It is very easy to slip - without meaning to - into defeat and submission. You begin by making a small compromise here, and a small concession there, for the sake of a quiet life. You ignore an offence, because it is not worth making a fuss. You let politeness and old loyalties override disquiet. And after a while, you find that you have been defeated completely by your subtle opponent, who has gained complete power over you without ever having to fight. Put it another way, in words from another context and another era, yet which seem remarkably apposite: ‘For five years I have talked to the House on these matters - not with very great success. 'I have watched this famous island descending incontinently, fecklessly, the stairway which leads to a dark gulf. It is a fine broad stairway at the beginning, but after a bit the carpet ends. 'A little farther on there are only flagstones, and a little farther on still these break beneath your feet...’ Some of you will recognise those words and know who said them and what they were about. Yes, it was a different subject. But the basic problem is the same. The process starts easily and comfortably, even attractively, but it ends in darkness and defeat. From Pig to Man, and from Man to Pig When I say 'Orwellian' I am of course referring to the moment at the end of 'Animal Farm' when the animals look through the window at the pigs and the men dining together. Pigs and men in this story are supposed to be opposites, enemies even. But it becomes clear that the pigs and the men are now united - united against the poor animals gazing through the window at the festivities: ‘The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.’ From Clegg to Cameron, and from Cameron to Clegg And It Was Impossible to Say Which Was Which What we saw on Wednesday, I think, was the attempted creation of a new political party. And here we need to ask ourselves the bitter question which the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, who understood raw power better than most men, used to ask at moments of decision: ‘Who Whom?’ Who's on top, who's on the bottom, who's the winner, who's the loser? Who gives? Who receives? Who Whom? And I think the answer is quite clear. The two politicians themselves, near-identical Oxbridge smoothies, schooled in the languid beliefs of the wealthy elite, have few real differences. They will have been taught and brought up to despise people with strong loyalties or opinions. Such things are rather bad manners in these layers of our country. They will have picked up large doses of conventional wisdom and received opinion - and can change their opinions quite easily to suit the needs of the times, probably without noticing they are doing it - much as Anthony Blair could switch from modified public school English to Estuary-Speak in seconds, to suit whoever he thought he was talking to. I once made a TV programme on Mr Cameron in which it was almost funny to find how completely his opinions on quite large issues had altered after he lost his first parliamentary election in Stafford. I suspect it didn't trouble him to change his mind because he hadn't held the old views with any passion, and he doesn't hold the new ones with any passion either. I've always said that he would guillotine the Queen if he thought it would help him win or retain office. I imagine a similar study could be made of Mr Clegg, though with so much of the media rolling on to their backs to have their tummies tickled by the new government, I'm not sure who'll do it. Centre-Right? Or Centre Left? How can you tell? Because they have no principles, both men are servants of the ruling ideology of our time - scorn for old-fashioned virtues such as patriotism or Christianity, a relaxed view of drug-taking and sexual morality, a general acceptance of the view that crime is not caused by human wickedness, but by poverty or housing conditions, a belief in free markets which also tends to mean unlimited immigration, globalism, multiculturalism, egalitarianism (for other people) support for the EU. These are the ideas which have dominated all Western governments for the past 50 years or so. Serious conservatives think these ideas are damaging and wrong, and wish to replace them with better ideas. Proper conservatives like the small and the particular, where real loyalties can form - so they like identifiable countries with their own cultures and borders, customs and laws. They're not too embarrassed to limit immigration, protect domestic industries, insist that they make their own laws to suit their own peoples and histories. A Modest, Decent Alternative to Liberal Elitism and Foreign Rule They also think that people who abide by the law should be left alone, while people who break the law should be punished - very different from the PC-obsessed, surveillance society which liberals have created. And they believe in strong married families, parental authority and schools which teach knowledge. They also recognise that we're not all equal in reality, and that it is better to foster talent through selection and encouragement than to crush it with comprehensive mediocrity. Do as You're Told But the 'Centre-Left' and 'Centre-Right' wish to silence people who believe these things. That's why they call themselves 'The Centre'. Centre of what? Who says they're the centre? They do. They might as well just say 'We're Right and everyone else is