Has Britain's veto on Police and the Judiciary already been abandoned?

The following two reports from the Conservative Party web site on the EU, certainly might indicate that is the case, as do the EU's own web pages as has been explored more fully on another of my blogs "Ironies Too" linked here, which is also covering the grave constitutional crisis with a lame duck PM about to sign away his country.

NEWS Thursday June 7, 2007

EU Constitution moves in by the back door

Plans to resurrect the obsolete EU Constitution have moved one step closer to becoming a reality as the European Parliament voted today to support the controversial Prüm Treaty. The Prüm Treaty contains many of the measures that were originally part of the EU Constitution which was voted down two years ago by France and the Netherlands. These measures include proposals to give foreign police the right to freely enter the UK and arrest British citizens suspected of crimes abroad with no regard to the current extradition procedures. Other plans include a central European database of EU citizens, containing highly confidential data such as credit cards records. Police would have the right to search any EU citizen's details even if the person in question is not suspected of any crime. Despite vocal opposition by MEP Philip Bradbourn, Conservative Spokesman on Justice and Home Affairs, the Parliament has today voted in favour of the Treaty. Mr Bradbourn addressed the Parliament last night in a tough speech outlining his opposition to the Treaty. Mr Bradbourn said: "This Treaty fundamentally goes against the rules of data protection and civil liberties that we have come to expect in Europe. This 'one size fits all approach is clearly inapplicable for countries with very different legal traditions and even senior police in the UK have called for this Treaty to be scrapped, proposing that voluntary bilateral agreements between Member States should be the way forward in security co-operation. Now that the Parliament has unfortunately voted through the Treaty it is up to the British Government to veto it when it reaches Council of Ministers, which is something Conservatives insist they do".

Top Story TODAY 15th June 2007

British police must share fingerprints, driving licenses and DNA records with all EU police forces from today

Blair fails to veto new EU powers on personal data-sharing throughout Europe and, despite of Labour's rhetoric, some elements of the rejected constitution came into force today. The first shot of a constitution climb-down sounded today as Franco Frattini, Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs, confirmed that the Prüm Treaty would now have EU force.

Vapid begs Daily Mirror to be kinder

The report is from the The Observer linked here.

It seems the Tory leader thinks the following is unfair political comment, though presumably not denying the facts:

Class struggle: the Mirror on Cameron

'Cameron's all too aware his toff-class membership is a potentially fatal problem, instructing Con spin doctors never to invite your columnist to Tory events, because I've spent 18 months highlighting his toffness. I turn up anyway at Tory shindigs, just to annoy him'.

'Spotty Cameron was packed off to £25,000-a-year Eton, puffing on wacky baccy rather than learning Latin. Then it was off to Oxford's dreaming spires, where he bought a silly £1,200 tail coat, pratting around as an Edwardian gentleman in the restricted gene pool that is the Bullingdon Club.'

'Only toffs with plenty of dosh bray there is more to life than money. It's easy for well-heeled David Cameron to come over all Ken Doddish and preach happiness. Daddy was a stockbroker and the Tory leader fought his way to the top from the, er, top. Born with a silver dinner service in his mouth, he suffered the indignity of a bog-standard education at Eton and Oxford.'

'You don't have to be a toff to get on in Old Etonian David Cameron's Tory Party - but it certainly helps'

'Tory toff David Cameron accuses parents who fail to discipline their children of being 'selfish and irresponsible'. But what the hell does Diddy Dave know about that world? His parents didn't raise him like that. They sent him to boarding school as soon as he could say "Goodbye, Mama".'

'Labour MPs were having a fag behind the bike sheds when Tory toff David Cameron was fagging at Eton. The posh chap's latest wheeze to reward youthful goody two-shoes reeks of his privileged upbringing.'

An E-mail somebody has sent to Vapid


Dear Mr Cameron
                            As the UK nears the point when the Prime Minister is involved in
discussions on the content of a proposed new European Union constitution which could be binding
upon the United Kingdom, HM Opposition's stance is conspicuous, once again,  more by its silence
on this momentous issue than any principled and public response to what should be its highest
priority, namely the future governance of the UK.

   The content of the  following speech made by Mr Ashley Mote MEP is the one that should have
been delivered by you in one form or another, and indeed by the leaders of all other political
parties in the UK at this critical time.   As it is, the statesmanlike  appraisal  of the
current prospects for the UK's future relationship with the EU is left to a relatively unknown 
and independently minded MEP.   Shame on you Mr Cameron!

   The Conservative Party website trumpets:  "Parliament should be the watchdog of the (British)
Constitution."    Shame on you Mr Cameron for not acting on your own stated principle through
your guilty silence.

  Your web site also suggests proposals  that the Conservatives will ensure "No deals being made 
in Europe without full explanation first".

  Once more the British people will see through  this empty promise  because just such  a "deal"
is being negotiated in secret by Mr Blair  with our EU partners on the proposed EU 'constitution',
and in particular with  Angela Merkel of Germany, at this very moment.

  The deal is being passed off by Mr Blair as of no particular constitutional significance, and
therefore not requiring a referendum by the British people.  Whilst your Party does call for such
a referendum, that call is muted and mis-trusted because of your Party's abysmal track record in
its approval of further EU/UK integration in almost every possible policy area since the signing
of the Treaty of Rome.

  Shame on you Mr Cameron,  for failing to make a single major policy speech in opposition to
the EU's  increased hegemony over the will of a freely elected UK Parliament by an unelected
foreign organisation, and for failing to expose the nature of the second hand EU 'constitution
now being proposed. 

Now read on -  for the speech you should have made:


Sovereign Nations Don't Have Constitutions Imposed on Them - 7 June
2007



EU Constitutional Debate, European Parliament, 7 June 2007

Text of speech by Ashley Mote MEP, independent, SE England


"You are our Neighbours - Not our Masters", Ashley Mote MEP
tells European Parliament
"The British government's White Paper on the original constitution
said that it involved “no fundamental change”
"But why have a constitution if you don’t want fundamental change – what
else could be its purpose?   Angela Merkel has said that the new version should have a new name and
“use different terminology without changing the legal substance”.

How reassuring to be so vividly reminded of German commitment to
democracy and the rule of law.

The old - and doubtless the new - constitution totally reverses the
relationship between the EU and the Member States and between the
governing and the governed.
Whenever before did a sovereign nation permit outsiders to write and
impose a new constitution on them, except after defeat in war?


In my country the state draws power from the people, and answers to them.

In the EU, the State now seeks to exist in its own right, and have the
people answer to it.
Our rights and freedoms are our birthright. They are not in the gift, or
at the discretion, of a passing parade of political nonentities - here
today and gone tomorrow.
The original draft constitution did us a great service: it crystallised
the future.
It attempted to turn a Europe of nations into a nation called Europe.

