Fluent Radical

Political support from an unlikely source:

However, here for the Black Friday are the Manolo’s political beliefs, summed up in the following short statements.

1) Everyone has the right to be super fantastic. The Manolo he is the proud and strong believer in the personal freedoms, in the ability of the autonomous individual to dress in manner he or she desires (even if the manner chosen it is awful).

2) Manolo loves the Capitalism! Nothing is more worthy of the ridicule than the fashion sense of the dictators, politburos, autocrats, and tyrants. For the example, the most horrible, deadening, life-sucking piece of the fashion ever invented, it is the Mao suit, for it reduces the individual to the mere cog in the ideological machine. Happily we live in the system in which the marketplace it is free to deliver to the peoples the beautiful clothes, enabling each individual to dress in the manner he or she chooses.

…

I don’t know why I read this guy. I have no love for shoes but his third person thing just tickles me. He’s a he right?

There was a time when the Economist spoke without political bias. It was a voice of authority because it didn’t enter into the political partisanism of the rest of the press, but rather always seemed to be speaking from some distant place where it could observe and report upon Britain without prejudice.

Bagehot throws all that away today.

[Cameron's] only big mistake, made when his campaign was in the doldrums, was to promise to pull Tory members of the European Parliament out of the centre-right, but federalist-inclined, European People’s Party (EPP) grouping. It was a blatant sop to the Europhobe head-bangers who deserve much of the blame for what has gone wrong for the Tories over the past 15 years. [My emphasis]

Leaving aside that it was the Europhiles who destroyed the Tories reputation on the economy, and the fact that Europe is the issue on which the Party is most in tune with voters. Let’s leave aside also that it is the area of greatest conservative success over the last 10 years - advocating withdrawal used to be a fringe sport, now you find it in national newspapers.

No, let’s focus on Bagehot’s obvious belief that Europe is an issue over which reasonable people can’t disagree. If you don’t believe in merging Britain into a European state, you are a head-banger. Eurosceptic means Europhobe, because anyone who worries over the constitutional arrangements of the EU is simply possessed of an unthinking fear of foreigners.

This is wishful thinking from Bagehot. The poor man is losing the argument over Europe, so he’s reduced to ad hominem attacks against his opponents.

Tone it down, guys. If I’m in the market for being attacked I’ll read the Guardian.

England, as opposed to Britain, has an unfortunate history around the world and within the British Isles and please do not say that it is all past.

This is astonishing and I link to it because I hope the entire blogosphere picks it up. Terry White (Communications Unit, The Labour Party) takes his place next to Vince Cable in the hall of self-shame. You’ve got to ask yourself what kind of communications officer, when faced with such a inquiry from a potential voter, would then attempt to alienate that voter even further in their response.

This “England, as opposed to Britain” bit is a particularly gratuitous insult. Not to mention the question that arises in my mind when I consider the timeframe of the Empire. Wasn’t it almost entirely a British, as opposed to English, project?

Cameron has signalled he’d be open to a name change for the Party (don’t get hysterical - he didn’t say he was going to do it, just that he was open to suggestions). Well, he’s right. The Party needs a name change.

Our new name should be the “Conservative Party”. The BBC likes to call us the Tory Party (roughly a fifth of the time according to Google). Sure it’s a convenient shorthand, but doesn’t it also imply a certain something that “Conservative” doesn’t? “Tory” describes a member of the Conservative Party, in which sense it’s quite innocent, but it also describes a strand of conservative thought.

But what is Toryism? The following is from The Right Nation by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge:

Classical conservatism, as defined by Burke, was built upon six pillars:

• a deep suspicion of the power of the state;
• a preference for liberty over equality;
• love of country;
• a belief in established institutions and hierarchies;
• skepticism about progress;
• and elitism.

American conservatism exaggerates the first three of these attributes, and subverts the last three. The result is a distinctive mixture of uber-traditionalism and classical liberalism.

Toryism is a bit of a loose concept. But if it means anything I would describe it as the part of our movement that subscribes to the last three principles. Others may disagree - I’ve been unable to find any satisfactory definitions online - but this is my impression.

American conservatism contains contradictory strains: Western conservatism versus Southern conservatism; Traditionalism versus Classical Liberalism. It does not contain any trace of Toryism. The last Tory to be important in the Republican Party was George Bush. A preppy, patrician establishment type who was hated by the rest of his party. They couldn’t wait to be rid of him. And no one like him is going to return to power in the Republican Party any time soon.

But the British Conservative Party still contains Tory elements. As evidence I will cite the enormous proportion of Conservative MPs who went to public schools. I love public schools, but I would say that this does indicate some sort of establishment preference within the Party. As further evidence I will suggest that the Party is still considered by many to be the natural home of the aristocracy - if they vote, I don’t imagine many vote Labour. These aspects of the Party are unmistakeably Tory.

