call to Schundler last night. I hoped he stayed on the line a while to take some advice.

Yet more good stuff. Of course, the last person I heard say the lowering taxes was a moral issue was Sullivan's good friend William Hague.
:: Swordsman 6/27/2001 06:37:00 AM [+] ::
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Turn again, Dick Whittington?

Jonah Goldberg's unmissable G-File on NRO is all about how compromise is often wrong in politics. Tories wondering what to do next should bear this in mind, particularly this reference to CS Lewis:

"The government is too big, too parental, too meddlesome. The Republican agenda is to change that. Whether that change should take the form of reducing the size and ambitions of government to those of 1970, 1950, or 1820 is a subject worthy of considerable debate. C.S. Lewis once noted that if you come to a fork in the road and you walk a mile down the wrong path the only real progress is not to keeping walking "forward" but to double-back and take the right road."

Worth thinking about.
:: Swordsman 6/26/2001 01:35:00 PM [+] ::
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France & Steyn

(Sorry, I just had to do that at least once). Mark Steyn, who gets printed all over the place, has some of the best characterisations of Europe I've seen in this piece in Canada's National Post. Here are some extracts:

"[President Bush] was in a strange shadow state called "Europe." It has a European government, but no European political parties. It has a defence policy, but it doesn't have an army. It swanks about like a superpower, but half its members are neutrals. It wants to meddle in North Korea, but it's paralyzed in the face of genocide on its own frontier. It has a flag and an enraged mob to burn it, but it has no basic constitutional principles other than the perverse conviction that it's the guys who lose the elections who get to run the joint: Mr Patten lost his seat in the British House of Commons; his fellow Euro Commissioner, Neil Kinnock, was appointed after leading the Labour Party to two spectacular general election defeats.

"If we've learned anything this last week, it's that there's certainly a gap between America and "Europe," as there is between America and the Land of Oz or the Planet Krypton. It's the gap between solid ground and a fantasy playground.

"Whatever one's view on the moral objections, what's revealing is that the assumptions behind the EU line on capital punishment underpin everything else in "Europe," too: The governing class knows best; its duty is to nullify the baser urges of its peoples ­ not just on the death penalty or the Treaty of Nice, but on anything that comes up. Not so long ago, Jean-Pierre Chevenement, then France's Defence Minister, insisted that the United States was dedicated to "the organized cretinization of our people." As a dismissal of American pop culture -- Hollywood, McDonald's, etc. -- this statement is not without its appeal, though it sounds better if you've never had the misfortune to sit through a weekend of Continental TV. But the reality is that no one is as dedicated to the proposition that the people are cretins as Mr. Chevenement and the panjandrums of the new "Europe." The EU is organized on the assumption that its people are total cretins. If, like the Irish, they're impertinent enough to tick the wrong box, we'll just keep re-asking the question until they get it right.

"This also explains their anger at Mr. Bush over Kyoto. If it was just one right-wing crazy pissing on their eco-treaty, they might have a point. But the U.S. Senate -- including Ted Kennedy and a couple dozen other diehard liberals -- voted 95-zip against it, the sort of unanimity not seen since the votes to enter the two World Wars. The EU is understandably baffled that, in a real federation as opposed to a pretend one, head office isn't able simply to nullify the people's elected representatives."

It seems to me that if the Tories are going to say anything about Europe (and we need to) we need to move away from economics and arguing about how many jobs will be lost and into the simple matter of democracy. It's still the truth that the British simply don't like people telling them what to do unless they've put them there. Calling the Brussels figures "nabobs" might be a start...

I'm grateful to Howard Fienberg's weblog The Corruption for quoting this article so extensively.

:: Swordsman 6/26/2001 08:42:00 AM [+] ::
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Justice, British-style

Libby Purves writes in The Times about the swirling mists of loathing that have enveloped Britain in the wake of the decision to release the killers of toddler James Bulger on licence. The article contains many perceptive comments about the state of Britain today. Perhaps most interesting are the comments about all the other children simmering with the same problems that afflicted the killers. Conservatives have to "wise up" and realise that they are the only ones who can possibly tackle the social issues that are turning British children into barbarians. As for the release issue, some genuine prison reform would be a good start...
:: Swordsman 6/26/2001 08:08:00 AM [+] ::
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Too clever by half?

