Britannia Radio

The time is NOW to put an end to this farce and the only person who 
can do it is Cameron but he won’t!    Indeed on the ConservativeHome 
blog the only real mention of him is that elsewhere he “reflects on 
his recent visits”.

The time for reflection is over.  Duty calls him to act now for the 
nation.  If you agree please add your voices wherever you can.

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DAILY MAIL   15.8.08
Labour's imploding, so isn't it time the Tories grew out of crass PR 
stunts?

Labour has now descended into open civil war.

Every few hours, it seems, there is a fresh revolt against the Prime 
Minister as Gordon Brown is subjected to a kind of creeping coup.

The upfront challenges to Brown posed by David Miliband and Charles 
Clarke were damp squibs.

Brown's ministerial foes decided they therefore had no alternative 
but to grit their teeth in face of the dire predictions of electoral 
meltdown and soldier on.

Hence Sunday's grisly spectacle of two of the most Blairite Cabinet 
members, John Hutton and the pretender himself, David Miliband, who 
were paraded uneasily on TV to defend Gordon Brown like enemies of 
the state in some tinpot dictatorship being forced to declare on 
camera their slavish loyalty to the leader.

But other Labour MPs decided to force the issue by launching a 
campaign of attrition.

The strategy is to undermine Brown by withdrawing support on the 
Labour benches to such an extent that ministers have no alternative 
but to wield the knife upon the stricken Prime Minister, and put him 
and the party out of their misery.

Wounded
Hence the calculated martyrdom of the junior whip Siobhan McDonagh 
and Labour's vice-chairman, Joan Ryan, who were sacked after they 
called for a leadership contest, while assorted senior backbenchers 
have taken to the media with calls for a new leader.

MPs have also launched the destabilising tactic of asking for 
leadership nomination ballot forms  -  although, according to rebel 
Frank Field, Downing Street leaked this tactic to the media in order 
to scupper it.
If so, this really is Stalinist behaviour.

This uprising may well grow still further.

No one should doubt the seriousness of such a revolt and its capacity 
to destroy the Prime Minister.

Maybe by the start of Labour's conference this coming weekend, Brown 
will be so badly wounded that it will turn into a wake.
But equally, no one should underestimate Brown's ability to strike back.

It is also possible that the coup will simply fizzle out  -  because 
the greatest weakness of the rebels is that they don't have a 
plausible alternative candidate.

Some are wondering whether the hitherto silent former Home Secretary   
-  and bruiser  -  John Reid is poised to make a potentially 
devastating pitch for the leadership.

If he did, he would certainly present an alternative to the series of 
timorous lightweights whose possible elevation to Number Ten is 
currently rousing the country to such a pitch of apathy.

But whoever took over would come under enormous pressure to call an 
immediate General Election because Gordon Brown did not  -  which 
they would surely lose, as the public is simply sick to death of the 
whole lot of them.

Meanwhile, in addition to the endless war between Brownites and 
Blairites, we now have to endure the spectacle of militant MPs versus 
handwringing ministers.

And while this Jacobean revenge drama is playing out month after 
month, just who's in charge of the clattering train?

Is it any wonder that the Government of this country is in such chaos 
when members of the governing party are totally transfixed by their 
own internal machinations to save their electoral skins?

As accusations of treachery and dirty tricks fly thick and fast, the 
last thing any of them appears to be thinking about is the public 
interest, or indeed anything as tedious as the actual impact of their 
disastrous policies upon the lives of the public over whose votes 
they are fighting.

Such epidemic navel-gazing also distracts from any proper scrutiny of 
the Opposition. The Tories are clearly benefiting in spades from the 
implosion of Labour.

Their enormous opinion poll lead has created the firm  -  if 
premature  -  expectation that they will form the next government.

But they need to be challenged on the fact that even now they appear 
to be more interested in image than substance.

Sleaze
Take, for instance, the 'Tatler Tories'  -  the group of super-cool 
and trendy young Tory candidates who were pictured in Tatler for all 
the world as if they were participants at a fashionable society wedding.

Or look at Sunday's revelation that David Cameron accepted a reported 
£13,000 from the author of a laughably drooling 'biography' of him   
-  which purported to offer an objective account of his life.

Is this really the behaviour of a party which claims to represent a 
total break with the sleaze and spin of the New Labour years?

The Tories should not take the electorate for granted.

People want to know whether the Conservatives will stand up for what 
matters to them.    They are looking for integrity and seriousness.   
At present, they can't see these things anywhere.

Across the political spectrum, all they see is spin and 
repositioning, navelgazing and window-dressing, smoke and mirrors, 
and the sound of sharpening knives.

What they don't see is any clear, coherent and consistent 
articulation of what this country needs.

It's hard to see how Gordon Brown can regain the public's trust and 
confidence.

But Labour doesn't have an alternative candidate because it has no 
alternative story to tell.

The Labour 'project' went pear-shaped under Tony Blair and has never 
recovered  -  can never recover  -  because it was based on a con.
Pretending to have junked state control, it was actually all about 
bribing and browbeating people into a mass dependency utopia in which 
Britain would become totally unrecognisable.

The big prize awaits a leader who understands that Britain is sick of 
being bullied by the state while at the same time watching the 
country's powers of self-government, national identity and values go 
out the window.

Shattered
Interestingly, it is that most politically correct of parties, the 
LibDems, who have now inched into this territory with promises of tax 
cuts and resisting further integration into Europe.

Cynics may well scoff that this is merely desperate repositioning to 
outflank the Tories and avoid being wiped out by them at the 
election. Yet there is surely a lesson here for David Cameron.

People feel the democratic compact between voters and government has 
been shattered. They are fleeced by record levels of taxation, only 
to see billions poured down various sinks.

Politicians are interfering more and more in their lives, telling 
them not just how to behave but how to think, rewarding the 
irresponsible and punishing the dutiful  -  while failing to deliver 
the absolute essentials of providing security against crime and 
conserving the nation's identity.

In other words, it's not just Brown who has failed, but the whole so-
called progressive agenda which has been shown to be a sham.

The Labour rebels have no answer to this.

When Fiona Mactaggart says people need to know where the Government 
is leading them, she is describing Labour itself.   As a result, the 
greatest pressure at these party conferences will not be on Gordon 
Brown  -  assuming he makes it that far. People already assume he is 
toast.
If he looks like he will survive until Christmas, this will be seen 
as a great triumph.

No, the real pressure will be on any Labour challengers  -  and, 
above all, on David Cameron.

Labour has failed.    The public want to know what the alternative 
is. They are in no mood to be fobbed off with spin or fudge.

It's no longer a question of party allegiance. The prize awaits the 
politician who the disdained and browbeaten public thinks is finally 
on their side