It forced us to decide if we would allow Europeans to become our masters.
We do not.
You are our neighbours. You should be our friends. But nothing more.

Whatever its new name - like the last one, this one will not be a
constitution at all.
The first version was vague, grandiose, imprecise, deliberately complex,
confusing and extremely long.
It was proscriptive rather than enabling.  It made law, instead of creating a framework for law-making. It offered no effective checks and balances to control future law-makers,
and no mechanism to stop the train.  It consolidated power for a system of government by a self-perpetuating
bureaucracy.  It turned the member states from theoretical masters of the house of
Brussels into its servants.  So what's different this time?
This oppressive constitution is not the answer. It is a 1950s solution to 1920s problems.
Today we live in another world. People living in today’s fast-moving, flexible, unpredictable, hi-tech
world need responsive, imaginative, minimalist government.


The EU has been left far behind by the Americans, and soon the Indian
sub-continent and China will overtake as well.

The EU and its grandiose ideas are part of the problem. They are not part
of the solution.
Hostility exists across all 27 countries. It abounds in Poland, the Czech
Republic, Austria, Latvia, parts of Scandinavia and, of course, the UK.

The Dutch are rightly angered by suggestions that they didn’t understand
what they were voting about last time. Given the chance, they may well
vote ‘no’ again.
And what happens in Ireland and Denmark, where referenda are mandatory
even if the word ‘constitution’ disappears?  Resistance will inevitably harden.


These are important constitutional issues which the Council of Mínisters
has largely chosen to ignore just as they have ignored the failure of the
first version of the constitution.
Some 36 new EU projects and institutions - wholly dependant on that
document for their legitimacy - have all gone ahead already. So much for
due process and the rule of law.
For the bureaucrats, rebirth of the constitution - even under an assumed
name – really is just a tidying-up exercise. For the rest of us it changes everything.
No British parliament has the power to bind its successors. The EU
constitution - whatever it's called - threatens to deny that power of an
elected British government.
That alone makes it unlawful.

Suggesting – as clause 18 of the original did - that we might have to
come, cap in hand, to ask to leave is preposterous. And wait two years while the rest of you decided? Who are you kidding?


The Victorian lawyer, Professor Dicey told the British people that they
are free to withdraw their consent from parliament at any time and have
the right to use any means to regain control of their sovereignty.

The Bill of Rights, 1689, is still the statute law of the UK. Its
authority was re-affirmed in a House of Lords judgment

in November 2001. Desuetude (repeal by lack of use) is unknown to English
law.
The Bill of Rights is based on a concept of permanence and declares that
any actions taken against its principles are null and void. It
specifically forbids handing power to foreigners. "
END

Shock and astonishment!

The headline reflects my reaction to an interview on Boulton on Sunday on Sky News this morning when Conservative MP Graham Brady was interviewed and brilliantly defended his stance on Grammar Schools and lambasted the state of present party politics.

It appears the Tory Party still retains some upright, decent and thoughtful individuals among its parliamentary representatives.

One is only left to wonder why former party leader Michael Howard, first promoted George Osborne and then backed David Cameron as his replacement when there were people of integrity and character available. As Conservative Home points out here, the new four hundred thousand pound a year press chief the ex-NoW editor once used his pages to describe these two as follows:

"Osborne ... has now owned up to his encounters with a cocaine-snorting call-girl ... like Cameron, the frontbench MP won't be drawn on whether he has taken drugs himself. But remember, politicians make the laws. That's why we have the right to ask about their backgrounds - especially when they aspire to run our country."

Clearly politics is all a matter of money for Mr Coulson, perhaps that attitude is what rubbed off on the present Shadow Foreign Secretary, William Hague MP, who wrote in his column for Coulson's rag during the run up to the 2005 general election that he was earning too much money to sacrifice time to take an active role in the campaign.

Watch Willets Wriggle

A U-turn on Grammar Schools! You had better believe it although 'two dead brains' can't accept the facts.

Channel 4 News lead story tonight may be viewed from here. Click on ' watch the report'.

Tories go deeper into the gutter

Now its the gutter press where the Conservative Party has fished for its next public relations supremo.

The former editor of the totally disreputable and unprincipled News of the World will be the party's new PR chief, even though that dreadful paper saw fit to give him the boot after the bugging of the royal family. The Times report is here. AND look before debasing the almost non-existing standards of the old 'News of the Screws' he was wait for it ..... a showbiz reporter with The Sun. One wonders why Vapid didn't go the whole hog in imitating Blair and just hire Alistair Campbell?

Even this blogger is left breathless at the extent of the Cameroon's descent to absurdity. I thought I had heard and seen it all after the fresh faced Osborne struggled to claim the Blair crown in debate on Channel 4 News last evening with the loathsome Environment Minister .....then today comes this!

Shadow Europe Minister reigns!

The bad news is that it is over the Tory Grammar School policy.

An indication of the importance placed by the Party on EU matters, with our remaining sovereignty about to be sold out in Berlin in three weeks time, is the seniority and renown of his named successor as detailed below.

Why not use the contact details below to elicit his views on the Berlin summit?

Mark Francois MP

Member of Parliament for Rayleigh Shadow Minister for the Treasury

ABOUT MARK

Mark was elected as a Member of Parliament in 2001. Previously, he served for four years on Basildon Council in the early 1990s, and faced Ken Livingstone in Brent East during the 1997 general election. In July 2002, Mark was appointed an Opposition Whip. Since September 2004, he has been a Shadow Minister for the Treasury.

CONTACT MARK Email: chairman@rayleighconservatives.org.uk Telephone: 01268 742044 Fax: 01268 741833 Website: www.rayleighconservatives.org.uk Postal Address: House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA.

Conservatism, Class and Grammar Schools

Cameron could have been heard on Radio 4 at 0810 (Listen Again here), or his views may be read in this item from today's The Times, linked here.

There seems no doubt that the Cameroon Team advisers, described by Janet Daley in yesterday's Daily Telegraph as "juvenile idiots" linked here, have deliberately picked this as another attempt at a Clause IV moment for the Tories, but it seems to be deservedly about to seriously backfire.

Cameron's education (or lack thereof) should be the last area of their past that he and his fellow Shadow Cabinet Old Etonians and ex-Public School pupils should seek to expose to popular scrutiny.

I have ceased regular postings on this blog as the deep character flaws of the present leader of the main opposition party must by now be clear to all but the most stupid and unthinking Tory follower. Because of my own experience of both Grammar and Public Schools I have decided to record a few views on the present dispute.