Cambridge don John Casey opines in the Telegraph that the Tories need a "brainy" leader rather than one who speaks plainly. Why are these two contradictory? Look at the current President of the US -- Yale, Harvard and a genuinely folksy speaker. Look at Bill Clinton -- Rhodes Scholar, but always the son of a single mother from Hope. Interestingly, there is one candidate in the Tory leadership race that combines characteristics of both of these Presidents. David Davis is the Harvard-educated son of a single mother. He is as down-to-earth as you can get while still being a very bright man. I'd accept Portillo as leader, but Davis would probably be much better.
:: Swordsman 6/26/2001 07:26:00 AM [+] ::
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The Daley Dish

Janet Daley writes in the Telegraph about the differences between the Portillo and Ancram campaign launches, approving of Portillo's as the more American. Good for her! She also comes to the following conclusion, which Tories should read every morning as they get up:

"The Tories are still capable of generating the arguments and the ideas that are worth having - especially on the subject of what needs to be done to deliver world-class health care and education. What they need desperately to learn is that people no longer wish to be patronised and snubbed: gentlemanliness too often looks (especially on television) like paternalism or ineffectualness, or both. Voters have moved on - not necessarily in some politically correct lockstep, but as self-respecting individuals who expect a proper invitation to the discussion about their future."

'Nuff said.

:: Swordsman 6/26/2001 07:19:00 AM [+] ::
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UPI columnist and author of a forthcoming book on the "Anglosphere," James C. Bennett, had this to say on my Worsthorne analysis below:

"I addressed some of these issues in my review of the Hitchens book [in the latest issue of The American Outlook]. To me the point is, where is the (19th century) Liberal viewpoint in all of this? The real tragedy of British politics is that the Labour party supplanted the Liberal party as the natural party of the working classes, and substituted a pointless chasing of socialist and union goals for the real ameliorations that Liberalism could deliver, and had started to deliver. The loss of the labor and Irish votes for Liberalism shrunk its base unnaturally. This also deprived the Tories of their natural opponents, with whom they had developed a constructive rivalry.

"The entire true Liberal viewpoint was driven underground in British politics until it was revived by Margaret Thatcher (a Liberal
councillor's daughter, from the Liberal electoral heartland) under the guise of "dry" Toryism. There is room for wet and dry Toryism, or true Conservative and Liberalism, if you will. But Blairite New Labour has usurped much of the natural constituency for both.

"As a practical matter, I do think that traditional England, and traditional Toryism, of the kind that Scruton and Hitchens eulogize, is
probably dead, or very much dying. It was a living tradition which, once disrupted, is very hard to revive in peoples' hearts. What will
eventually replace it will be a new synthesis, probably with a lot of grafting from American sources, as America is now probably a more traditional and settled country than Britain. (We were frozen in early modernism, and never developed the full-blown 20th Century modernism, which is why we're always the "only industrialized country to not...(you name it)..")

"Maybe that's a pity, but I think it is a fact."

Fair comment all, I think.

:: Swordsman 6/25/2001 02:16:00 PM [+] ::
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Lack of Class

