Mercifully for the cause of Conservatism the world over, the deeply misguided Bush-Paulson bailout scheme - which I have previously characterised as the end of US private capitalism - has been rejected by the House of Representatives. Even though the resistance to the scheme amongst the Democrat leadership, responding to its deep and widespread opposition amongst American voters, had led - through the proper political process of debate and compromise - to great improvement of the scheme from Paulson's original blank cheque, even the final version was seriously flawed. Its rejection is a victory for democracy - I am very impressed with the House Democrats and Republicans that have had the bravery to stand up to the bullying and melodramatic "this must be done" posturing of Paulson and Bush.
As I argued previously, this is a matter far too important for consensus. If we get this wrong, we may write the political script for the next thirty years - with incalculable negative consequences. It is that serious. So whatever is done must be subject to challenge, debate, nuancing, exposure, proof that it is better than other more moderate and less moderate alternatives, better that conceptually completely different approaches, better than doing nothing. We must not accidentally condemn US private capitalism as we have known it these past thirty years to an unintended abyss.
David Cameron today suggested that the Conservatives would work together with the government. Pushing through the Bank of England measure whilst leaving the FSA as the trigger mechanism - I disagree, but I can understand. Bringing in more extensive deposit insurance - I disagree but I can understand. But towards the end of his speech Cameron condemned the "political wrangling and point scoring" in America and urged that we must not allow this to occur in Britain. Here I believe Cameron is wrong - dangerously wrong.
The House representatives that opposed the Paulson scheme are not the bad guys here. And the very last thing we want to do in Britain is to grant Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling a £100bn blank cheque. If Brown and Darling come up with a badly flawed scheme, we must oppose it and propose improvements to it. I believe in adversarial politics. By challenging and disagreeing and considering alternatives policymaking is made much better, not worse. We must not be blackmailed into hurrying into "consensus" decisions that inadvertently condemn us to decades of socialism. Political debate improves. Consensus is what you accept when things aren't important enough to get right, and the history of consensus decisions in the UK is unhappy.
Mr Cameron: I understand why you said what you did, but I disagree. And I hope you - and all the rest of us - don't end up paying for your mistake for decades to come.
