Tag Archives: conservative party

Thatcher returns?

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Is this a second Thatcher revolution? Unshackled from Coalition partners, Tories get ready to push radical agenda. And radical it is:

David Cameron will use the Conservative Party’s first majority in the House of Commons for nearly 20 years to “deliver” on a radical agenda to cut welfare, shrink the size of the state and re-define Britain’s relationship with Europe.

Conservative insiders said Mr Cameron would move to the right to consolidate support among his backbench MPs after five years of compromise with the Liberal Democrats.

Among Mr Cameron’s first legislative priorities will be to enshrine an EU referendum into law, bring in the so-called ‘snoopers charter’ to give police greater powers to monitor internet communications and give English MPs a veto over legislation only affecting England. The Tories also intend to publish plans to scrap the Human Rights Act within their first 100 days. All proposals had been previously blocked by the Lib Dems. . . .

But the first challenge for Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne will be to put together a comprehensive spending review in the next few months to meet the Tory pledge of eliminating the structural deficit by 2018.

As well as deep welfare cuts The Independent understands that the Department of Business and the Department of Energy and Climate Change, previously run by the Lib Dems, will be among the biggest casualties in terms of spending reductions.

Oliver Letwin, the Tories’ policy chief, has spent the campaign in Whitehall drawing up proposals to merge quangos and slash Government regulation. These are likely to form a key part of the spending review. The review has been made more difficult by Mr Cameron’s late and unexpected election pledge to find an extra £8bn for the NHS. This has yet to be funded and if the Tories stick to their other tax and spending commitments could require further cuts. Most senior Tories had expected to be negotiating another coalition agreement with the Liberal Democrats, giving them the flexibility to raise taxes to fund their additional spending commitments. As it is they are now bound to implement legislation binding the Government not to increase income tax, national insurance or VAT rates for the next five years.

I had no idea this was the agenda. This is classical economic theory once again at the heart of policy. It will be fantastic to watch if they actually manage to do it.

You can see why UKIP is starting to win seats

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BEFORE . . .

white van

How insufferable these people are! This was the front page of The Age a couple of days ago: UK Tories slam Tony Abbott on climate policy.

The attitude of Prime Minister Tony Abbott to the global challenges of climate change is “eccentric”, “baffling” and “flat earther”, according to a group of senior British Conservatives.

The group, including Prime Minister David Cameron’s Minister for Energy and a former Thatcher Minister and chairman of the Conservative Party, says Mr Abbot’s position on climate change represents a betrayal of the fundamental ideals of Conservatism and those of his political heroine, Margaret Thatcher.

In a series of wide-ranging, separate interviews on UK climate change policy with The Age, they warn that Australia is taking enormous risks investing in coal and will come under increasing market and political pressure to play its part in the global battle against climate change.

I never read about such people without thinking they are intrinsically dull witted. To be taken in by such obvious flim flan is not a recommendation for someone in public life.

And then there’s Labour. The picture shows a white van in front of a house with the flag of St George all across the front. The flag is the flag of England; the white van is a common symbol of the working class English typically used in a snide sort of way. And it was posted by the Labour shadow attorney-general – who no longer is the shadow attorney-general – as an example of the idiocy she seemed to find in the English for loving England. The complete story:

A little background is needed here: In England, “White van man” is a contemptuous term for a delivery driver, who is seen as representative of the working class. Class hatreds are ferocious in England but are usually denied. The other thing you need to know is that the St George flag has become a common emblem for English patriotism and opposition to immigration. And the party expected to win the by-election (UKIP) is an anti-immigration pary, so the picture in effect said: “Only the despised working class vote for UKIP”. And for a Labour Party MP to show contempt for the workers is fatal. In only a matter of hours she had to resign from her front-bench job. She is a former barrister (Trial Lawyer), who sent her children to private schools — so it is highly probable that her tweet did indeed reflect snobbish views.

People are quite partial to their own countries, which carry their own traditions and history. Progressive internationalists of all parties may yet – I can only hope – find themselves up against a buzzsaw of opposition to the many attempts by our political elites to open our borders and sever these connections with our own past.

. . . AND AFTER

ukip rochester result

Does the American media really want to live in a wasteland?

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Here it is. The media in the US (and Australia for that matter) must either decide whether they wish to live in a wasteland run by the party of the left rather than live in a secure and prosperous nation run by the more conservative party of the right. The President and the Democratic Party are ruining what the United States once was and turning it into an impotent backwater.

The media can say it’s not us, it’s the people who decide. But say what they like, the massively left-leaning media have shaped the political debate so that the common sense of the past is now seen as extremism. But they, too, will live in the wilderness they have helped to create. It will give no satisfaction to anyone else that they will have to share this tumbledown shambles of a nation with everyone else, but they will.