Tory doyen Peregrine Wortshorne calls the Conservative Party pointless in a eulogy for the class system in New Statesman. I find this a strangely short-sighted and disappointing essay, so please forgive this lengthy critique.
Like all good Tories, Worsthorne harks back to the golden age ushered in by the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Like most good Tories, he forgets that this was a culmination of fifty-plus years of constitutional debate. The constitution ushered in by the Bill of Rights 1689 was a classical mixed polity, of the sort of which Cicero would have approved greatly. It embodied a mix of monarchical, aristocratic and democratic powers in the persons of King, Lords and Commons, all dependent on each other. But this was not the first time this had been tried. The Protectorate's constitution was very similar, substituting a selected Lord Protector for an hereditary King. The aristocracy had an important voice, but it had realised that the people at large needed a voice in government, without which the aristocracy would come under pressure quickly. This concession of power, while voluntary, was necessary for the aristocracy not to succumb to the same pressures that toppled the King in the 1640s and toppled the French aristocracy one hundred years later.
But by creating the mixed polity, the Bill of Rights began a process of transference of power to the people. The Executive power quickly moved from the King to the Legislature and power in the Legislature gradually moved from Lords to Commons (which, of course, had exercised considerable legislative power for many years). It is always worth remembering that the first Prime Minister was a commoner. Even if the Commons was made up of squires, they are still less "noble" than the King or Lords. That transfer, and concentration, of power down the social ladder was always going to lead to an end to deference, perhaps Worsthorne's biggest lament. Wortshorne should remember that this transfer of power was basically complete by the mid-19th century, long before Thatcherism, or even socialism. If Perry is regretting the demise of the squirearchy, then he is only regretting the demise of an intermediate stage in the transfer of power down the social scale.
Wortshorne is also on shaky ground when he talks about our ancient liberties being "granted" by the aristocracy rather than being based on theory. What rot! Many of our liberties place their roots squarely and firmly in theory derived from Biblical readings. Magna Carta is, in many ways, a side issue. The drive towards liberty that reached its fruityion in the 17th Century was a product of the English desire to secure freedom of worship, which has nothing to do with Magna Carta. Milton's argument against restricting freedom of the press was partly "it will be primely to the discouragement of all learning, and the stop of Truth, not only by disexercising and blunting our abilities in what we know already, but by hindering and cropping the discovery that might bee yet further made both in religious and civill Wisdome" (Areopagitica). That theorising from religious bases can also be seen in Tom Paine's works like Common Sense.
My point here is that English history has for several hundred years been predicated on a principled capture of power by a wider mass of people than any other country except the US (and that only comparatively recently as the Constitution ensured the entrenchment of the WASP "aristocracy" until not so long ago). Worsthorne no doubt approved of this capture by the gentry, so why he opposes its further capture by the lower middle class I do not know (I shall refrain from the obvious ad hominem arguments). I say "principled" becuase that capture has been done mainly on the principles of greater liberty and greater involvement of the democratic element of the mixed polity.
Which brings us to the argument about current politics. Yes, New Labour has co-opted the most recent defining task of the Conservative Party -- the defence of the self-interest of the middle class. Thanks to Mrs T, that class is now much larger than ever before. But in doing so, it has abandoned the defence of the self-interest of the working class, which it has left to wallow in crime and family breakdown, themselves products of the licence claimed by the middle classes in the sixties, laughably in the name of liberty. Unfortunately, the working class sees the Conservative Party as having contributed to that problem: it was the party of the middle class and authority sources at the time when those sources, the BBC and the judiciary prominent among them, were urging forward the rush to social change. It then became the party that put dying nationalised industries out of their misery, and will therefore not be forgiven quickly for the end of the guaranteed job for life that the working class thought was something it had earned. It is for this reason that mere "inclusiveness" will not be attractive to the working class. The Conservatives under this model will just be seen as New Labour with blue ties and shady pasts.
Meanwhile, Worsthorne regrets that "all our institutions are disorientated: parliament, the civil service, the judiciary, the armed forces, Oxbridge and so on have all lost their authroity." I disagree that these institutions have lost their authority. Most people still look up to the BBC, the courts, Oxbridge and the rest. The difference is that the authority they retain is no longer Tory. The institutions, the BBC foremost among them, are solidly New Labour in outlook, the result of a culture war that was lost as the economic and Cold wars were being won.
If being conservative is to believe, with Roger Scruton, that there are independent sources of authority which should guide us, then what is to save the Conservative Party from being pointless? Worsthorne mourns the gentry. Yes, the gentry is either dead or split between New Labour and the ineffective "centre" of the Tory party. But to my mind, there is still hope. The sources of authority that we should be looking to are the guiding principles that led to the Glorious Revolution in the first place. Ancient liberties, and their meanings, should be guiding us in our social policies. They are both conservative and patriotic. And we should look at how they can be applied to the defence of the self-interest of the working class. If the Conservative Party says goodbye to the narrow base of the gentry and welcomes the much larger base of the working class, endeavouring to complete the transfer of power to the largest base in the Kingdom, then it will merely be completing a process set in motion over three hundred years ago.
:: Swordsman 6/25/2001 08:42:00 AM [+] ::
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Hume's "On Liberty"...