wrong'. But are they right? Would they win elections if they said honestly what they wanted? Nobody ever won an election in this country calling for the trashing of the schools, the weakening of the criminal justice system, the destruction of the married family or the sacrifice of national independence to a foreign power. Many of these things were done in disguise. The government simply lied about what European Union meant in the referendum on the Common Market. It claimed, ludicrously, that comprehensive schools would mean a grammar school education for all. It pretended that the introduction of divorce and abortion on demand were done to liberate a few individuals from misery. In fact they created far more misery than they ended. Others were sneaked through as private members' bills which were never put before the electorate, notably the abolition of capital punishment. Or we simply weren't told about them honestly or properly - the withdrawal of police from the beat, the subsidising of fatherless families, the distribution of welfare payments to people who don't deserve them, the abandonment of any serious attempt to enforce the laws against illegal drugs, the tidal wave of drunkenness on our streets, the automatic halving of prison sentences, the mad introduction of ambulance-chasing lawyers into our society. Or they came via the EU. How to Become a Bigot - or a Phobe Try to challenge any of these things and the 'Centre' hisses and lashes out with its claws. Your opinion is not legitimate. You're sacked from your job. You're dumped as a candidate by your party. You lose your access to broadcasting studios. You cease to be a person and become a sort of diseased pariah - a 'phobe' or a bigot, not merely wrong but evil and to be shunned. If you're in politics already, you're exiled to the fringes of your party, denied influence or promotion. The Last Stand The Tory Party was the last remaining major political force which had not been completely purged by these intolerant people, who like to call themselves 'modernisers'. Michael Portillo tried to 'modernise' it and was narrowly beaten. Michael Howard (a liberal who is somehow mistaken for a conservative by people who should have gone to SpecSavers) went a good deal further. (Details in my book 'The Cameron Delusion', an updated paperback of 'The Broken Compass'.) But Mr Cameron set out to complete the purge. And what he did was to turn the Tories into a clone of the Liberal Democrats. He was particularly keen on the real core of modern leftism - the Green ideology which has taken over from old-style socialism as the central pillar of anti-conservative thought. He also embraced political correctness on the sexual revolution, egalitarian comprehensive education for everyone (except the elite, which always manages to spare its own children from what it prescribes for you). While posing as a critic of the EU, he showed in his behaviour over the Lisbon Treaty that in the end he wants Britain to be absorbed in the Ever-Closer Union. Serious students of this matter know that there are two positions on the EU - in or out. There is no middle way, any more than you can be a little bit pregnant. 'In Europe but not run by Europe' is like saying 'In Wormwood Scrubs - but not run by Wormwood Scrubs'. The Tory Queen of Political Correctness Mrs May embodies so much of what the Cameron Tory Party is about. For years, she said in official biographies that she had been to a comprehensive school. Actually she went first to a convent school, then to a grammar school, which was turned into a comprehensive while she was there. So why not say so? Then again, Tories love to sneer at Harriet Harman, Labour's Politically Correct Commissar, and rightly so. Miss Harman was jeered at by Tory commentators last year when she introduced more plans for irrational discrimination against men. Her Tory ‘opponent’, Mrs May, did not attack these plans (and was not much jeered for this, for some reason). Instead, she said: ‘I look forward to working constructively with them on ensuring that we have workable and practical legislation to provide for a fair society.’ Miss Harman thanked her for her ‘broad welcome for the package’. Mrs May also now favours all-women shortlists for the picking of Tory candidates. This is the same Mrs May who once said: ‘I’m totally opposed to Labour’s idea of all-women shortlists and I think they are an insult to women. 'I’ve competed equally with men in my career, and I have been happy to do so in politics too.’ This is another seamless change of mind, worthy of Mr Cameron himself. One has to admire its completeness, while yearning (in vain) for Mrs May's explanation. Reverse Takeover It seems to me that what has actually taken place is a reverse takeover. The Tories have been taken over by Liberal Democrat (and Labour) ideas during the five years of Mr Cameron's leadership. Mr Cameron seems to me to be pleased that he must now rely on the Liberal Democrats for his majority, as this enables him to completely nullify the remaining conservatives in his party. I hear whispers that, during negotiations on this merger, the Liberal Democrats were sometimes urged by their Tory opposite numbers to press harder for concessions, which were then swiftly granted, as if the Tory envoys actually wanted to give away more than they were being asked for, using the coalition as the pretext to purge their party of its remaining