CentreRight

energywatch

energywatch have been in the news a lot in recent days.  Castigating electricity companies, Ofgem and anyone else they hold responsible for rising energy prices.

The reason gas prices are going up is complex but, basically, the main issue is this one:

Right now oil production isn't keeping up with rising demand.  That doesn't mean we need to go off ranting and raving about peak oil.  It just means that right now we don't have enough of the stuff coming out of the ground.  The market is sending a signal for everyone to cut down their use of oil but, unfortunately, there aren't many good alternatives so demand for oil is highly inelastic and doesn't fall much when the price goes up.  It is also sending a signal to increase production but supply takes a while to respond.

Gas prices are linked to oil prices on the European market.  As such, the rising price of oil is pushing up gas prices.  Electricity prices rise in turn because our generation is incredibly dependent upon gas as a fuel.  No one is really directly to blame for price rises.  As Ofgem have shown (PDF) the UK gas price is pretty much the same as the EU average.

There is another factor significantly pushing up energy prices, particularly electricity: climate change policies.  The Renewable Energy Foundation sets out the numbers:

• "Climate change policies make up around 14% of the average domestic electricity bill and 3% of the average domestic gas bill.
• Climate change policies also make up 21% of the average business electricity bill and 4% of the average business gas bill (i).
• By 2020 the burden of green policies will have risen to 18% of the average domestic electricity bill and 55% of the average business electricity bill(ii).

Despite this substantial bill the Renewables Obligation will decrease emissions by just 1.6% by 2010, at an exorbitant subsidy cost of around £400 per tonne of carbon (iii)."

So, we have two major causes of energy price rises:  the structure of the European gas market and government climate change policies.  One isn't really under anyone's immediate control.  In the medium term we can invest in coal and nuclear power to reduce our dependence on gas but that's a project that would take years.  By contrast, so long as the Government were prepared to ignore lunatic EU targets they could bring down the price of energy by scrapping useless policies tomorrow.  That's how hard-pressed consumers of energy could really be given a break.

What are energywatch focussed on then?  Bashing energy companies, of course.  Mike Denham, writing at the TaxPayers' Alliance blog sets out why:

"Except that energywatch is not independent. It is a tax-funded quango which costs us £15m pa (2006-07 Report and Accounts). Its rants are entirely dependent on us taxpayers for their funding.

It gets better. In 2006-07, Campaign Director Adam Scorer got paid no less than £75,000 (including pension accrual). His boss Allan Assher got paid c £125,000 (including pension). Of our money."

So, the Government forces us all to pay for a quango to bash energy companies and distract from their own complicity in high energy prices.  The media don't ask any questions.  The cost to ordinary people of massive subsidies to renewable industries that provide little useful capacity needs to be exposed and energywatch should be shut, so that it can be replaced by a campaign that really has the interests of energy consumers, rather than pleasing its political masters, at heart.

Sky's new opinion poll tracker

For those who love opinion polls, the Sky website has just launched a fun toy.  Its poll tracker allows you to inspect all polls since 1983 and construct graphs for any period in between then and now.  I created the above graph showing trends in party support from 1997 until now.  Click here to play.

Give me back my DNA!

Last year, my uncle was tragically murdered. The purpose of this post is not to seek sympathy, not least as my cousins Peter and Stephanie are the ones who have really suffered. The crime, committed at my uncle's home in Walsall was perhaps a burglary gone wrong or some kind of mistaken identity and has not yet been solved, and I doubt ever will be. My uncle Les (pictured here in 1962) was a good man who certainly never deserved the fate that befell him.

This post is really about the national DNA database, which I am on as a result of Les's murder. A new report shows that I am one of more than a million entirely innocent people on the database, which also includes 100,000 children.

I am not an instinctive civil libertarian. Indeed, I have a great deal of sympathy with the Home Office argument made in the Independent press report linked to above that the database provides police with 3,500 DNA matches each month in solving crimes.

War with Iran?