Put liberty first in New Labour's second term argues the irrepresible Mick Hume on Sp!ked, his trendy successor website to LM magazine. He asks who is going to stand up for liberty, but declares the Tories to be irrelevant. They don't have to be of course. A Tory party that based its policies firmly on Milton, Locke and Blackstone (rather than on what focus groups tell them is the flavour of the moment) could be the answer to Mick's prayers. But that just wouldn't be cool, would it?
:: Swordsman 6/22/2001 11:19:00 AM [+] ::
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Free speech? That'll be 3 million pounds, sir

Patrick Basham of the libertarian Cato Institute uses a column entitled "Campaign finance fantasies" in The Washington Times to criticize American campaign finance reform on the basis of what happened in the British election. Essentially, he claims the Tories lost because they couldn't spend any money getting their message across, so Labour had the incumbency advantage. Interesting analysis, but I don't buy it. The UK populace bears grudges and as a result simply won't listen to people who they've lost trust in. It happened to Labour after the Winter of Discontent and happened to the Tories after Black (I still prefer Golden) Wednesday. No amount of money would have got the British people to listen to the arguments the Tories were putting out. I believe that is why CCO initially chose the tactics they did -- get the people to listen on things they agree with by tubthumping on popular causes, then argue the other policies. Unfortunately, the people didn't listen even on the "popular" policies so things started drifting. Drifting to the extent that you get this extraordinary admission from Michael Ancram in today's Telegraph:
"In an interview with The Telegraph, he (Ancram) defended his role in the election campaign under William Hague. He denied that it had focused too heavily on Europe and asylum. "I think we fought a broad-based campaign," he said. "We had strong policies on education and health, but I am told anecdotally that they weren't heard.""
[Anecdotally? Good grief. Now I think Portillo should run as the "Stop Ancram" candidate...]
In any event, there does need to be a real debate on what free speech means in the UK. Campaign restrictions should form part of that debate, but the problem is not the one that Basham outlines.


:: Swordsman 6/22/2001 07:25:00 AM [+] ::
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Hanna, thou shouldst be living at this hour

Slightly off-topic, but a good indicator of how much worse the media in the US than even the UK. The Washington Bulletin on NRO writes about the recently concluded US Congressional "Special Election" (by-election) in the Fourth District of Virginia. In the UK, of course, by-elections are always regarded as national referenda even if conducted in Jarrow or Huntingdon [two of the safest seats in Britain, in case you are unfamiliar with them]. Here, there was every indication that the media were going to treat this election that way ... until the result. Conservative guru Grover Norquist was heard to comment, "I haven't heard the result of the special election. So I guess we won." Vincent Hanna would weep.
:: Swordsman 6/21/2001 01:10:00 PM [+] ::
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Decency? Not a political virtue, I'm afraid

Peter Oborne of The Spectator writes in The Daily Telegraph about Michael Ancram's standing for party leader. Ancram is, by all accounts (including this one) a walking embodiment of the English virtues of decency, loyalty, modesty and due deference. In many ways, he would be an ideal Prime Minister. But in getting there, I am afraid, the old English virtues are no longer advantageous. He looks like the perfect candidate for the 1950s. He does not pass the laugh test for the 2000s. That is a tragedy (see Hitchens, passim) but I am afraid it is reality.
:: Swordsman 6/21/2001 07:44:00 AM [+] ::
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Welfare Reform: Good for Everyone

Columnist John Leo writes about the effects of welfare reform (basically, forcing the chronically unemployed to take work). This seems to have had a beneficial effect fot the poor in the US. If the Tories are going to adopt policies like this, they need to use the evidence from the US to prove that the effect is good for the people who will be affected: poverty down, illegitimacy down, single-parent families down and (of course, although Leo and the rest keep failing to make the connection) crime down, civic engagement up. "Welfare reform" is a way to make inner cities better places to live and raise families. You don't have to be "inclusive" to make that point.
:: Swordsman 6/20/2001 09:15:00 AM [+] ::
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Good Grief: Part II

Just read this story from The Times. Apartheid? Jim Crow? Have these people no idea of the consequences of these proposals? Words fail me.
:: Swordsman 6/20/2001 07:59:00 AM [+] ::
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Good Grief: Part I

