CentreRight

Santa Klaus

The Thatcherite President of the Czech republic has teamed up with seventeen of his country's senators to refer the Lisbon Treaty to his Constitutional Court. If he succeeds he may stop the whole thing being ratified before Cameron comes to office. Lisbon is not yet a done deal.

Thanks to the EU Referendum blog for the title of this post.

The Obama Drama

Tim's post about Obama's response to Gatesgate (that turn of phrase is all my own work :)) was very much in accord with my take, but the row rumbles on so here's a link to an excellent article from over at the American Spectator. I think it shows quite how wrong the President was to wade into the issue the way he did:

Gates and his cab driver were putting their shoulders against his front door on a Thursday afternoon in a residential neighborhood after finding it damaged in -- wouldn't you know it -- a previous burglary. A woman in the street saw them and called the police. An officer responded almost immediately. Is there anything unusual about this? Would we want the police or the woman to act in any other way? If nothing else, Gates should feel fortunate that he lives in a neighborhood where people look after such things. In many another urban neighborhood, somebody could be prying a door open in mid-afternoon and no one would pay the slightest attention. Even if they did, the police might take half an hour to arrive.

Gates could have perceived the whole thing for what it was -- an obvious misunderstanding. He could have produced his identification, proved to the officer that he lived in the house and explained his unusual behavior, perhaps showing a little deference to the law in the process. Instead, he decided to treat the whole things as an intolerable insult, refusing to step outside and insinuating that the police were only at his door "Because I'm a black man in America." His rant attracted such a crowd that the officer was finally forced to put him in handcuffs for disorderly conduct. This is what police officers must do. They cannot simply walk away from a disruptive situation. Their business is to maintain public order. That the charges were later dropped only proves the point. An arrest in this circumstance is only meant to pacify the situation, not inflict some kind of permanent punishment.

When a situation can properly and honestly be described in those terms, the Commander in Chief has been very ill advised when he launches an attack on those entrusted with the tough task of law enforcement the way he did.

Go read the whole thing.

No mention of God during Salisbury Cathedral tour

On Friday I had the pleasure of showing Rod Dreher, Dallas Morning News columnist and Crunchy Conservative blogger, the delights of Salisbury.

Our time together focused on a tour of the Cathedral and more than 300 steps above the ground I took the photo of the beautiful Close that you can see on the right.

Our tour guide was excellent in all but one respect.  She knew the history of Salisbury.  She told us everything about the stone used in the Cathedral's construction.  She was instructive about the art, about the candle for Amnesty International and told us proudly that Salisbury was the first Cathedral to have a girls' choir.

I wouldn't expect a sermon from a tour guide - it would be counterproductive - but I wish there had been some attempt to communicate a little of the Christian message.  With so much ignorance of the Christian story these visits provide an opportunity for the Church of England to say a little of what motivated previous generations to build such magnificent monuments to God.  But nothing.  Not even a gentle invitation at the end of the tour to take a leaflet about Jesus and his message.  The Cathedral Shop sells a Karl Marx greetings card, recipe books, medieval costumes for kids and - if you look hard enough - a few books by C S Lewis.

Where is the Church's passion to share the good news?

Tim Montgomerie

Update: Cranmer and Crunchy Con have both commented on this piece.

'Obama's presidency is a contest between his intelligence and his arrogance'

Still loved across the world and still facing a demoralised Republican Party, Barack Obama can continue to sleep easily at night but he has started entering much choppier waters.  His healthcare proposals are unpopular and their passage through the Democrat-controlled Congress has been delayed because of unhappiness within his own party at their cost.  Obama is falling into exactly the trap that David Brooks warned him against: over-ambitious activity.  Americans already worried about Obama's budget deficit are seeing a further expansion of government with this big ticket expansion of healthcare.  Texas' Republican Governor has threatened not to implement the agenda in his own state.

Obama's approval rating has fallen below 50% for the first time since he succeeded George W Bush.  His standing has taken another battering in the last 48 hours because of clumsy remarks he made about a white policeman's arrest of a black man.  Obama appeared to speak before he knew all of the details and has now been forced to retreat although has not managed to swallow his pride and say a simply 'sorry'.  Fox News discussed the affair on Friday night in the eight minute segment reproduced in the video below.  The most telling remark comes from Charles Krauthammer who describes Obama's presidency as a contest between his intelligence and arrogance (3 minutes, 25 seconds).  His arrogance has been too evident in believing that he can expand the government on so many fronts and talk about sensitive issues like race - without knowing the full picture.