As previously promised, here is a link to the Press TV show I did against with Tony Benn on war with Iran.  We had a pretty good fight.  And yes, I know I need a haircut.

In Hobbesian Britain, carrying a knife is often rational

David Eyles’ thoughtful piece on the Platform today makes the obvious point that law-abiding people have plenty of legitimate reasons to carry knives some of the time, and highlights the dangers of reversing the burden of proof so that anyone who does so must prove their intentions were innocent.

I am inclined to go further and enter the head of a young person growing up on one of the many estates that exist in so many places in Britain where marriages don’t happen, fathers don’t raise their children and the welfare state pays far more bills than does work. It is easy to empathise with the Dorset farmer who needs a knife to do his job, but what about the teenager or twenty-something who grows up on such an estate? Much as he might cause middle aged hearts to skip a beat when he gets on the same tube carriage as they do, he is not especially tough or intimidating compared to his neighbours. Even if he is, what family he has may not be, and he worries about their safety whenever he hears about the latest mugging, burglary or stabbing. Even if he is confident of his ability to face-down the violence and intimidation that are a continuing part of his existence when it comes from a single person, he can hardly be sure of his ability to take on three or four inner city youths who take against him. Police are almost never seen on these streets, and if they ever do turn up to prosecute someone, the sentences are paltry.

Labour are undermining at least 50% of Britain's historic core values

Earlier this month the Communities Secretary Hazel Blears set out the government's policy on combating violent extremism (why only 'violent' extremism one might ask - but that's another article!). In this she listed 6 'shared values': 1. a belief in democracy 2. the rights of minorities 3. the need for competing political parties 4. a free press 5. an independent judiciary and 6. free elections. She declared that

'These fundamental tenets of democracy form the great dividing line between us and the extremists.'

Really? Three things concern me here.

First, the government evidently lacks a clear understanding of exactly what are our historic core British values: do they not include freedom of speech for everyone - not just the press? Where is freedom of religion - particularly the right not to have a world-view whether religious or secular pluralist imposed on people by legislation? Where is the Magna Carta provision of no arbitrary imprisonment without trial by jury etc. I could go on...

In economic policy, is Obama to the left of Gordon Brown?

An excellent piece in today's print version of the Wall Street Journal - Obamanomics is a Recipe for Recession - by a Stanford Economics Professor, Michael J. Boskin. As he says, "despite his obvious general intelligence, and uplifting and motivational elequence, Sen. Obama reveals this startling economic illiteracy in his policy proposals" . . . which are (and I paraphrase) to;

• unilaterally renegotiate his country's international  economic treaties
• dramatically raise marginal tax rates on the "rich"
• change his country's social insurance system into explicit welfare by severing the link between taxes and benefits

All this at a time when America's budget deficit is starting to baloon again - possibly up to $500 billion in 2009 and world trade talks have just collapsed. That's why I don't really have much time for Tories who genuflect to Obama. Their adulation is a classic example of what Paul Johnson might call anti-intellectualism - believing personalities are more important than ideas. Of course, the UK and the US economies start from different places. Above all in the standard of living, in terms general economic freedom, rates of government expenditure of GDP, a still marginally lower budget deficit in the US etc. But in the entirely implausible scenario that Gordon Brown wins the next election, how likely would he be, this time, to significantly raise taxes again, embrace a protectionist stance on trade and roll backwards on their late conversion to welfare reform?

As Boskin says, "History teaches us that high taxes and protectionism are not conducive to a thriving economy, the extreme case being the higher taxes and tariffs that deepened the Great Depression. While such a policy mix would be a real change, as philosophers remind us, change is not always progress".

Should Conservatives prepare to oppose a Miliband government?

Yesterday, in The Daily Mail, James Chapman appeared to suggest that Labour plans were afoot to force Gordon Brown to quit which could be followed by a subsequent leadership contest, in which the Foreign Secretary Mr Miliband could run for Prime Minister with Health Secretary Mr Johnson as his deputy. I agreed with his analysis. (The Times has just caught up with the story and Miliband writes for The Guardian today). Although most other parts of the press were not as forthcoming with precise details on likely Labour plans, it appears that today the Miliband issue is well worth considering.