At age eleven after leaving primary school where at one stage I had been in a class of 46 in an age group of two years with seating for only forty, I went to the A stream of our local Grammar School where with ten others we were fast-tracked in a range of subjects with first-rate individual teachers in subjects as diverse as Latin and Physics. We were exhorted to work as a team where failure of one would be considered as a failure by all.

After two years my family had to move from the West Country to the South East and my sister who was also at the Grammar School was forced to then attend the dreadful local Comprehensive. I was almost equally unfortunate being sent off to board at a West Country public school typical of its type. The contrast in quality of instruction was enormous. In fact it would be true to say that in almost every subject taught I had already reached the 'O' Level standard at thirteen when leaving the Grammar School which at the private expensive institution we struggled to attain at the time of the exam at age sixteen.

The main contrast was the attitude of the teaching staff. At the Grammar School the teachers were imbued with enthusiasm bringing vast and exciting knowledge to pupils they knew had the capability to absorb and subsequently utilize what they were taught. The teachers at the public school however were of far inferior abilities, appeared merely to be at the school for the higher salaries than those attainable in the state sector, and approached their pupils as the spoiled undeserving but privileged brats many of us were who would have no need or benefit of the education they were there to reluctantly receive.

Cameron with his clearly blighted character, possibly a direct result of his time at Eton, was indeed foolish to pick this topic, essentially one of unearned privilege, but still his Shadow Cabinet remains intact and none resign. That speaks volumes on the ex-Grammar School pupils that useless group reportedly contains.

Michael Portillo finally admits Cameron's flaws

The attack and backtrack, for that is what this truly seems, is in Portillo's column in today's Sunday Times, linked here.

Former Daily Telegraph editor, Charles Moor, clearly also has growing doubts according to his Spectator Notes column this week, linked here, which leaves only the present editor of that magazine among Tory journalistic heavyweights who heavily backed Vapid during his Sunday Telegraph days to desert the lightweight fop.

How accomplished David Davis appeared on Sunday's Sky News this morning. But can the party ever now be salvaged given the wider membership elected such a disaster. Even Portillo is beginning to wonder as may be seen in this quote from the conclusion of his column:

Cameron’s handling of the Dyke incident was clumsy. But it was more than just an ill-thought-out wheeze. The Tory leadership has been reflecting deeply on the shifting tectonic plates of United Kingdom politics.

While the party talks about winning an outright victory, other gloomier scenarios are at least as likely. In one, the Conservatives urgently have to find new ways to do business with other parties in local government as a prelude to doing a deal at national level. In another scenario the electoral system changes and the Tories have to woo new partners because otherwise they will be in opposition for ever.

Part time politics, partitioned party

I hinted at Cameron's disconnected attitude to politics in the posting below. My thoughts were prompted by his recording of an interview for the supposed flagship BBC political programme Sunday AM. As Master Marr stated on the now available transcript, linked here:

But next month's elections are a big test for him too, and of how far the Cameron effect has spread.

Well I met David Cameron during a break in canvassing at a hospital in his Oxfordshire constituency.

Big test maybe, but hanged if Vapid will give up his Sunday for a live interview regardless of what news might break!

Recalling that Cameron when previously interviewed by the slimy Scot Marr in Henley , Vapid claimed Scottish blood running thick through his veins and absolutely refused to contemplate an adjustment to the Barnett formula whereby scrounging Scots live off English largesse, and have so for decades. Now we get this exchange:

ANDREW MARR: Let's talk about Scotland where the Conservatives are not in a particularly strong position, to put it gently. It has been suggested that you might hive off the party in Scotland, and Scottish Conservatives might effectively organise themselves to give them a new chance.

DAVID CAMERON: Well I don't have a plan to do that. I think it's important though that we do emphasise that the Scottish Conservatives are a Scottish party - they elect their own leader, they write their own policies, they're responsible for their own manifesto.

It's devolution at work, so they are able to come up with the right policies for Scotland, not always the same policies that we might have in England, that's right. And we need to emphasise that. And I think that's important, but I don't have plans to...

ANDREW MARR: Would you be against them choosing a new name, for instance?

DAVID CAMERON: Well it would be up to them to make that suggestion if they wanted to. I think actually they are very much running under the banner of being Scottish Conservatives and I think it's important that they emphasise that they are a party for Scotland.

ANDREW MARR: If, as a result of these elections, Scottish National Party are forming an administration in Edinburgh and calling for there to be a referendum, what will your response be? Don't they have a right to have a referendum if people in Scotland want a referendum and they say they do, they've got a right to that haven't they?

DAVID CAMERON: If there is a referendum I will campaign as actively as I can for a no vote because I want to keep England and Scotland together. But we've always said if that there was a referendum, and if the result went from my point of view the wrong way we would have to honour that. I think that's that the only way to be open and frank with people in Scotland about this, but I desperately, you know, hope that it doesn't happen.

So what happened to the Union. How can the British opposition party in Parliament have different policies to its own party in Scotland. If so, who is the leader where? Is it me or has the world gone mad?

I am beginning to believe Jack Straw or Ming Campbell might be the last hopes for Britain. At least they have seen life, albeit just from the Westminster/(Edinburgh) bubble.

A "modern and caring" father of young children cannot run a Nation

Think about my headline. Then watch the first posting on WebCameron linked from my sidebar.

A Prime Minister in this uncertain age must devote 24/24 hours and 7/7 days to his responsibilities. The RN Iranian fiasco proves that point!

Just look at this latest entry on the WebCameron site:

an eventful few days

17 April 2007

A long gap since the last blog. Apologies – this is another casualty of moving house. The best brains of BT and our IT department cannot get me a broadband connection, so I’ve been completely disc ..

Thus speaks a cipher!

Cameron failed again last weekend - recording an interview on Saturday afternoon with the sycophantic fellow-Scot Marr for Sunday AM and thereby missing immediacy to gain a "Family Day"....... during the last stages of the local election campaign..... in the middle of a crisis for Britain's armed forces????? When the country is crying out for mature governance!

David Cameron is a family man with a disabled eldest son who requires constant care. David Cameron should be given the time to provide such care and indulge his other children as he so obviously feels is necessary to ensure that they mature to be the kind of self-centred adults that would be equally unsuited to running a country as himself.

One or other of the Cameron generations could perhaps later run an independent Scotland.

A Tory vote on 3rd May will only continue the present farce.

David Cameron

An interesting introduction to the Channel 4 'Dispatches' programme to be screened tomorrow evening is in today's Mail on Sunday, linked here.

Britain is now a one party state

The important Evening Standard article may be read from here.

Cameron's air taxes

If you thought the policies unveiled today were loop the loopy but missed the Channel 4 debunking of global warming, you can see the programme from this link.