conservative positions. No wonder it was so easy to do a deal. Imagine their faces if this happened But imagine this. Imagine that a substantial body of Tory MPs, urged on by a substantial number of constituency associations, conservative commentators, Peers and individual members now refused to be borne along in this carnival of leftism. Imagine if they organised serious resistance, began to raise funds, held a dissenting conference, and refused to vote for the new Con-Dem coalition when the moment came. No doubt Mr Clegg and Mr Cameron could - for the moment - obtain the neutrality or even the support of Miss Harman's Parliamentary Labour Party (after all, what exactly do they disagree about now?). They could get their programme through. But they would be confronted for the first time in modern history with a Parliamentary opposition that actually spoke for the socially conservative people of Britain - many of them as betrayed by the Labour Party as their counterparts have been betrayed by the Tories. It has long been my view that there is a majority, made up of former Tory and Labour voters, for a serious conservative force that is not the Tories, that will really fight crime and disorder, that will make the welfare state truly fair, that will halt mass immigration and regain national independence and begin to restore the authority of adults in homes and classrooms and streets. It would be a hard and often lonely task - though in the absence of any other opposition even the BBC would be compelled to give it some time and space. But - given that this Con-Dem coalition is destined to become unpopular because of the tax rises and service it must enact - any opposition is bound to gain some of the government's lost popularity. Why hand that gift to the Labour Party? And what - from the point of view of real conservatives - is to be lost? How much more of Mr Cameron's lofty contempt can you take? Now is the time to break away. This is Peter Hitchens' Mail on Sunday column Right then, all you Tory loyalists who put your trust in David Cameron. Are you pleased with what you got in return for your blind faith in the Dear Leader? I specially address my jeers and hoots of derision to those who claimed that Mr Cameron had some secret pro-British agenda, and was waiting until after the Election to unleash it. If you want to comment on Peter Hitchens, click on Comments and scroll down. I write this as I wait for the Clegg-Cameron press conference to begin in the Downing Street garden - an innocent patch of lawn weirdly renamed 'The Rose Garden' by John Major's lot (or was it the Blair government? Either could have done this pretentious thing) some years ago, in slavish imitation of the White House. The Washington Presidential Palace actually has a Rose Garden, crammed with roses, into which I once infiltrated myself in those wondrously unregulated pre-11th September days, for my only direct question to Bill Clinton. Downing Street, which is an office block with a couple of flats attached, doesn't. I shall return to this process from time to time in the next few days, but have to be away from my keyboard for most of the rest of today. If you want to comment on Peter Hitchens, click on Comments and scroll down. I'll resume this later, after the joint Torberal press conference which Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg have announced for early on Wednesday afternoon.
15 May 2010 6:45 PM
Time for a Tory split
A Stairway to a Dark Gulf
For patriotic conservatives in this country, I think the moment came during the grotesque Orwellian 'press conference' given by David Cameron and Nicholas Clegg in the Downing Street garden on Wednesday.Share this article:
He agrees with Nick... the trouble is Dave disagrees with himself
Can't you see how pleased he was to be in this very civil partnership with the Liberal Democrats? Perhaps that was always his true 'secret agenda'.
The talks between the Tories and the Liberals were quite astonishingly swift and harmonious, weren't they? Is it possible that exploratory discussions on such a plan took place long before May 6?
No doubt such an idea will be vigorously denied, because if it is true it will serve to show just how profoundly cynical, dishonest and, yes, I'll use the word - treacherous - the Tory campaign was in every respect.
At Mr Cameron's sole press conference during the Election campaign (that's right, he held just one, so scared was he of unpredictable questioning), I asked him if he was politically closer to Nick Clegg or Norman Tebbit.
He flannelled, but didn't answer. Now he has.
Not merely does he agree with Nick. He disagrees with himself.
Without a passing sigh, Mr Cameron has tossed his few token conservative policies in the bin.
It doesn't seem to have cost him much pain, does it? Abolish the Human Rights Act? Don't be silly. Whoever thought I meant that?
Cut inheritance tax? Oh, did you take me seriously?
Actually we'll be coming after the responsible and thrifty middle classes with a whopping increase in capital gains tax instead.
Oh, and employees will be paying the National Insurance rise anyway. Sorry, didn't mean that either.
My guess is that the tax gimmick for married couples, for what it's worth, will go down the plumbing, too.
Meanwhile, we are faced with slippery constitutional changes which will bring this country to within one inch of being a rather authoritarian Republic.