Johnson always rules himself out as leader automatically, whilst Miliband offers a cogent and defence of the Labour cause. From his discussions on the floor of the House of Commons through to blogging through to communicating with the electorate, he is (rather worryingly) a powerful force in the Labour Party. Others including Harman and Straw have also been seen as possible contenders, but in my view, they are too weak in different respects. And they all know that Brown is otherwise leading a Government destined for defeat.

How and why the Church of England will split

The Church of England will split.  I think it's inevitable now.  This matters politically.

With its eighty million members across the world, the Anglican Communion has always been a significant instrument of British soft power.  The urge to evangelize and educate was a key driver of the nineteenth century Empire, and the Anglican churches the Empire left behind still long looked to Canterbury for their inspiration and guidance.  If, as neocons and imperialists believe, the spreading of one's values abroad is a key duty and goal of a wealthy, strong nation, then the Anglican Communion must have its place in foreign policy.

In addition, of course, the Anglican Church is the state church.  Anglican bishops sit in the House of Lords.  Each new monarch is anointed and crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and appointed Supreme Governor of the Church of England.  Anglican morality is at the heart of most of the traditional English constitution, and represents a norm to which matters revert after a while, even if they are occasionally driven away from that norm by the politics of the day.  The debate about what role the church ought to have in our national life is one for another time.  That it does have a key role in our national life can hardly be disputed.

William Wilberforce

I updated the CentreRight masthead over the weekend with a quote from my own number one political hero, William Wilberforce: "If to be feelingly alive to the sufferings of my fellow-creatures is to be a fanatic, I am one of the most incurable fanatics ever permitted to be at large."

If you haven't watched Amazing Grace, the film of Wilberforce's life, I recommend it.  It's not a great, great film but it's a quicker guide to the abolitionist movement than reading William Hague's brilliant biography.  For those with even less spare time the 90 second clip below gets to the heart of Wilberforce's great cause:

The Quietus

It’s not that I didn’t like it, he said, refusing to meet my eye, It’s just that I didn’t know why you called it ‘Turn your face towards the sea’. I toss a pebble towards the water, missing the edge. A middle-aged couple stumble past over the shingle. Not quite 9am but it’s already too hot for clothes, so I take most of mine off, and limp towards the water’s edge, pebbles biting into the soles of my feet. You’re nearly 40, he shouts after me, and you’ve still got a funny walk. You’ll never get anywhere in life with a funny walk, and you can’t always run away from problems by jumping into –

The sea. Glorious instant of annihilation as the ocean folds me into its salty, cold embrace. Wash me, thoroughly, from my iniquity. Consciousness switches off momentarily as the brain checks in on the more basic life-support functions. Still breathing. Self returns to find my arms and legs beating out a crawl, pulling me from the shore. I feel the burn of the cold water on my abdomen, the burn of the hot sun on my back.

Last night I tried to compose something for CentreRight about the state that Gordon Brown is in. But I was blocked by the superfluous nature of anything I could produce: how many more articles can anyone face about the three options facing Labour MPs, about the likelihood of a ‘make or break’ conference, and the ‘urgent’ phone calls between plotting cabinet ministers (apparently monitored anonymously by the Westminster lobby, relayed breathlessly on page after comment page) or the likely successor, or the need for a general election post-Brown? And most of these articles are written by insiders. You’re just an amateur, I tell myself crossly, a rank amateur with a funny walk. In any case, it’s quite obvious (pace Louise) that they’re not going to do anything.