Then see how you feel as a supposed Conservative Party proposes to monitor ALL your foreign air travel and tax you accordingly!!!!!!

Air flight rationing to keep plebs down

The latest nonsense from Cameron is apparently to restrict cheap air travel by force. Read the report in the Sunday Telegraph from here.

I agree with the posting on these proposals on Samizdata, linked here, which was as follows:

Sky Cameron and the Tory world of tomorrow

Thaddeus Tremayne (London) Transport • UK affairs

(4)

The Conservative Party has long been regarded as having a certain nostalgic, and some would say romantic, yearning for the past. I had no idea that this included a desire to drag us all back to the 19th Century:

Harsh new taxes on air travel, including a strict personal flight "allowance", will be unveiled by the Conservatives tomorrow as part of a plan that would penalise business travellers, holidaymakers and the tourist industry.

The proposals, to be disclosed by George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, include levying VAT or fuel duty on domestic flights for the first time as part of a radical plan to tackle global warming.

The Conservatives will also suggest - most controversially of all - rationing individuals to as little as a single short-haul flight each year; any further journeys would attract progressively higher taxes, a leaked document entitled Greener Skies suggests.

Even if this is just policy-mongering, the fact that such proposals could even be considered is per se a megaphone-warning about the true nature of the Tories and their future likely conduct.

The mobility that has been afforded to people on relatively low incomes by cheap international air travel is one of the most productive and liberating benefits of this age. By declaring war on this, Cameron and his lickspittles show themselves to be not just opportunist but also disreputable and loathsome (as is anyone who either supports them or votes for them).

As for me, I will be unaffacted. I do not intend to hang around long enough to witness the huddled masses setting sail from Southampton to seek a better life in the free world. If (God forbid) Cameron does win power in the next election, I shall utilise my air travel 'ration' to purchase a one-way ticket out.

The Mail and the Independent on Sunday, here, both continue to probe at the Cameron and drugs mystery. The Sunday Mirror has this comment, linked here.

18 February 2007

CAMERON, THE ULTRA-YOB

Richard Stott

IT'S no big deal that David Cameron smoked cannabis when he was at Eton. But he is wrong and self-serving to claim what he did before he became a politician should remain private.

To know the true face before he slapped on the public make-up is essential if we are to know the nature of the man. We are in a better position to judge the worth of Cameron's views on our "broken society", the breakdown of family life and the lawlessness of teenage gangs now we know he belonged to an Oxford gang that got blind drunk, trashed restaurants and smashed shop windows.

Cameron, we are told, continued to smoke pot at university. Not a hanging offence although it might be if he went on to heavier stuff.

More revealing is that he became a member of the ultra rich, ultra snob Bullingdon, an invitationonly drinking club where the aim was to get blind drunk, wreck restaurants and then pay for the damage with bundles of cash. Rich yob indulgence by privileged young men in £1,000 tail coats with big wallets and even bigger mouths.

Cameron's love affair with himself was illustrated again when he was a special adviser to Chancellor Norman Lamont at the time of Black Wednesday. After Lamont was fired he made a conference fringe speech hostile to British membership of the EU. Not something John Major wanted to hear. At a party that night Cameron cut Lamont dead. Such loyalty.

After the last election Cameron - who wrote the Tory manifesto and campaigned "passionately" for it - ditched virtually every major policy within weeks of becoming leader. This is not a man of principle, it's a selfish opportunist who believes only in what he can make you buy. The stuff dreamed up by marketing men, pollsters and image makers. If you trash belief and principle and bung enough cash at presentation you can get away with anything. Just like those drunken nights with the boys from the Bullingdon.

Cameron's real addiction problem

A quote from Jonathan Pearce on Samizdata, linked here:

But although the Tory leader may inadvertently encourage different views, he has a continued problem. Cameron, after all, is in love with a drug far worse than cocaine, LSD, Qaaludes (what the heck are they?) or dope. He is in love with power over other people. He suffers from hallucinations about how the Tories will win power by conceding Blairist ideas of the role of the State. He suffers from the extraordinary idea that Oliver Letwin is a great thinker.

Compared to Bolivian marching powder, that is heavy shit he is smoking.

"Straight Talk" this evening

Despairing conservatives can watch the leader of the UK Independence Party, Nigel Farage MEP at 10:30 this evening on BBC News 24 give a convincing explanation of some real conservative policies

Cameron's days are numbered

BNP and English Democrat Shocker in Bede by-election

BNP ran Labour 658 votes a close second with 546 votes with the English Democrats on 75 and Save the NHS with 43 making the combined small party total sufficient to have changed the result.

Cameron's sham conservatives on 301 and UKIP with just 8 votes came away with the biggest bloody noses.

UKIP did somewhat better in Croydon, but given the government's problems is it not the Labour successes that are truly astonishing:

London Borough of Croydon - Bensham Manor: Lab 1,683, Con 617, Green 240, Lib Dem 126, Ukip 40, Monster Raving Loony party 15, People's Choice 9. (May 2006: Three seats Lab 1,846, 1,805, 1,670, Con 1,117, 861, 774, Green 581, Ukip 305). Lab hold. Swing 7.5% Con to Lab.

Time for the Country to neuter the corrupt Commons

Time for the Country to neuter the corrupt Commons

"It seems to me it’s got to that point where everyone in parliament, everyone in government, everyone in the press, everyone in the country is thinking: 'Hello! It’s over,'" Mr Cameron said.

The above is a quote from an article in this morning's Daily Telegraph, linked from here. For once I here agree with the words of the ineffectual leader of the faux Conservative Party.

However, the nation should make it clear that it is not just over for Tony Blair. It is time to bring the curtain down on the whole corrupt charade that the House of Commons has become.

How could this be achieved? I suggest the following:

Next May in the local elections anyone disgusted with the present state of our nation's political construct should make a point of voting for anyone other than a representative of the three main parties, some of whose bought representatives now sit in parliament's second legislative chamber - the House of Lords.

Starting such a campaign this month will allow sitting local councilors of integrity to seek election as independents or for one of the many minor or nationalist parties.

Loss of local government control should finally concentrate the minds of those who have sold out our democracy and corrupted our governing establishment - the leaders of the Labour Party, the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats.

Will just ridding the nation of Blair really solve anything?

Wow! Tory resigns on Principle!

The Courier in Scotland, linked here, reports the resignation of MSP Ted Brocklebank over Cameron's refusal to re-adopt the fisheries policy he authored in conjunction with Owen Paterson MP.

Now let us see what Mr Paterson, who cravenly accepted a post in Vapid's Shadow Cabinet, is really made of - it is long past time when at least one member of the Cornerstone Group demonstrated they stand for more than just words.