And we will have to endure the continuing triumph of political correctness, well-symbolised by the elevation to the Home Office (also in charge of 'equality') of the Tory Queen of PC, Theresa May.
Don't expect much of a fight against crime or disorder from that quarter, let alone a serious curb on immigration.
Well, now that millions of Tory loyalists have been taken for mugs, as the two callow Con-Dem comrades giggle, preen and smile, what are those loyalists going to do?
Fool me once, goes the old saying, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. The choice must be made now.
Those who stay in the Tory Party in the face of this insult to their loyalty and their intelligence will - like all those who compromise with a conqueror or an invader - eventually talk themselves into accepting their subjugation.
Now is the time to strike, when it can do real damage to this very nasty new Government.
Proper Conservative MPs, party officials and members alike should spend this week urgently considering breaking away from the Heir to Blair and taking as much of the party with them as they can.
Otherwise there is nothing but Left-wing government ahead of us, stretching out till the crack of doom.
The bad science of drugging boys
A shocking £31million is spent each year on prescriptions for powerful mind-altering drugs given to children with the fictional complaint called ADHD.
This should stop immediately, as should the large payments of Disability Living Allowance to many of the families involved.
There is no objective diagnosis for 'ADHD', a complaint invented by psychiatrists and drug companies.
Its alleged 'symptoms' are felt not by supposed patients but by exasperated adults trying to cope with boys (it's mainly boys) who get too little exercise, sleep and authority, watch too much TV, play too many computer games, eat and drink junk food and are then forced to endure school lessons of crushing boredom conducted by women who don't understand small boys.
I continue to be amazed all the 'Bad Science' gurus have not turned their searchlights on this fantasy.
Sermon from the Church of Europe
I wonder what the Queen thinks about the strange pro-EU service which took place in the nation's church, Westminster Abbey, last Sunday.
The flag of the EU - a body which specifically refused to have any Christian element in its constitution - was carried solemnly into the Abbey in procession.
An extract from the Schuman Declaration which began the whole EU project (not, so far as I know, a Christian document) was read from the Great Pulpit.
For some reason the congregation were also compelled to listen to a Bulgarian folk song whose mysterious words include the line 'If it is a boy from our village playing, I will love him only until lunchtime.
'If it is a stranger, I will love him for ever.'
Prayers were said for the European Commission and for the European 'Parliament'. One declared 'Lord God our Father, we affirm our commitment to the European Union'.
A politically-correct sermon was delivered by an Anglican clergyman who ought to have known better.
The EU anthem, Friedrich Schiller's non-Christian Ode To Joy, closed the proceedings.
Why exactly was this episode of power-worship, worldly utopianism and partisan politics permitted in the Abbey church where our Coronations are held?
What would the real Robin make of these boneheads?
A silly man called Paul Chambers posted a silly, coarse remark on Twitter when his plane was held up at the romantically-named Robin Hood Airport.
Mr Chambers looks like the sort of person I'd avoid on sight. But I think the decision to prosecute him for what was obviously a (bad) joke was boneheaded, oppressive and wrong.
No sane person could have imagined for a moment that this was a serious threat. The reason for this heavy-handed behaviour is simple.
Almost all the precautions we take against airborne terrorism are themselves a futile joke, which makes no sense and achieves nothing.
Laughing at this undermines the thought-free, po-faced petty tyrants who enjoy using the terror threat to boss us about.
Countries that prosecute people for making jokes are on the way to becoming totalitarian. I wonder what the real Robin Hood would have thought about this?
The place should obviously be renamed 'Sheriff of Nottingham Airport'.
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The contraceptive pill is about to celebrate its 50th anniversary in this country. I think future generations will be amazed that any women were prepared to take it.
No man would swallow something that had a comparably devastating effect on his reproductive organs.Share this article:
13 May 2010 2:09 PM
Actually 'Con-Dem' is a better name for a government that is to the Left of New Labour
So I shall drop 'Torberal', which sounds like an unpleasant chocolate bar that sticks to your teeth, or a drug for the treatment of inflamed knees. The only problem with 'Con-Dem' is that it contains a hint of conservatism, which is actually wholly lacking in this coalition. Yes, yes, I'll come to the sad case of IDS, prisoner of the Cameroons, in good time (I've already dealt with the equally sad case of William Hague, David Cameron's walking figleaf, in an earlier posting).