Comparing Gordon to Major, Thatcher and Blair

I've linked previously to the instructive work from Populus comparing the poll standing of Brown's government and that of Major's in 1992-1997.  Whilst he prefers to focus on a slightly different element of the Major premiership - i.e. the bit before an election victory - it seems that the comparison between Brown and Major is one Brown himself takes to heart, as apparently "Shaun [Woodward] has become an increasingly important figure in Team Brown" because Woodward was Major's communications director in the run-up to the 1992 election, which we won after a number of by-election defeats, and "Gordon finds that analogy comforting".  Still, whilst Brown does have backbenchers openly calling for him to go, he has a healthy majority and he has no hard core of habitual, principled opponents a la Major's "b**tards".

As The Times has it, perhaps the apposite comparison is with Gordon and Thatcher.  After all, it was "the loss of the safe Tory seats of Mid-Staffs and Eastbourne that confirmed that she had become an electoral liability..." [a point I for one don't in fact concede, but...] whilst "For Gordon Brown it has taken the London Mayoral Battle, Crewe & Nantwich and now Glasgow East to prove tha the prime minister is an election loser."  Then again, "in just one year as prime minister, Mr Brown has reached the point that it took Mrs Thatcher 11 years to get to."  An instructive point.

I don't know if Brown is really aptly compared to either Thatcher or Major.  A reasonable point to make on both fronts is that both of our most recent PMs struggled with economic downturns; 80% of us now believe that the country is heading for a recession, a high enough result for it to become a self-fulfilling prophecy as people trim their behaviour accordingly.

In any case, I think that the best comparison is probably with the person with whom Brown has always most loathed comparison - Tony Blair.  I often wonder what would be different, had Blair stayed as he promised to.  For example, in the best of the Labour-insider-sticks-knife-into-PM columns in the aftermath of the by-election, an incisive and insightful article which I urge you to read, Lance Price wrote that he believed that "under a different leader Labour would not have lost Glasgow East" - perhaps one A C L Blair would have fitted the bill...

Human beings are "the ultimate resource"

Via the excellent ASI blog I've just come across this article from Walter Williams.  Mr Williams makes the case against the population controllers (who have been very voluble in the UK in recent days) and says the real enemy is capricious and incompetent government.  Here's a key quote:

"Population controllers have a Malthusian vision of the world that sees population growth as outpacing the means for people to care for themselves. Mankind's ingenuity has proven the Malthusians dead wrong. As a result of mankind's ingenuity, we can grow increasingly larger quantities of food on less and less land. The energy used, per dollar of GDP, has been in steep decline, again getting more with less, and that applies to most other inputs we use for goods and services.  The greatest threat to mankind's prosperity is government. A recent example is Zimbabwe's increasing misery. Like our country, Zimbabwe had a flourishing agriculture sector, so much so it was called the breadbasket of southern Africa. Today, its people are on the brink of starvation as a result of its government. It's the same story in many countries -- government interference with mankind's natural tendency to engage in wealth-producing activities. Blaming poverty on overpopulation not only lets governments off the hook; it encourages the enactment of harmful policies."

Also worth reading is Taking on the overpopulation myth from The Washington Times.

1981: Having a cultural moment

Twenty-seven years ago today, Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer. In his book The Triumph of the Political Class, Peter Oborne rightly identifies this event as the centrepiece of a shortlived counterblast by an old Establishment which was soon to collapse - The Empire Strikes Back, if you like.

That same year, a large part of the country was in thrall to that lavish saga of doomed aristocracy, Brideshead Revisited, which was showing on ITV - yes, astonishingly, ITV. In the cinema, Chariots of Fire and its tale of gentlemen runners competing for King and Country was a home-grown hit which went on to win the Best Picture Oscar. In the pop charts, the new romantic Prince Charming himself, Adam Ant, was standing and delivering, a celebration of the traditional British penchant for dressing up and eccentricity. 

Peter York and Ann Barr published The Sloane Ranger Handbook and had a massive bestseller. A sub-division, known as the 'Young Fogies' , made a brief appearance. Jeremy Hackett realised there was quite a market in clothes of the tweed and four-button cuff variety and so started a little sceond-hand shop selling them on the Kings Road. The 'Season' had a revival, and with it reappeared black tie and ballgowns.