The Queen's speech (analysed here by Peter Riddell in The Times) supposedly announces legislation to end protection from double jeopardy (although I couldn't find the specific reference in the text I read). This remains astonishing to me. Aside from the fundamental principle that the provision is a defence against tyranny, there are many practical objections, especially to the way that has been proposed. For instance, Imran Khan (not the cricketer), who brought a civil prosecution against the suspects in the Stephen Lawrence case, commented, "Imagine a jury sitting in the trial who know a High Court judge has looked at the evidence and said it is compelling and should lead to a conviction." That violates the central principle of innocence until proven guilty. But this government doesn't care about that either. The only way I would support an amendment to the double jeopardy principle is if it did not apply in cases where the judge dismissed the case on a technicality. But even then I would limit the number of times a defendent can be dragged into court. Ancient liberties are not something that can be swept away like so much trash.
:: Swordsman 6/20/2001 07:55:00 AM [+] ::
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Liberal a pejorative? Not with people like this around

Virginia Postrel, big-wig at the Reason Institute, is one of the most interesting commentators in America today. She calls herself a "dynamist," although most others would call her a libertarian. Her website is a great source for ideas which are both liberal and conservative. In commenting on the British election, she first says that William Hague just looked wrong for today's politics -- akin to having someone who couldn't make speeches in the radio age -- and then makes the following perceptive observations:
"As for policy, or at least rhetoric, it's remarkable that the Tories have allowed control-freak Tony Blair to capture the spirit of hope, growth, and opportunity—to capture what I call in The Future and Its Enemies both pro-regulation technocrats (his natural base) and dynamists who support the open society. Perhaps out of loyalty to a reactionary base, the Tories have framed their Euroskepticism as backward-looking nationalism rather than a defense of freedom, openness, and a better future for all. They've come off as anti-cosmopolitan, anti-progress, and anti-brown Britons. As a teenager, Hague riveted a Tory conference with a speech that, in [Andrew] Sullivan's words, dared to remind "the retired colonels and aging Tory ladies" that he had a stake in the future: "It's all right for some of you. Half of you won't be here in 30 or 40 years' time, but I will, and I want to be free." Maybe the radicalism of Hague's youth would scare today's voters. But it wouldn't make them think he was against the future."
Good stuff. Check out Reason Online for more great insights and ideas. Ron Bailey's work on science is particularly worth reading.
:: Swordsman 6/19/2001 08:16:00 AM [+] ::
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The case for prison

Jonah Goldberg makes the case for the incapacitation benefits of locking villains up in a simple and pithy way that even the Lord Chief Justice should be able to understand. Combine a new tough prisons policy with a humane, traditional Christian conservative rehabilitation effort and you have a policy which will do real good as well as be attractive to people whose lives are blighted by crime. The only one who seemed to understand this was Ann Widdecombe, as revealed by her remarks yesterday. Will any of Messrs Portillo, Duncan-Smith or Davis pick up on this?
:: Swordsman 6/19/2001 07:30:00 AM [+] ::
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The EU -- shoots at demonstrators but can't at enemies

The widening gap between EU rhetoric and reality on defence is shown up in an Austin Bay article entitled "Military muscle gap of European Union" in The Washington Times today. This is one of the main reasons I'm not too worried about ESDP in practice. Nevertheless, it weakens perceptions of NATO and could be abolished without anyone noticing. I think a policy to reduce British commitment to ESDP could be a potential vote winner with a bit of work.
:: Swordsman 6/18/2001 11:23:00 AM [+] ::
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Three steps to heaven

Pat Fagan, a senior figure at the Heritage Foundation has an excellent article entitled "Time for instruction in the three W's" in The Washington Times today. The three "Ws" are work, wedlock and worship. All three form the bedrock of a civilised society, but Conservatives in the UK are frightened of mentioning all 3 in case they appear judgmental. That's got to change, especially as all 3 are attractive to at least elements of the working class who I think will form the swing vote at the next election.
:: Swordsman 6/18/2001 11:17:00 AM [+] ::
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Treat the cause, not the symptom!

What is happening to Britain? There's a story in today'sTimes about how NHS organizations are going to be allowed to refuse treatment to people who attack staff. Why on earth isn't the real problem being faced up to? As anyone who reads Theodore Dalrymple on a regular basis will know, the police just aren't interested in doing anything about these violent incidents. But, as study after study has shown, violence increases as the risk of punishment decreases. So rather than imposing this incredibly weak punishment, why not have police arrest and magistrates punish these offenders properly? Until the UK gets serious about crime and starts building prisons to sort out the barbarians our society is breeding, this sort of thing will continue to spiral out of control. Gah!
:: Swordsman 6/18/2001 08:33:00 AM [+] ::
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The New Broom?