But before responding to as many of your comments as possible, I pass on some very interesting words from Mr Benedict Brogan of the Daily Telegraph, a reporter who could fairly be said to be close to the heart of the Cameroon project. Please read this in the light of the Michael Portillo words, quoted in an earlier posting:
‘Mr Cameron has worked out what the irreconcilables in his party have not: that the Tories not only did not win last Thursday but that they are unlikely to do so if another election is called soon. There is a clear sense that the Prime Minister fears that he has seen the high-water mark of the Tory comeback. Those of this persuasion question whether a 40 per cent share of the vote - the Tories achieved 36 per cent - will ever be in sight again’.
I suppose I'm an 'irreconcilable' outside the party, but then again this is because I worked out nearly seven years ago that a Tory victory was impossible and that conservatism needs another vehicle. Once again, I'd like to say that if only other conservatives had paid any attention, we'd now be a lot closer to achieving that.
(By the way, can the pestilential BNP posters here please stop claiming that their tiny, dismal, violent and bigoted Nazi-tainted faction, which feeds parasitically on the legitimate opinions of others in an unending and unsuccessful search for fraudulent popularity is a 'party' or worthy of serious consideration or mention? I should have thought recent events would have persuaded even them of that, and I can't imagine I'm the only person reading this site who could manage without them.)
Let's also bung in some words from Deborah Orr, in the Guardian who seems to have grasped something her colleagues, obsessed with fantasies that these were 'the Same Old Tories', never understood. She says: ‘Britain doesn't have a Conservative government. How astonishing. After a long period in which the rule of the right was thought inevitable, David Cameron's party has been hobbled.’
What she fails to note (it's a bit too much all at once for someone trapped in the weird leftist universe she inhabits) is that Mr Cameron actively welcomes being 'hobbled' in this way.
Oh, yes, IDS. I'd say Mr Duncan Smith was a Christian Democrat, honourably motivated by Roman Catholic social teaching and genuinely concerned for the poor, but lacking in a robust understanding of the need to combat moral poverty in our country. Also, the poor man was crushed by being thrust into a leadership he couldn't handle, the last conservative leader of the Tory Party (see my book 'The Cameron Delusion' - the updated paperback version of 'The Broken Compass' - for an account of the significance of his overthrow and what followed).
Now, to the silly people who seem to think that the events of the past few days have shown me to be wrong - how, exactly did I err? I was absolutely right about three important things - two of fact and one of opinion. I said Mr Cameron was a man of the Left, and I said he wouldn't and he shouldn't win a majority. I said (and Mr Brogan and Mr Portillo agree with me from their very different perspectives) that the Tory Party couldn't win a majority again. I even remarked rather early on Mr Cameron's closeness to Mr Clegg, in my one question to him during the campaign. Remember what I asked: ‘Are you politically closer to Norman Tebbit or to Nick Clegg?’ And remember that he didn't answer. Well, he has answered now, hasn't he?
I was, it is true, at fault in not conceiving that either Mr Cameron or Mr Clegg would be able to get their parties to support the liberal elite stitch-up which has just created a government significantly to the left of New Labour. Mr Clegg and Mr Cameron may not believe in anything much, apart from the conventional wisdom of the modern elite, but they have MPs and supporters who do have principles. Yet, either exhilarated or nauseated by the speed of the coalition bus, they have stayed strapped in their seats and made no protest.
I genuinely believed last weekend that the most they could achieve would be an informal stitch-up on 'confidence and supply'. It was even worse than I had imagined, which I agree is a failure, but only of magnitude.
But what of my cavilling foes - whose case always seemed to be based on the idea that a Tory victory at all costs was both possible and desirable, without any reference to what sort of government it would bring? Did they either want or predict the Cameron-Clegg civil partnership? Are they pleased at what has taken place, now they have got it? Are they pleased by the enthusiasm that Mr Cameron shows for lashing his party to the Liberal Democrats, quite possibly forever?
Let them answer if they can, though if I know them they'll dodge the question or resort to abuse against me. I was much more nearly right than they. And my most fundamental argument - that the Cameron Tory Party was Labour in a blue dress - has been totally borne out.