What was all this about? Not, as yet, Thatcherism; in 1981 the 'loadsa-money' city yuppy had yet to make an appearance on the scene. With its strong aristocratic and nostalgic aesthetic, the cultural scene of that year could hardly be seen as a celebration of a new competitiveness and entrepreneurialism. It was instead perhaps a reaction to the grim uniformity and utilitarianism of the 70s, the nihilism of punk, and the general ropey, dingy quality of public life. We were looking upwards at the aristocracy, and backwards at our past.

Well, Brideshead is back, in a new cinema version, but already appears still-born. The New Sloane Ranger handbook was published this year, and sunk without trace. Looking upwards, there is no aesthetic inspiration to be had in a disconnected class of Russian oligarchs. And for the young in particular, the past, which has been gradually erased from the popular imagaination, is no longer an option. As we stare in the face of a new recession, and watch as the social fabric melts away, where do we avert our eyes to this time?

Wake up and smell the Lassi

I was eleven years old when he stopped me in the school playground, "Go home Paki! Go home to your pointless country!".  Those were the words of the class bully in my Comprehensive.  I'm glad to say it was a rare occurrence but, nonetheless, unsettling.  Racism aside, I guess he had a point.  In many ways, as far as Britain and the West were concerned, Pakistan was "pointless".  How times have changed, but for all the wrong reasons.

The Australian Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, described the Afghan-Pak border region as the "the current international hotbed of terrorism" in a press conference with Condi Rice last week.  This was an understatement.  It's not just the border region, but increasingly Pakistan proper.

The stability of Pakistan is vital to our national interests.  As we saw with the tragic events of 9/11 and 7/7 – what happens in Pakistan and its border regions has the most profound effects on our people and way of life.  I would go as far as to say that the stability of Pakistan is THE most serious threat to our national security.  If Pakistan turned into another Afghanistan, Iran or Iraq, the consequences are too terrifying to contemplate.

Whilst NATO and its allies are having some success in crushing militants in southern Afghanistan, many are just being pushed across the porous border into Pakistan's largely lawless tribal areas.  The Pakistan Federal government's remit has always been weak in the tribal areas (part of the constitutional settlement that led to the country's creation), but today it is at its weakest.  Afghan and Arab militants are re-grouping in Pakistan's tribal areas, where the U.S. and NATO will not follow them, and where the Pakistan's own forces are too weak or unwilling to challenge them.  This is no doubt giving the militants time to re-build and strengthen.

A disabled health service

Every so often as you're bumbling through life, news comes of events which are so shocking in their horror that they pull you up short. Such events were described sometime before 7am on Today this morning, in an item which dealt with the treatment some people with learning difficulties had received in the Health Service. Mencap released a report in March last year, detailing the deaths of six such patients, including Mark Cannon, a 30-year old, who died eight weeks after being admitted to hospital with a broken leg. Other patients died after not being fed for a month, or because their cancer diagnosis was not followed up with treatment, because health service staff didn't think they'd be able to comply with therapy.

Marginally depressing also was the response of Today's presenter, Nick Robinson, interviewing the lady from Mencap (I'm sorry I didn't catch her name, so early in the day). He asked her something like "Are you saying that every single nurse in the NHS should ... " -- show some humanity, we shouted -- "... be trained to be able to deal with people with these difficulties?". That's right. In BBC-world, treating people with respect is not something that can be assumed in the absence of a government-sponsored initiative.

The lady from Mencap - a hero in our world - made the very telling point that in all the cases investigated, the families and carers of the patients were ignored by the health service 'professionals'. Look, I'm no fiscal-health-service-mechanism expert. But we cannot go on with a system where the people who pay for and use the health system are so systematically maltreated by the producer interest.

Why are guidebooks so left-wing?