Valueless Conservatives

I have been reading back over some past speeches and policy statements of various senior shadow cabinet members, wondering how in all conscience they can remain in Cameron's faux conservative party. I came across this quote and thought how apt it now appeared:

"In more than 20 years in politics, he has betrayed every cause he believed in, contradicted every statement he has made, broken every promise he has given and breached every agreement that he has entered into... There is a lifetime of U-turns, errors and sell-outs."

It was of course an attack on Tony Blair by William Hague as quoted by Wikipedia, linked here, but how accurate is that description of the present "Senior" Shadow Cabinet Member?

On a lighter and less serious note one also must wonder to what incident this entry on the same site refers:

Miss Hannah Wilsden also counts him as a very close personal friend after getting along well with him at a village show in Hutton Rugby

Conservative Conceit

Well said Richard!! Repeated below and linked here:

=========================================

Carola Godman Law is Chairman of the Lewes Constituency Conservative Association, Burgess Hill, E Sussex.

Responding to the decision of one of her members to resign from the Conservative Party and to join UKIP she observes that:

If you believe, as I do, that we live in a country ruled by a government of almost unparalleled incompetence and deceitfulness, you do not join a party the voting for which is likely to result in more of the same. UKIP has every chance of winning the next election – for Labour.

She then goes on to ask:

How would UKIP deal with the current state of our hospitals, the debt crisis and all the other disasters that Labour has created? Or does removal from the EU solve everything?

What she does not seem to realise is that there is a growing body of people who believe that the ability to govern ourselves is very much more important than the other issues which she identifies. And, in that key issue, there is nothing to chose between Labour and the Conservative Party.

In fact, in historical terms, the greatest advances in European political integration have always occurred under a Conservative government – not forgetting the Single European Act under Thatcher's watch.

Can anyone trust the Boy King not to take us in even further and, if one cannot, why should we vote for him and his merry men?

But the nub is, as we have observed before, that fatal arrogance. Carola Godman Law seems to believe that, because we are ruled by a government "of almost unparalleled incompetence and deceitfulness", that means we should vote for her party.

I think not.

=======================================

Conservatism = Individual Freedoms.... RIP

The leader of the British Conservative Party has made the following statement with regard to the law prohibiting biological parents having any say in the placement of their infants when adoption is forced upon them:

"I shall vote for the regulations, because I think it is right to have in this country clear rules against discrimination... On the issue of the Catholic adoption agencies, I don't think personally that it is right to give them a block exemption from the law, because otherwise we will have other people wanting block exemptions from the law. I think we really need to find a decent compromise, because we want to keep the Catholic adoption agencies. They do a fantastic job in placing hard-to-place children. I think, for instance, giving them three to four extra years to comply with the law will give them time to work out solutions such as twinning with other adoption agencies."

David Cameron clearly has no concept whatsoever of the meaning of individual freedom nor of defending ordinary people against the evermore powerful forces of the STATE.

SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!

Tory silence on Enforced Gay Adoption

Conservative Home blog, linked here, tackled this matter as follows:

Tories silent in latest Catholic-Labour row

(Background)

I cannot find any Conservative comments on the clash between the rights of gay people to adopt and the rights of church organisations to manage their own affairs. It is another sign of the lack of choice in British politics that there does not appear to be one mainstream political party that is unashamedly the champion of freedom of religious association.

(After two days of multiple comments)

I'm closing this thread now. I think enough has been said by everybody.

Posted by: Editor | January 25, 2007 at 16:44

The comments to this entry are closed.

Meanwhile The Times, had Matthew Parris putting his view forward at the end of an item about Ryan Air, linked here, I felt compelled to respond on the comment facility as follows:

I believe Matthew Parris and the British Cabinet are dangerously wrong on the question of 'Gay' adoption.

Humanity has physical differences between the sexes that are undeniable. Amongst these are the facts of limited numbers of eggs carried by females and almost infinite quantities of sperm produced by the male. This fact has historically resulted in greater female tendencies towards monogamy. I therefore cannot see that adoption by a stable Lesbian couple could be opposed - especially given that both partners would normally have the capability of giving natural childbirth.

The situation for male homosexual couples is exactly the reverse. Neither partner would normally possess a natural urge towards monogamy. Some male homosexual couples indulge in sexual activity involving an orifice not biologically designed for such a purpose - putting adopted children of either sex at risk of unnatural abuse. Even platonic male homosexual couples could have undesirable friends.

A society whose ruling body would rather effective adoption agencies be closed than have them decline to offer child adoption to male homosexual couples is sick indeed, where there is at the same time no major party politically opposing such adoption practices then such sickness seems likely to prove terminal.

Daily Mail might not support Cameron

The Simon Heffer column in the Daily Telegraph, linked here, has this opening sentence:

In yet another striking act of political leadership by a media figure, the editor of the Daily Mail, Paul Dacre, told an audience of students on Monday that the Conservative Party could not count on his paper's support at the next election; and that he was not entirely sure the party was, indeed, conservative.

This may seem of little surprise if one carefully reads the seventy odd comments an article in his paper on the lack of a referendum on the EU attracted last week, as may be read from this link.

There is now almost complete silence from the Conservative Party on every issue of substance. The furore over gay adoption being the latest example.

If Cameron is not yet on the skids, then he surely cannot be far from them!

Extract from Roger Helmer's January Brussels newsletter

Protectionist, Statist, Integrationist -- the EPP's New Leader

Last week the EPP group in the parliament elected Joseph Daul as their new leader (the former leader, Hans-Gert Poettering, will become President of the parliament as a whole). Daul is a French farmer. Indeed he was leader of the French farmer's union at the time of the ban on British beef, and was a keen advocate of the ban. He lives near Strasbourg, and is a strong supporter of the Straz/Brux two-seat lunacy.

He takes a typical French view of European matters -- protectionist, statist, corporatist, and a passionate advocate of the euro and the EU Constitution.

The third round of voting was head-to-head between Daul and Gunnar Hokmark, a Swedish Moderata. Gunnar is an Atlanticist and a free marketeer. He is the nearest thing you will find to a Conservative amongst continental MEPs. And the EPP rejected him for Daul. This tells you all you need to know about the EPP.

Thank heaven that David Cameron is committed to getting us out of the EPP in 2009. But with Daul in charge, there is nothing to be gained by delay. We should quit now.

Late news: on Jan 13th, the media reported that Daul is under investigation for alleged mis-use of public funds, related to farming subsidies used by French farming unions in 1991 to 1999. When Cameron decided to leave the EPP, opponents said (wrongly, in my view) that we should end up sitting with some pretty dodgy characters. Now it seems that staying in the EPP, we're being led by a pretty dodgy character!