Dogma can of course delude anyone into failing to believe general truths. This is the curse of intelligence work - its fruit often isn't believed because it doesn't suit political leaders or military chiefs to do so, the best example of this being the Israeli government's refusal to act on intelligence of a planned attack in September 1973, and the second best being Stalin's refusal to believe repeated warnings of Hitler's invasion of the USSR in 1941. Neither of them wanted to believe it, so they didn't.
But when dogma actually causes people to deny demonstrable arithmetical propositions, then we really are up against a severe delusion, proof of the old but reliable saying that there's none so blind as those that will not see.
Try this simple problem for yourselves: Number of seats needed for majority: 326. Number of seats won by Conservatives: 306. Do the Conservatives have a majority? No. Can you win an election if you don't have a majority? No. Did the Tories win the election? No. Then they must have lost it. Yet the mere statement that 'The Tories lost the election' sends these loyalists into a sort of tizzy of rage. As A.E. Housman wrote: ‘To think that two and two are four, and neither five nor three, the heart of man has long been sore - and long is like to be’. But that's tough.
Mind you, I've known I was in trouble with dedicated Tory loyalists for years. You could place before them any number of facts about the Tory leader and his colleagues, their actions, their open statements of intention, their voting records. And they would appear to listen. And then, after hours of argument or weeks of correspondence, they would end by saying in an uncomprehending drone: ‘That's all very well, but surely we've got to get rid of Gordon Brown.’
Well, congratulations boys and girls, you've 'got rid of Gordon Brown' and how much better do you feel than you did when he was there? High taxation gone, has it? Grammar schools back, are they? Political correctness has been removed from public life, has it? The EU has been told to clear off, has it? Mass immigration is stopping, is it? Crime and disorder are under control, are they? Marriage has been saved, has it? Britain has pulled out of the idiot war in Afghanistan, has it? The rape of the constitution is over, is it?
Do you know what, I think some of them may actually start to miss Gordon Brown after a few months of rule by these bland and smiley young men, mocking the poor groundlings who were fool enough to mistake propaganda for substance. Me? Well, like most Trotskyite sleepers - and it turns out that Comrade Eric Pickles used to be a Trot, too, according to this morning's papers, so work that one out if you can - I'm more concerned with policy than personality.Share this article:
12 May 2010 3:42 PM
Heed the Portillo warning
This gets more interesting all the time. While I don't think a majority Tory government (had such a thing happened) would have been much different from what we now see, it's clear that Mr Cameron is keenly using his supposed defeat to get what he really wants and to trample with even greater vigour on the hopes and wishes of people such as me. I pause to ask his loyalist defenders - now will you see what sort of person this is, whom you have praised and helped and defended? As he closes the door of hope on any real patriotic or conservative cause, do you not wonder what you have helped to bring about by choosing him as leader, and getting out the vote for the party he led?
Why do I mention Michael Portillo? Because he deserves it, in more ways than one. I once challenged Mr Portillo for the Tory nomination for Kensington and Chelsea, in a kamikaze attempt to warn the Tory Party of the liberal plan to take it over. I regard him as a force for harm in our country. But I have to acknowledge that he is an exceptional person. He invented the political position which David Cameron inherited and has now brought to fruition. He decided many years ago that the Tory Party must embrace Politically Correct fundamentalism, social liberalism of all kinds and become 'progressive' - that is to say openly social democratic and radical.
Partly because of his own enjoyably unloveable, haughty manner, partly because of the timing, Mr Portilllo failed - as pioneers often do. He must now watch others succeed with smooth ease where he was defeated in costly, personally painful battle. It's yet another illustration of Rule Number One - Life's Not Fair.
But I wonder how close he has remained to active Tory politics. He remains one of the most astute commentators in the business. On Andrew Neil's late-night This Week programme he has always interestingly shared my view that the Tories could not win a majority this time - a view which in his case had no trace of wishful thinking, and so is a sign of his essential seriousness.
An article he wrote in the Daily Telegraph on 7th May seems now to have been penned in letters of fire, especially this segment: ‘Depending on what new system emerges, there may be political re-grouping. By then the Cameroons will have discovered that they can work with the Lib Dems, or at least some of them. The prospect of ditching the Tory party Right wing is hardly dismaying.’