The campaign for David Davis to become the next leader of the Conservative Party has started. I wouldn't be averse to this strong Euroskeptic taking over on a new broom ticket. The problem he has it that it would be "David Who?" on the doorstep. But he'd have over 3 years to overcome that and the precedent of Hague's "progress" to know what to avoid. Worth a couple of quid at William Hill, I'd suggest.
:: Swordsman 6/18/2001 07:27:00 AM [+] ::
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Dougie Smith: The Voice of Reason?

Former FCS "stormtrooper" Douglas Smith has an eminently reasonable article in the The Daily Telegraph's Opinion section today. He is quite right in saying that local selection boards are doing the Tories more harm than good but doesn't really offer any solution to the problem. Central imposition of candidates would be just as bad (and as long as the utterly useless Roger Freeman has any role in candidate selection it would probably be worse). So how do we make selection boards better? By getting more and younger active members would be my guess. But how do we do that? By having more attractive policies and presentation. But presentation is in the hands of people who fall victim to the problems Smith outlines. So that leaves policies as the only answer. If the new leader doesn't address that central issue, heaven help us.
:: Swordsman 6/18/2001 07:18:00 AM [+] ::
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A New Trade Policy

I never tire of recommending this. Anyone who is interested in a trade policy for the UK that would dispense with the need for the EU altogether should read 'The World Turned Rightside Up' by John C. Hulsman online at the IEA website. You could also do him a favour and buy a copy. It's very cheap for such a useful tract.
:: Swordsman 6/15/2001 08:30:00 AM [+] ::
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An Integrated Education Policy?

Andrew Gimson writes in The Spectator about the futility of trying to teach disruptive pupils. This makes me think that Tories should be closely linking education and crime initiatives. If crime is seen as a norm, it becomes socially acceptable. Young people then have a choice of socially acceptable routes to achieving their goals -- the old way of doing well at school and then getting a good job based on that, or the new way of crime. If crime is made socially unacceptable again then the "old way" becomes compartively more attractive. So we cannot hope to deal with the problem of disruptive pupils until we get the crime rate down.If we sell our crime ideas as having a beneficial result on education as well as on quality of life, that's win-win. The alternative is to give up and follow Andrew Gimson's advice, which would be yet another step towards surrendering any hope of being a truly civilised country again.
:: Swordsman 6/14/2001 07:06:00 AM [+] ::
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A Capital Idea?

Simon Jenkins, whom I find at times to be an inspired Conservative, at others a useless leftie, writes inThe Times about capital punishment on both sides of the Atlantic. Personally, I am dead set against the idea of the state executing anyone (I believe we all have the chance for redemption), but there are many valid arguments in favour of it. In fact, I'm currently analysing the first scientific study that actually claims to show a real and measurable deterrent effect from the death penalty in the US. If the Conservative Party is to appeal more to the working class, then the promise to hold a referendum (not a free vote in the House or anything like that) on the re-introduction of the death penalty for aggravated murder might be a good policy. Plus, the likely result would put the will of the people of the UK in direct conflict with the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The question of which was to be sovereign would then have to be faced square on. And that would be a good thing.
:: Swordsman 6/13/2001 01:37:00 PM [+] ::
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The subtitle says it all

Jonah Goldberg onNRO points out that Europe is not the future. How true!
:: Swordsman 6/13/2001 12:57:00 PM [+] ::
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The Eurosceptic Election Analysis

Noted Eurosceptic writer Helen Szamuely writes on the excellent EUobserver site on what she thinks were the lessons of the elections. A bit single-issue for my taste, but this is a valuable contribution.
:: Swordsman 6/13/2001 07:57:00 AM [+] ::
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Slightly off-topic

Not really about the conservative revival, but the excellent Dave Kopel, Paul Gallant and Joanne Eisen write on NRO about Foot & Mouth and the insanities it has provoked. Well worth a read.
:: Swordsman 6/12/2001 11:59:00 AM [+] ::
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Gove Again

Michael Gove uses his platform in The Times to call for a Tory agenda that only one man seems to be able to answer: Michael Portillo. Funny, that...
:: Swordsman 6/12/2001 08:01:00 AM [+] ::
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The new PJ O'Rourke speaks

Mark Steyn has a typically savage article in today's National Post -- Conrad Black's Canadian flagship -- that tells it straight. This extract is particularly hard hitting and, sad to say, true:
"The British have been fatalistic for two generations now. The only reason they're in the European Union is a deeply ingrained defeatism -- the feeling that there's nothing to be done, there's nowhere else to go. In the last 30 years, the British have given up their shillings and pence, their Imperial weights and measures, their red phone boxes ... There was never any reason to believe that, when Mr. Blair eventually calls his long-promised referendum on sterling, the British wouldn't kiss off the pound as they've let go everything else."