David Davis another Conservative Conman

As reported on the blog Waking Hereward, linked here, "When challenged .......... that at one stage, a few years ago, he’d been fully committed to a Parliament for England - Davis said he had only done it to publicise the ‘cause’.

He expanded by saying the only reason he supported an English Parliament in the first place was to raise the issue to a wider public. He apparently didn’t actually believe that an English Parliament was necessary or desirable – he merely called for it so the ‘better’ solution of EvoEL would be adopted by the Tories.

This is, even by present day Conservative Party standards an astonishing policy volte face, what credibility can be given to the word of any remaining in that party when reading the full paper by this same David Davis, titled 'Equality for the English' published in Issue 2 of Conservative Way Forward, linked here, from which come the following quotes:

".....The constant constitutional mess that we are being offered in exchange for our heritage and history is not going to satisfy anyone.

It is no accident that Labour's proposals fit well with the wishes of the European Commission. In the federalist lexicon, the nation state is seen as the source of many evils, from unemploy-ment to war. Whilst this dogma is unsurprising given the history of some parts of Europe, it is an ideology wholly unsuited to the United Kingdom, a country that has enjoyed hundreds of years of democracy, peace and tolerance under one national government.

The nation state is the strongest manifestation of the democratic will of the people. It is a moral concept, indissolubly tied to the emotional identity of the people, and is not an administrative convenience to suit Labour's apparent urge to bypass Westminster by every means possible.

Accordingly, if this change is inevitable, then the people of England deserve nothing less than equal treatment. And, the people of Britain deserve a constitutional settlement that is at least logical. Otherwise, it will unravel under the pressure of its own inconsistencies.

If each of the other nations of the United Kingdom is going to have its own parliament , then England's choice should be no less. If Labour truly believes that this is the proper future for the people of Scotland and Wales, their logic must mean the same for England. This means equal treatment in all respects. Not just financially, although we should have funding equality for England, Scotland and Wales. Nor just in Westminster representation - although we should have that equalised from the next election, not in fifteen years time as Labour propose.

The people of England deserve no less than the same choice as the peoples of Wales and Scotland last September: a referendum on whether they want a parliament of their own. In their own words, Labour should trust the people - in this case the people of England. An English parliament, on the same basis as the Scottish one, will be the minimum that the English people are likely to be satisfied with.

Anything less will lead to disaffection and discontent, to a belief that the English are being treated as second class citizens in their own land. If Labour wanted to bring about the dissolution of the United Kingdom, that disaffection would be the way to do it."

At one point David Davis appeared as the last hope for Britain's conservatives, it is now clear he has gone the same way as William Hague. What hope for the Tories in the North of England now one wonders?

Cameron takes crackpot business approach

James Harding Business Editor of The Times says it all under the above headline to his Commentary item, linked here, in his newspaper this morning. It opens as follows:

The Conservative Party’s Working Group on Respon- sible Business is likely to revive the debate about David Cameron’s youthful use of illicit drugs. For it raises one question: what has he been smoking?

The paper proposes, for example, that the problem of obesity might be dealt with like the problem of climate change. Carbon emissions are a kind of environmental pollution; obesity, it says, is a type of “social pollution”. Given that emissions trading and quotas work for the environment (an unproven thesis, incidentally), why not introduce a scheme of alcohol quotas for the beverage industry and a set of “emissions limits” in fats, sugars and salts for food manufacturers in order to rein in the expanding national girth.

This is not only intellectually flimsy, it contradicts Mr Cameron’s core belief in personal responsibility and individual liberty. Indeed, it is an idea that is both meddlesome and crunchy, as if dreamed up by a Norland Nanny in a tie-dyed T-shirt. The Conservative Party may well believe that it can score points in the polls by posing as a party that has shed its cosy relationship with business, but surely it can distinguish between areas of personal responsibility and the realms of corporate obligation.

The answer to this latter question is an emphatic NO as this blog has been pointing out since well before this nonentity's election.

A more interesting question is how can any principled, intelligent or decent member of the Conservative Party continue to give this ignorant walking ego their ongoing political support?

Latest gimmick backfires

On the day Vapid dragged his Shadow Cabinet north to the land of his fathers, the media were unimpressed as this extract from The Herald editorial makes clear:

Bringing his shadow cabinet to Scotland en masse tomorrow, to demonstrate his party's commitment to the Union and show his leading lights at Westminster how Scotland works, smacks of the turn-off gesture politics Mr Cameron avows to deprecate. Swapping one bubble (Westminster) for another (Edinburgh) for a day will convince no-one of the party's relevance in Scotland.

Whether more Scots than English have been affronted we will have to wait until May to see.

The real EPP that cost Cameron his reputation

The infighting and power plays for posts in the EU Parliament would be be funny were it not for the fact that it has been for this that our sovereignty has been sold down the river by Britain's main parties. Read it all from this link. Or just this extract to get the flavour:

The knock-on effects of the dispute could undermine the position of British Conservatives in the European parliament. If the CDU lost foreign affairs, it could displace Giles Chichester, a British Conservative, from the industry committee - seen by both the government and opposition in London as a vital job in curbing Brussels' regulatory zeal. Arlene MacCarthy, a British Labour MEP, is likely to retain the internal market committee.

The Sun editorial attacks Cameron

While the biggest selling tabloid might end its critique by urging Cameron on, it seems his recent new friend on the other side of the Atlantic, Senator John McCain, is already giving up on the the shallow pretence of a man that now leads our degraded Conservative Party, read it here in an exclusive from Conservative Home.

Meantime the editorial in The Sun, linked here, had these points:

"After spending his first year airbrushing the greatest peacetime Tory PM out of sight, he claims he is a true Thatcherite......

It has taken the threat from UKIP and the defection of some key Tories to make Mr Cameron wake up to reality."

Tories new EU Party Leader in EPP under investigation

The Daily Telegraph reports on the EPP's new leader, linked here. The following is a quote:

The Conservatives have declined to comment on Mr Daul's difficulties, stressing they are not fully associated with the EPP.

"We are pulling out anyway in 2009," said a spokesman.

So what about the intervening two years??????????????????????

Terminal time for the Tories?

I have been blogging far more on UKIP Uncovered this week than here, the first time that has occurred for ages. Reading the Sunday press and watching the morning TV shows makes it clear why , just read these links and the comments the items attracted:

Matthew d'Ancona, 'Tories who would rather lose than change' from here.

'The Fatal Fringe' Sunday Telegraph Editorial, from here

Cameron's TV Interview on Sunday AM, comments on the blog Conservative Home, from here.