In other words, if this coalition can be made to stick, the remnants of the Tory 'Right' must become powerless prisoners of the party machine, muttering in private while kowtowing in public - unless they make the break I recommend. And, here's the vital bit, Mr Cameron actually has his nasty task made easier by this situation. No, I don't think he planned it, or wanted it. But he was prepared for it, and he's not as sorry as he might be expected to be.
As Mr Portillo wrote: ‘The Conservative leader has not been idle during the campaign. He has carefully thought through how to deal with a hung parliament.’
Mr Portillo also reckoned that voting reform - of a kind unstated - might well benefit the new Torberal Party he envisaged: ‘A new centre Right grouping (New Conservatives?) would probably find it easier to win under any system than the old Conservatives did on Thursday night.’
Ah, here they come, side by side, the non-identical twins. It is amazing that people with so little experience of the great world now find their way into high office. With a little leeway on the age of consent, I'm old enough to be their father. As Mr Cameron flannels (I'm afraid I find him a dull and uncaptivating public speaker, given to cliches both of words and mannerisms, and Mr Clegg is almost indistinguishable).
And I wonder how long it will take them to get to the enormous and nasty constitutional changes which seem to be at the heart of what is going on. Mr Cameron is quite determined that this will be a lasting political marriage, stretching far into the future - not a temporary alliance to be laid down when the need has gone. Good heavens. They're in favour of fairness, liberty and ... what was the other thing? I think it was Roy Jenkins who pointed out that, unless the opposite could realistically be stated, such words were meaningless drivel. And of course Mr Clegg and Mr Cameron could not say they favoured unfairness or tyranny, could they?
How can they introduce fixed-term parliaments into the British system, in which a government without a majority falls? This is a blow directly aimed at the Commons itself. And it has another giant effect too. What functions does this leave for the monarch? The change is basically republican, and also - if accounts of a requirement for a 55 per cent Commons majority (I have heard three different figures) to bring down a government are correct - an entrenched elective dictatorship. And that will be made worse by the fact that it entrenches a government which was not put before the people in the first place.
What do they propose to do to the second chamber? Is it to be a PR-elected senate, of salaried, expense-account-equipped youthful gender-and-ethnicity-and sexual-orientation-vetted placepersons, as tightly-controlled by the party machines and the executive as the lower house? Yes, I expect that is what it will be like. (How we shall all long for the decent old independent hereditaries when this nasty thing is in being). Presumably the Anglican Bishops will have to go - a hugely significant step in the de-Christianisation of Britain, easily disguised as a step towards greater democracy.…well, the 'press conference' is now over and - with the exception of Channel Four News's Gary Gibbon, who has spotted the unexpected enthusiasm of this supposedly arranged Marriage, or Civil Partnership if you prefer - nobody has asked anything interesting at all, let alone got an interesting answer (some hope, I know). We shall have to look elsewhere for anything which casts much light on what's going on.
One rather important thing. Has anyone noticed that nobody, in this election or since, has spoken for the millions who want our involvement in the Afghan war to end? This is just one of the huge questions now suppressed by this coalition of the liberal elite.Share this article:
What will real Conservatives do about this Torberal Government?
What we know of the Clegg-Cameron pact suggests that it is a major victory for the Liberal Democrats, made easier by the fact that David Cameron is himself by inclination a liberal, and offered no serious resistance to many of Nicholas Clegg's demands. On the contrary, I believe he welcomed those demands, as an excuse to dump policies he never liked in the first place. The speed and ease with which this deal was made exposes the unspeakable truth, that there really is no substantial, principled difference between the *leaderships* of the major political parties. The only problems arise when the backbenchers and activists, who still believe in something, need to be consulted.
I am faintly disappointed that nobody tried the obvious way out of our hung parliament - a Conservative-Labour coalition which would have demonstrated even more clearly that Mr Cameron is the true heir to Blair. The Tories could have insisted that Labour got rid of Gordon Brown, and Labour could have demanded the head of George Osborne.
The reaction - immediately and in the long term - of properly conservative members and supporters of the Tory Party is the thing to watch. If they submit and allow themselves to be co-opted, then all immediate hope is gone and political and social conservatism is dead in this country. We can all go off and keep bees.
But if they offer a principled resistance, one which in my view must lead inevitably to an actual split and breakaway, then there will be hope.