:: Swordsman 6/12/2001 07:54:00 AM [+] ::
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Michael Gove

My old mate Michael Gove writes an intriguing article in The Spectator in which he calls for the Conservative Party to step back from the "No" campaign against Euro entry and also for a true meeting of minds between the US and UK.
:: Swordsman 6/11/2001 02:19:00 PM [+] ::
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National Review Online

The ever-readable National Review's online edition has an excellent John O'Sullivan article on the future of British conservatism that is well worth a look.
:: Swordsman 6/11/2001 01:30:00 PM [+] ::
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Iain Murray’s Thoughts on the British Election Results

Labour: In some ways, Labour’s bluff has been called. “We need another five years and the freedom to put our plans into action,” was their claim. The British public replied, “Okay, then. We’ll give you what you want, but you’d better deliver.” Failure to deliver substantial improvements in health, education and transport services will not be forgotten. And, despite his huge majority, Blair knows his mandate is weak: only 25% of the country voted for his party. The tensions created by Labour dominance will also be much more apparent this time. I think that the already announced demotion of Robin Cook is part of an effort to stave off a potentially damaging party split on the European issue. Luckily, it seems that Gordon Brown is in control here and is not surprisingly unwilling to let Europe have any more control over economic issues. But with the utterly illiberal Straw in the Foreign Office, I fear that the trade-off may be to give Europe more say in criminal justice matters (which is truly terrifying).

There is also plenty of scope for trouble in the devolved assemblies. Scottish Executive members' disparaging comments about the Scottish Secretary and the admittedly comical Brian Wilson have already made headlines north of the border. The Scottish Labour party is notably less “progressive” than the English party, which could lead to embarrassing stand-offs. The conflict with Ken Livingstone and the impressive American Bob Kiley over the future of the London Underground was also merely postponed until after the election. Nothing causes Londoners to lose patience with a Government quicker than incompetence in the transport arena. This could yet be a serious problem for Blair if Stephen Byers doesn’t handle this one well.

Finally, there is the spectre of what happened to Margaret Thatcher. The main reason she was unseated was because MPs got nervous that they would lose their seats if she didn’t go. If Blair’s regime doesn’t start delivering, at least 100 MPs will start to get nervous. I can easily envisage a time when they collude with Brown’s supporters to overthrow Blair and install Brown on the promise that he will throw money at the problem, or with a pro-European figure like Cook on the basis that he will transfer responsibility away to Europe. Either scenario is very bad for Britain.

Conservatives: Hague’s resignation was a tacit acceptance that they campaigned on the wrong issues. People may have agreed with them on asylum and Europe (and GM foods for that matter), but that didn’t change their vote. People wanted to see a genuine debate over how to improve public services. Quite why no-one performed an inventory of government waste to demonstrate what programs could be cut without anyone shedding a tear, I do not know. That must surely be a priority for the next leader. The other priorities must be to communicate properly the excellent policy on education, develop a meaningful transport policy and, perhaps, to grasp firmly the “third rail” of British politics, private investment in the NHS. A mid-Atlantic crime policy (adopting good US policing and crime reduction policies whilst taking up once again the old Conservative standard of prison reform) might be useful too.

Of course, the main problem facing the new leader will be the Euro referendum (although if Brown and Straw are sound on that topic, it may not be as quick in coming as was anticipated.) To my mind, the best thing the new Tory leader can do on this subject is to shut up about it and let Business for Sterling and the rest of the politically-neutral “No” campaign take over. Indeed, a new leader allowing MPs a free hand on the issue might be politically beneficial as it could dispel the image that the Tories are “obsessed” with Europe that has been so damaging.

It is for that reason that I am coming round more and more to the idea that Ken Clarke has to be brought into the leadership somehow. I cannot see him as leader – he’s just too ham-fisted on Europe to be effective – but as Deputy Leader and Shadow Chancellor, proving that there is a place for dissenters, however small in number they may be, he could be politically useful. Add to that his reputation for economic competence and a combative style that could embarrass Brown the way none of the other Shadow Chancellors since 1997 have been able to do, and you have a useful addition to the team.