Number 10 Petition to quit the EU

Please sign the petition which runs through to 14th December of this year. To date only a pathetic 178 signatures have been registered. The process is surprisingly simple for a Government ET site, but do not delay as who knows when it might fall foul to technical difficulties providing yet more ammunition to the EU Federalists. The link is :

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/europewithdrawal/

Peers join UKIP

The Times report may be read from this link.

The interview with Lord Pearson on today's Radio Four Today programme, may be heard from this link.

I want to help people live for less

David Cameron in the Sunday Times, linked here.

Less what one wonders? Less time to live perhaps would be nice in view of the nonsense our politicians increasingly deliver! Get this further quote from the body of the mind-boggling inanity of the main article:

Our “sort-it” website, found at www.sort-it.co.uk, will be following up its recent initiative on combating personal debt by launching the “Live life for less” campaign. This will offer all manner of advice on how to lower your living costs on everything from energy bills to food. It will also help people to expose and avoid rip-off merchants.

We can all recognise the main rip-off merchants in our lives methinks -Tony Bliar, Gordon Brown (today revealed as having been brutally squashed in a rugby scrum by 'Old Boys' at the age of sixteen, thus providing a clue to the mysterious cause of the rumoured deep character flaws!) and now of course the latest main party addition to the pack - vapid himself 'Dave' Cameron.

How to recognise a rip-off merchant? This blog's tips - all appearance and sound bites with no underlying substance, truthfulness or apparent morals would be good indicators!!

UKIP writes to all Westminster MPs

The policy of UKIP not standing against MPs who have publicly stated their opposition to the EU AND joined the Better Off Out Campaign, linked here, has been put in writing by UKIP's leader Nigel Farage MEP, according to the report, linked here, in today's Daily Telegraph.

The same newspaper article also reports that Lord Pearson and Lord Willoughby de Broke will also be joining the UKIP.

Tories open political year with lame press conference

David Davis was billed on Sky TV as making an important policy statement on immigration, which had already been picked bythe Today Programme as a hot topic following the publication of a negative report by Migrationwatch on almost non-existent economic benefits , more on that from here.

What was actually delivered was a lame statement on people trafficking with the only solution offered of signing up to yet another European Convention. Then to crown it all the dowager of electoral turn-offs Theresa May was fielded, at which point I switched off.

There are so many problems facing the country, yet this is the best the main opposition party can offer to start the year? It almost beggars belief.

Cameroon's hatred for Conservatives

Roy Liddle , linked here, seems to have it right in the Sunday Times:

Now Dave digs Nye, you wonder what’s left

"Nosing around for political heroes, the Conservative party has alighted upon the redoubtable figure of Aneurin Bevan. Having informed us last month that Polly Toynbee was a brave champion of social justice whose values were those from which the Tories could learn a thing or two — rather than a hand-wringing, humourless old trout — it was almost inevitable that the Tories should take the process one stage further and beatify the most left-wing individual ever to hold prominent political office in Britain.

"Still, Nye shared at least one belief with the current Conservative leadership: a pathological hatred of the Conservative party and all that it stands for. “No attempt at ethical or social seduction can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory party. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin,” he once announced. One suspects that David Cameron feels likewise.

"You wonder where all this will lead, the right-wing eulogising of Toynbee and Bevan. How long it will be before some munchkin in the shadow cabinet announces that British conservative thinkers have been unnecessarily unkind to Guy Fawkes, Wat Tyler and Gerry Adams. And that maybe we judged the Baader-Meinhof gang a little too hastily.

Income Taxed at record levels

The Telegraph headline tells the tale, yet the apparently brain dead morons in charge of policy for the main opposition party remain resolute in refusing to commit to any future cuts. Mind numbing stupidity or deliberate sabotage of the nation state?

Families facing record income tax burden

The income tax burden has soared to its highest level since records began two decades ago, new figures show.

Are Tories with us on Terra?

Upon hearing the news that an illegal immigrant/asylum seeking suspected police killer may have fled the country disguised under the full female muslim veil, Shadow Home Secretary David Davis, issued the following almost unbelievable statement, as reported in The Scotsman, linked here:

"The idea that under any circumstances you could be let through passport control wearing a veil is barely credible," said David Davis, the Conservative's Home Affairs spokesman.

"Doing so when an All Persons Bulletin for murder has been issued demonstrates that our borders are not just porous but non-existent."

What planet do Cameron's Shadow Cabinet inhabit. I cannot recall how long it has been since passport control ceased to exist for those departing by air from Britain. Many years for sure.

In the early days on checking in all accompanying family members would be summoned to the check-in desk to see if passports matched, but even such a minimal control is now only rarely applied - after all what is the point in the case of female veiled muslims who could be one gender at the check in desk but quite another on passing through security.

The only surprise in this report, is that David Davis seems unaware of the realities of the world in which he lives, in common with the rest of the Shadow Cabinet, where he once appeared a talented exception.

Update at 10:50 GMT Sky News are challenging David Davis to the effect that passport controls on exiting passengers were in fact scrapped under the last Tory administration - yes it was in fact that long ago. He is presently digging himself a bigger hole, suggesting it is unacceptable for anyone other than immigration officers to perform that task, again something that has not been the case for years. Rarely has there been a worse display of someone being ignorant of his policy brief.

Osborne is not, after all, the worst member of the opposition treasury team!

Had dead suffragettes seen Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Ms T. Villiers MP on Sky News tonight .... they would surely turn in their graves and repent for what they had done.

And I had thought Blair's Babes would represent an all time low for Parliamentary Democracy?

Watch out for this walking disaster as the trickle of members away from the Tories turns into the inevitable flood.

One Year of 'Vapid'

A true day of shame for the once conservative Tory Party. one year on today, there stood Cameron at PM's Questions - to the viewers left was David Davis, his vanquished leadership opponent, but elsewhere not a front bench wrinkle was to be seen and, of course, nowhere a principle within.

Amazingly after one whole year of PR gimmicks and media spin, with his one sole election promise on the EPP - shamelessly shattered, such that the EU is not now even mentionable within his party, there has not been one single Tory MP or MEP to have crossed over, resigned nor stood down.

The question for all conservatives is now, therefore, quite simply the following:

Can you really vote for a man who reveals no policies or basic principles in order to gain election to then deliver the policies you believe are based on your own principles once elected?

I cannot. Nor IMO will the electorate.

Christopher Booker's missing bit

The Sunday Telegraph, has as I found on making my weekly visit to the Booker column, got into the censorship business and the column has been severely truncated. Criticism of the failing Cameron is apparently not now to be tolerated within the Telegraph group as the first anniversary of Vapid approaches. Happily thanks to the EU Referendum blog, linked here, we can read the missing section and view the nauseating photograph that prompted one commentator on the Conservative Home blog to ask "Is there nothing this man will not stoop to?" The missing section was the following:
===============================================
As David Cameron ends his first year as leader of the Opposition, there are clear signs that the greatest gamble in modern British politics has not come off. The little group of ex-public schoolboys who last year hi-jacked the Conservative Party have seemed to gamble on just one strategy. List everything the Party used to stand for – low taxes, the family, rolling back the power of the state, encouraging business, upholding our defences, curbing criminals, common sense – then go for the opposite.