Those who still delude themselves that the leadership of the Tory Party contains any serious conservative elements should have noticed the giggling, beaming face of Oliver Letwin looming about the place during the negotiations which produced this, the first Liberal government of my lifetime. His presence was the key. Mr Letwin is simply not a conservative on any important issue, and is refreshingly frank about this, which is why he is not normally allowed out in public. But of course his frank liberalism was extremely useful during these talks.
William Hague, on the other hand, was performing his normal role as walking, talking figleaf, hoping to conceal the horrid reality from the sensitive gaze of actual conservatives with his macho northern bluntness. The post of Foreign Secretary in the modern age is pretty worthless, despite the grandeur of an office which is big enough to contain most people's houses. Prime Ministers run what foreign policy there is these days, especially once their domestic programmes sink into the mud (as they always do). Mr Hague knows this. He has been gracefully sidelined, with his own permission. Just as Labour used to have a 'Keeper of the Cloth Cap', a role well-performed by John Prescott, the Tories these days have to have a Tender of the Thatcherite Flame. It's Mr Hague. His job is to reassure the poor bemused members, while acceding to Mr Cameron's plans. So much for him.
Now for the deal (insofar as I have seen it at the time of writing, late on Wednesday morning).
The supposed 'red lines' of Tory policy are pretty insignificant. The EU has most of what it wants from us and can obtain plenty more by salami-slicing, impenetrable late-night deals (in which Britain loses another piece of independence under anaesthetic) whose implications emerge months later, and by Qualified Majority Voting, without the need for any new treaties.
The abandoned Lib Dem 'amnesty' for illegal immigrants was at least honest. We will continue to have an unstated amnesty for such people, under which they stay here in large numbers because nobody can be bothered to remove them. Trident is a Cold War weapon designed for a task we no longer need to perform. Sooner or later, probably in a big Defence Review, we will opt for a deterrent which has some relevance to the post-1990 world.
The accelerated reduction of the deficit is not specially conservative in itself, and may quite simply be mistaken (some reputable economists think so), but if George Osborne wants to insist on it, then he will also take the blame if it goes wrong. Which, if it happens, will not hugely distress many people in his own party.
The unspecified meaningless 'cap' on non-EU immigration remains a gesture to public opinion, not backed by any real intention to act.
An issue which would once have arisen - the Liberal Democrats' unshakeable commitment to stamping out academic selection in schools - has of course been killed off already. The Tories too now publicly dismiss all prospect of restoring the only measure which would save state education. Their famous 'free schools', if any ever open, will either be bog-standard comprehensives or postcode-based socially selective fake comprehensives, just like plenty which already exist and are heavily patronised by egalitarian politicians.
The appointments, trickling out as I write, are fascinating. Theresa May has long been a favourite of this weblog because of her openly expressed enthusiasm for Harriet Harman's policies, her unexplained U-turn on all-women shortlists and her weird attempt to claim she'd had a comprehensive schooling when in fact her grammar school had been turned into a comprehensive over her head. She combines the Home Office with a new Cabinet position as 'Minister for Women and Equality' which can be loosely described as 'Secretary of State for Political Correctness'. Harriet Harman lives on in this Torberal Government under another name and hairstyle.
Kenneth Clarke, as Lord Chancellor and Minister of Justice, is the most potent remaining representative of the Tories' 1970s liberal, social democratic wing still in circulation. Other figures of this sort, such as Douglas Hurd, Michael Heseltine and John Major are much in evidence as approving godparents of the Cameron project. But Mr Clarke doggedly keeps on in active politics, a rare grown-up in a government of inexperienced and callow young men. I actually rather like Mr Clarke, as do many people. (He is funny and convivial, his enthusiasm for jazz is genuine, and his knowledge of it real, and he tends to tell the truth in preference to spin. He took it in good part when I once tried to present him with a Labour Party membership card).
But it seems that Mr Cameron's always rather unconvincing hostility to the Human Rights Act will shrivel away to nothing if Mr Clarke is in charge of this area of policy. Apparently the Liberal Democrats have demanded an end to such talk anyway. And - as in all important matters - got what they wanted.
It is also clear that the Torberal Government will be fanatically committed to Warmism. The Environment Secretary is going to be 'Secretary of State for Climate Change' as well. Rational sceptics of this fundamentalist pseudo-religion will be unwelcome in this Cabinet, and probably denounced as 'deniers'. Which means that this country will now be moving at an accelerating rate towards a major electricity shortage within ten years or so.
Sunday, 16 May 2010
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