Next month, I am going to Egypt for twelve days backpacking through the sights, although in the case of Egypt, "sites" might be more appropriate. In common with tens of thousands of Britons, I have bought a Lonely Planet guide to help me along the way. Twenty years ago, when I bought my first title, Lonely Planet and Rough Guides were in their infancy, but they have since exploded into big businesses. Their basis is perfectly sound - to provide travellers and ex-pats with useful, practical information to make getting around cities, regions, countries and even continents easier, quicker and cheaper. In this regard, they have been a huge success. A visit to your local general bookstore will probably reveal that the travel section is between 10 and 20% of the total storespace, and this seems to be growing. Lonely Planet and Rough Guides dominate the market.

Their only problem is this - the books are almost always written from a Leftist political stance. Wait a moment, readers might ask, how can a description of which bus route goes to Tutankhamun's tomb have any kind of political bias? Check out the "history" section of these books, however, and you will see what I mean. Liberal, "progressive" forces are invariably good, battling with the forces of conservatism, all around the world. Most Lonely Planets will give a 20 or so page history, Rough Guides slightly longer.

Bye Bye Brown..?

A second Labour MP has called on Brown to resign.

What do we think..?

Our train network is a total disgrace

Those of a delicate disposition should look away now.

DATE 27 July 2008 (yesterday - a Sunday)

FROM Manchester Picadilly

TO London Paddington

SINGLE TICKET PRICE: £61.40 (return for a pound more - why?)

No, that is not a typo.  Sixty-one quid!!

Furthermore,

JOURNEY TIME: 4 hours 20 minutes.

Which was of course further delayed by 50 minutes.

More than five hours from Manchester to London!  And the trains were packed so people stood the whole way.  For sixty quid!

Oh, and (insult to injury) contrary to the advertised provisions, there was no buffet.  "Staff shortages"

In a related post of my previous moaning about the trains (I don't drive and I use public transport every day - although my better half drives and we shan't ever use the train to/from Mancs again) you will see that various people made various very sensible suggestions as to why our trains are like this.  The Observer had a similar piece recently.  But the core question seems always to be ignored.  We pay high taxes from which large subsidies are given to the train companies, and we pay very high ticket prices.  Why do so many other countries manage it, but we can't?  In those circumstances I'm not really interested in the excuses we always get given - as Michael Howard would say, I don't want problems, I want solutions!

The awful Speaker Martin

The extended piece in this weekend's Sunday Times on Gorbals Mick went to enormous lengths to be fair to the Speaker, IMHO.  That he nevertheless emerges as a very bad sort indeed is damning.  Have a read.

In case you are interested...

I took part in two BBC Radio 4 features over the weekend:

For the Westminster Hour I was part of a package that discussed the Conservatives and religion (my old stomping ground).  Listen again via here.

And, on Saturday, I took part in a discussion of blogging and politics (my new stomping ground) for Andrew Rawnsley's Beyond Westminster programme.  I recommend the discussion - mainly because of Joe Trippi's insightful contributions.

Eco-socialism's advertising budget

Last month, Birmingham City Council ran a £200,000 climate change festival:

"Birmingham City Council had hoped to attract crowds and promote green issues with the nine-day event last month.

The festival featured the erection of a 30ft nickel-plated pylon in the city centre, while £38,000 was spent on “street theatre, waste sculpture, and litter performance activities”."

Fiona McEvoy, Campaign Agent for the West Midlands TaxPayers' Alliance, told the Sunday Mercury:

"The general public are finding it difficult to pay their household bills at the moment, so the council spending thousands of pounds on ‘litter based street performance’ on their behalf is not only indulgent, but insulting to those who really could do with a council tax cut to relieve the burden."

Fiona has written more about the problems with the festival here.  In answer to a parliamentary question from Andrew Tyrie the Government have revealed that the Act on CO2 campaign costs £5.5 million a year.  Friends of the Earth and Green Peace are also working with seven-figure budgets.  Eco-socialism has a huge advertising budget.

Bush, The Dark Knight?