The essence of the gamble has been the belief that, in wooing the support of Lib Dems, would-be greenies, Guardian readers and the supposed "soft centre", they could take their supposed "core" supporters for granted. But as support for Cameron falters, all the evidence seems to suggest that those wished-for new recruits to his "Not The Conservative Party" are not forthcoming, while the Party's former natural supporters are left baffled, dismayed and increasingly angry.

All this was neatly symbolised by the recent photo-opportunities staged by the three men now competing for the role of Britain's prime minister. Mr Blair and Mr Brown, aware that defence and national security (not long ago rating 34 percent on a Mori poll) still rank very much higher as voter priorities than "environmental" issues (only 8 percent), flew out to the Iraq and Afghan battle-zones to pose in front of the largest guns they could find. Mr Cameron, at the same time, flew out to the Sudan, in Lord Ashcroft's CO2 emitting private jet, to be pictured cuddling a little refugee child. It was the "Men from Mars" against "the Boy from Venus". "Darfur Dave" did not come well out of the contrast.

The tragedy is that, confronted by the most corrupt, hypocritical, inefficient, illiberal, discredited government in history, what millions of voters are looking for is an alternative which might put an end to the sleazy, self-regarding sham of the Blair era by displaying some "masculine" firmness: in cutting back on the bloated public sector and the out-of-control bureaucracy which is destroying our health service, education and police; which might encourage enterprise; which might restore democracy to local government; bring back some balance into our public finances; sort out the shambles into which our Armed Forces are sliding; uphold Britain's national interest, as we suffocate under the malfunctioning system of government represented by the European Union.

In other words, what much of the country is crying out for is a party which represents precisely those values which Mr Cameron's Not-The-Conservative Party seems so hellbent on abandoning. As for what he stands for instead, almost the only clear message Darfur Dave seems to have put over to the voters is his sentimental "save the planet" greenery, on which his dotty little gimmicks and practical ignorance have simply made him a laughing stock.

What many voters sadly begin to conclude is that Dave and his cronies seem so hopelessly ill-equipped to take on the serious business of government that, if we have to choose between one gang of PR merchants and another, better stick with the devil we know. Hence the evidence of the latest polls appearing to show that the gamble has failed. Ever larger become the number of would-be Conservatives sorely tempted to join that 40 percent who already feel so alienated from politics that they just stay sullenly at home. But the Guardian readers are scarcely flocking to replace them. So where does all this leave our country?
=========================================================

Cameron's Killing Off of the Conservative Party

There is an absolute 'must read' three part series of posts on the EU Referendum blog by Dr Richard North, titled - 'The Retreat from Politics' - which is linked from here.

Who are the Tossers now?

Incredibly enough it was the Conservative Party who were behind a video campaign launched a few days ago based on so called tossers who could not manage their finances. The campaign and video may be viewed from this link.

Fast forward to the Electoral Commission report of today on party borrowing and it seems the Tory's are up to their eyes in debt, read my comment here. So just who are the biggest tossers of all? David Cameron and friends of course.

Cameron loses poll lead

One would think it impossible, with Labour in such total disarray and reports from every corner highlighting the national crisis, but the Tories have lost their opinion poll lead according to The Independent report this morning, linked here.

Massive mismanagement!

The Daily Telegraph reports on terrible financial mistakes within the Tory Party, linked from here.

And these people wish to run the country?

CBI Chief's doubts over Cameron

The Independent has an interview with the head of the Confederation of British Industry, Richard Lambert, linked here, from which comes this quote:

Mr Lambert said he did not expect Mr Cameron to lay out detailed policies two years before an election.

But he said: "There is a degree of uncertainty about what he actually stands for and how the business case will fit into his view on the economy and the market.

Sounds to me as if the CBI chief should have been a politician himself, "some doubt about what he actually stands for"......... Ha, ha, ha IMHO he stands for getting elected by whatever means are necessary which might be understandable if he appeared to hold some basic beliefs he then wished to pursue.

What about the dross in his party who do hold beliefs but are nevertheless prepared to jettison them purely to put this man and themselves in power? What indeed - William Hague, John Redwood, Daniel Hannan et al?

Can recruiting Polly Toynbee compensate for losing the Conservative vote?

Dump Churchill is the latest extraordinary advice to Vapid. Read it here, aptly from The Guardian.

The mannequin has no clothes

From today's Sunday Telegraph, linked here:

Something is misfiring in the engine room of the Cameron project, and the longer it is left unfixed the more difficult it will be to resolve. Since the Tory conference at Bournemouth the mood music has become less harmonious, the omens not as promising as they might be.

This was illustrated, to brutal effect, by Mr Blair when he and the Leader of the Opposition clashed in the Commons on Wednesday following the Queen's Speech. It is not that Mr Cameron's performance was terrible — it was perfectly adequate — but Mr Blair's passionate masterclass wounded him.

This was best demonstrated by the PM's destruction of Mr Cameron's energy policy. The Conservative front bench, thanks in part to Oliver Letwin (how unsurprising), finds itself in a dangerous position. Large numbers of Tory backbenchers appear to agree with Mr Blair's sensible view that if we face uncertainty in regard to energy supply in the decades ahead, and have concerns about emissions, it makes sense to begin moving in a nuclear direction.

Green energy may well prove to be "part of the mix"; for now it is unclear to what extent. To gamble the future growth of the UK economy on untested green technology and taxes, leaving nuclear as a last resort, falls into the Letwin "too clever by half" school of policy making.

Mr Blair skewered Mr Cameron neatly: "Let me read his position, which he gave just the other day in an interview in Green Futures. He said: 'I want to give every opportunity for green sources of energy to come through. If they do, well and good, if they don't, and we have to keep the lights on, then nuclear might come into the picture.' So what is he going to do? He is the prime minister and the cabinet secretary comes in and says, 'I am afraid the renewables haven't generated as much as we want. I am afraid we won't be able to keep the lights on.' So what is the Right Honourable Gentleman going to say – 'Rustle me up a nuclear power station'?"

Blair and Cameron at the State Opening of Parliament

Photograph, comment and shameful links on this black day for our democracy are on my blog Ironies Too, linked from here.

David Cameron's 'pedigree' and 'credentials'

A site now based in Panama has some interesting links and apparently well researched background on the disastrous Tory Leader. Start from this link.