So who is to be leader? I cannot see enough MPs voting for either of the declared candidates, Widdecombe or Duncan-Smith, to get their name through to the constituency ballot (the MPs select 2 candidates, who are then voted on by all Party members – time to join up if you want a say!). Portillo is a shoe-in for one spot if he wants it, but who will get the other? Again, I cannot see Clarke getting on the ballot, but it wouldn’t surprise me if a “new broom” candidate like David Davis managed to wheedle himself enough support to surprise people. I think that second spot is very open, and will depend on all sorts of internal parliamentary politics. Nevertheless, if Portillo is on that ballot I think he will defeat whomever he faces in the run-off. If he decides not to stand, and that may just happen if his “rebirth” was genuine, then the whole thing is up in the air. But there are plenty of Times journalists who would be very surprised at that…

Was there any bright spot to emerge from Thursday? Yes, the Tories did very well in the Local Government elections, gaining well over 100 seats nationwide, and supplanting the Liberal Democrats in many areas. Bill Deedes wrote in the Telegraph last week about the loss of the Conservative “volunteer army,” but here is evidence that recruiting on the ground is strong. Conservative councils now need to do what they did in the Seventies and show that conservatives are competent administrators again. With that, the fieldwork for a Conservative victory in 2005-6 will be in place.

Liberal Democrats: The Lib Dems had an odd night. The headlines are all about their great successes, but if there are any deep thinkers in that party they will have a lot to mull over today. The party's main successes came about as a result of tactical voting. Where that did not occur, they suffered losses (e.g. Isle of Wight) and their much vaunted strength in local government was decimated in the local elections (they are on course to lose over 100 council seats). Essentially, they form a client party for Labour. If they were to differ too much from their master, such that Labour voters did not view them as a safe refuge for their vote, they would lose many of the seats they have gained since 1997. As I see it, the only way in which they could regain independence and again be a genuine “third voice” is to reposition themselves as the genuine party of the left, dedicated to the old “jobs and services” philosophy of Derek Hatton and his ilk mixed with radical environmentalism, so attracting the votes of teachers and other “educated” public sector workers. They would lose most of the votes of those who still think they are a centrist party, but the teacher-block votes would make up for those and for the withdrawn Labour tactical votes. This would, of necessity, shift their battleground away from challenging the Tories to challenging mostly Labour in the cities and suburbs. This could only be good for the Conservative party. Of course, the likelihood is that Kennedy will choose to continue to lick the hand that has fed him so well. But come the next election, he may find that his local party machinery has withered away.

Others: Nationalism has been hurt badly by devolution. The SNP vote fell, while PC’s didn’t change much (although it fell badly from the ’99 assembly elections). The only explanation I can think of for this is that voters who wanted a degree of independence now feel they have it, leaving only the out-and-out nationalists to vote for the nationalist parties. That is going to be a major blow to them, and to the cause of nationalism in general. It may be that devolution has saved the Union (unless, of course, English nationalism now starts to rise). The independents showed two sides of the same coin: Martin Bell proved he was simply an unwitting Labour stooge by picking the wrong seat to fight – he might have done a lot better against Keith Vaz or Shaun Woodward. Richard Taylor, however, showed that a local candidate fighting on an important local issue can pick up thousands of votes. The lesson to learn here is that national issues might not be as important in determining votes as we think. The UKIP failed utterly, apart from probably causing enough disruption to Patrick Nichols’ campaign in Teignbridge to cause him to lose his seat. He was, of course, a vocally Euroskeptic MP. Euroskeptics 0 Eurofanatics 1 (UKIP o.g. 90).

:: Swordsman 6/11/2001 08:46:00 AM [+] ::
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Hitchens in the Washington Times

Peter Hitchens has an excellent article in today's Washington Times about Labour's win in the general election, but he makes the cardinal error of failing to explain why Americans should care (a brief mention of defence in the last paragraph doesn't cut it). Until we find a compelling way of convincing Americans that this matters to them, Britain's descent into the European morass will continue to be way down their list of priorities.
:: Swordsman 6/11/2001 08:45:00 AM [+] ::
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