I went to the cinema this afternoon to watch the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight.  Reviews by my favourite blogger Andrew Bolt and in the Wall Street Journal encouraged me to put up with the anti-social elements that seem to congregate at the Salisbury Odeon (last time it was rowdy teenagers, this time a screaming toddler).  Both Bolt and the WSJ found the film sympathetic to George W Bush:

Andrew Kavlan: "There seems to me no question that the Batman film "The Dark Knight," currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.  And like W, Batman understands that there is no moral equivalence between a free society -- in which people sometimes make the wrong choices -- and a criminal sect bent on destruction. The former must be cherished even in its moments of folly; the latter must be hounded to the gates of Hell."

Andrew Bolt: "The film explains more convincingly what the comic didn’t - why it is that Batman is at times almost as hated as he is admired, and why he accepts being unloved as his burden. Doing real good does not always mean winning admiration and gratitude, and most certainly vice versa. A guardian, as the film says several times, is not the same as a hero. A guardian has higher responsibilities. Mind you, some vile autocrats have thought much the same, and the film acknowledges that dilemma."

Cosmo Landesman in The Sunday Times sees the film as lefty-liberal fare, however, (I think he's wrong) and, more significantly, Peter Whittle doesn't like the tendency to over-read these movies.  Has anyone else seen it?

Muslim extremists are a minority, but not a tiny minority

Today' YouGov poll of Muslim students in Britain makes for mostly grim reading. The Centre for Social Cohesion, which commissioned the poll, has published its full report Islam on Campus on its web site. The Executive Summary notes:

• 32% of Muslim students in Britain believe that killing in the name of Islam can be justified.
• 40% support sharia law for Muslims in Britain and 33% support a global Caliphate based on sharia law.
• 40% believe it is unacceptable for Muslim men and women to mix freely.
• 57% said that British Muslim servicemen should be allowed to opt out of taking part in military operations in Muslim countries.

Essential reading for Obamacons

CCHQ appeared to join the Obamamania yesterday - rushing out via email a video of David Cameron's meeting with the Illinois Senator. I can't remember a video that they have produced more quickly and it's certainly unusual for CCHQ to send out any emails - other than to the press - over a weekend.

Earlier in the week we learnt that nearly a third of Tory MPs may back Obama.  Nile Gardiner of the Washington DC-based Thatcher Center (and a CentreRight contributor) has poured cold water on this fever this morning in an article for The Sunday Telegraph.  He raises three key concerns:

1. Downplaying of the special relationship: "After meeting with Gordon Brown yesterday, Senator Obama briefly acknowledged the special relationship, but only after prompting by journalists. He has yet to show much affinity with Britain; we should be wary of taking yesterday's remarks at face value. In fact, his key foreign policy speeches have not mentioned Britain at all.  An Obama presidency could well usher in a seismic shift in the transatlantic alliance, with the centre of gravity of US policy in Europe moving away from London towards Berlin and Paris. His controversial decision to make Germany and France the centrepiece of his European tour, with Britain tacked on almost as an afterthought, is a clear sign of the importance placed by the Obama camp on enhanced relations with the continent."
2. Enthusiasm for the European Union (please note Mr Hannan): "The Democrats are traditionally strong supporters of a united, federal Europe, and have little sympathy for British objections to the further centralisation of political, military and economic power in Brussels. If David Cameron becomes prime minister at the head of a Eurosceptic administration, Downing Street and an Obama White House would be worlds apart."
3. Protectionism: "Closely aligning himself with powerful labour unions, Obama has pronounced protectionist tendencies. He has opposed the North American Free Trade Agreement as well as a host of free trade treaties from Colombia to South Korea.  If the Left wins control of the White House in November's election, many fear a new era of American protectionism will emerge. This could have a real and tangible impact in the UK - in shielding domestic US workers from foreign competition, including in the sensitive area of defence contracts, the Democrats would put thousands of British jobs at stake. This will draw the White House into conflict with the pro-free trade UK."