And it’s this that puts people off the Conservatives today. Not because voters dislike individualism or social conservatism so much as they despise Tories. When Cameron talks about hope and optimism, he is not stealing from Oakeshott (The Right Nation again):

The English Tory Oakeshott argued that “to be conservative … is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant … the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss.”

If Cameron means anything when he says that he’s going to make the Conservative Party look and feel like a completely different party, I hope he means by expunging all traces of Toryism. We can see this beginning in the new localist agenda that both candidates subscribe to. Localism is by definition anti-establishment, and Cameron in particular seems very supportive of real devolution of powers.

I could be wrong and he could be talking about expelling the genuine conservatives: the individualists, the social conservatives, the patriots - as the blogosphere fears and sometimes I do too. But I hope Cameron wants to institute truly Modern Conservatism as demonstrated by the Americans.

American Conservatism is optimistic about the future - insanely willing to assume any obstacle can be overcome. It contains a spirit of fierce egalitarianism - by which I mean the absence of class, not income equality. And it unthinkingly supports patriotic traditions such as the Independence and Memorial Days.

If we can call ourselves the Conservative Party rather than the Tory party, then that would be a name change worth making.

Isn’t this what is called ‘triangulation’?

When Cameron has spoken about changing the Party, I’ve always thought this is what he meant. Not changing our policies necessarily, but starting to talk about things like social entrepreneurialism that are not classically Conservative or Labour issues.

Dr Lee Rotherham calls the alliance between the Conservatives and the EPP “The Corpse Bride” in a new paper from the Bruges Group out today. He writes about the serious work that was put into the creation of a new alliance with the Atlanticist Baltic parties that was quietly dumped after IDS’s removal.

Truly on this issue Cameron is correct.

That headline in full:Man challenges fine with 1689 law. Doesn’t it seem to imply that the Bill of Rights is just some quaint old law that has hung around on the statute books, as opposed to the founding document of our Parliament?

The situation is crazy. Let’s review the steps:

1. Lord Justice Laws rules that Britain has constitutional laws that are protected, thus securing the conviction of the Metric Martyrs.
2. People friendly to the metric martyrs realise that this ruling implies that the issuance of parking fines without trial is illegal and the laws that allow it unconstitutional.
3. Someone at The Parliament and Constitution Centre thinks “Whoops” and sends out a memo saying that Lord Justice Laws was wrong, and parking fines are legal after all.

The memo says that “the opinion of Justice Laws is not universally accepted among judges or legislators.” Maybe I’m missing something, but the opinion of Justice Laws is the reason why these guys were convicted of a crime. Isn’t this a precedent? Doesn’t it bind other judges and legislators? I know the common law is supposed to be flexible, but surely that doesn’t extend to having two contradictory ideas of law?

It seems as though the constitution’s real purpose is simply to defeat political enemies of the Government, and the law is whatever makes that come true.

In the MSM the received wisdom is:

David Cameron is the only man who can reach out to swing voters. David Davis is a right-winger, core vote kind of guy. Cameron can inspire, Davis cannot.

Events are interpreted in light of this story, which is very frustrating for those of us who are trying to make a serious decision here. We are, rightly, annoyed with this sort of thing.

But the blogosphere has it’s own story:

Cameron has no policies, he never actually says anything. Davis has substance, he has actual policies, but he’ll never win because the media won’t let him. People are only voting for Cameron because they think other voters will like him.

Well, let’s turn the substance-o-meter towards the campaign leaflets (Cameron, Davis) that were sent out with the ballots. Remember that vaguely worded concepts such as

1. “In place of Gordon Brown’s spending agenda, we need a dynamic growth agenda, ensuring that we generate the wealth to raise living standards and fund public services in the future.” (Davis) or,
2. “Promote greater national cohesion - for example through a national school leaver programme.” (Cameron)

don’t count because (1) doesn’t contain any specific policies, and (2) is just an idea, with no detail as to how it will be accomplished. No matter how correct (1) is or interesting an idea (2) is, they do not count.

Of course, under such a ruthless substance-hunt, most of both the candidate leaflets boils out. This is to be expected. What remains:

Cameron. Specific policies:

1. Keeping Special Schools open
2. The right for any provider to supply health care
3. Ending gold-plating of EU regulations
4. Locally elected police commissioners
5. Abolishing regional government

Davis. Specific policies:

1. ?

5 specific policies versus 0. So I guess that’s a win for Cameron then?

Al-Qaeda calls Queen an ‘enemy of Islam’. As Anoneumouse says, this is treason.

But you’d be mistaken if you thought Al-Qaeda doesn’t understand Brits at all. al-Zawahiri continues:

those who follow her are saying: “We are British citizens, subject to Britain’s crusader laws, and we are proud of our submission . . . to Elizabeth, head of the Church of England.”

Correct.

This might be useful for some of our local Councils as we enter the ever dangerous Christmas Holiday season.