Concerning the wickedness of suicide and assisted suicide

Our society has become extremely indulgent about suicide.  So much so that, having decriminalised the personal act (or attempt) some decades ago, we are now debating whether to legalise assisting others to commit suicide.  Since an overwhelming majority of people appear to want assisting suicide to be illegal, I presume that what I shall now say will be somewhat unpopular.  But it seems to me that the defenders of suicide get far too clear a run.  No-one ever flat-out opposes them, so few people even understand that there might be another point of view.

I'll divide my remarks.  First, I shall argue that suicide is one of the most wicked and self-indulgent things it is possible to do.  Next I shall argue that legalising the assisting of people to commit suicide would not merely encourage the potential suicide in her wickedness, but would also lead to pressure (some of it non-deliberate) for vulnerable people to commit suicide.

In defence of youth in politics

Chloe Smith's comprehensive victory in Norwich North raises several issues. First of all, it suggests that the Conservatives are heading for a hefty victory at the next general election. Secondly, it begs serious questions of Nick Clegg's leadership of the Liberal (sic) Democrats (sic). (Why have they done so badly in recent elections? What is their unique selling point? Should they dump Mr Clegg for Vince Cable?) It also provides evidence that a well-run positive campaign can trump a desperately negative one.

Another matter that will doubtless have people muttering into their cornflakes is the relative youth of Miss Smith, who is 27.

There are lots of splendid arguments to be made about the undesirability of politics being overrun by the Political Class. Lots of MPs have very little work experience other than past membership of the Political Cadets - where they worked either in the civil service or at Party HQ. I agree that this has become a problem.

If you want to man the barricades to protest that older would-be candidates from outside the Political Class get discriminated against, then I'm in. But if you start chanting that no-one under the age of 35 should be allowed to stand for Parliament, I will vault the barricades and leave you to it. (Well alright, I'm not remotely agile enough to do that, but you get the point.)

Here's the nub of the matter. Experience isn't the most important quality; judgement is.

'Harry Potter' uses interview for gay lifestyle magazine to come out...

...as a Liberal Democrat.

Actor Daniel Radcliffe, who plays Harry Potter, tells Attitude magazine that he will vote Liberal Democrat at the next General Election:

"I rather like Nick Clegg. At the next election I will almost certainly vote Lib Dem. If all the people who liked them voted for them you could change politics overnight and we could have a proper three party system."

He says that "David Cameron is barely distinguishable from Tony Blair."

J K Rowling - a big Labour donor - won't approve.

Tories should not worry, however, about falling behind in the celebrity stakes.  The Times confirms that David Cameron is wooing Tracey Emin.  Hmmm.

What are your favourite ten political blogs?

Hopefully ConservativeHome is among your favourite blogs, and now you have a chance to vote for your top ten!

Total Politics magazine is running its annual poll of the top ten blogs about UK politics and you have a few more days submit your votes.

Basically you have to email [email protected] with your ten favourite blogs in order (you have to include ten) by July 31st, but the rules are also set out here.

Happy voting!

The lesson from Norwich - we can revive the working class Conservative vote

And many congratulations to Chloe Smith MP!  There are seats with 5,000 + Labour majorities that we are likely to win at the general election, but a constituency like Norwich North that has such a high proportion of council estates is not automatically in that category. I would suggest that what is most significant about this by election victory is not simply that large numbers of Labour votes stayed away, but that some on the council estates started to switch to vote Conservative. We could see this from canvassing those estates. In fact, yesterday we actually met Labour canvassers using what were evidently old canvassing returns who were knocking up what they thought were Labour voters, but who we knew to be now Conservative voters. Of course not all of the 6.5% increase in the Conservative share of the vote came from council estates, but the fact that some of it did is tremendously encouraging.

The challenge for the party now is to change this widening stream of working class voters into a river.

The latest GDP data and their implications for future public spending

Andrew Lilico is Policy Exchange's Chief Economist.

This morning’s GDP data constitute a horror story for businesses, for unemployment prospects, and for the public finances.  Contrary to the expectations of only a few weeks ago that the second quarter might have been flat (neither growth nor contraction) or even of the consensus expectation this morning of a 0.3% contraction, GDP in fact contracted by 0.8%.  Government Ministers have attempted to spin this as a “considerable easing in the downturn”.  “Easing” of this sort, if sustained for the rest of the year, would result in a full year contraction of above 5.2% of GDP – worse even than the peak of the Great Depression in 1931.

It is clear now that in Q2 we have only the shrivelled yellow shoots of recovery, probably largely as the result of an inventory snapback (in the final quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009, companies produced little and ran down their inventories to very low levels, so that in the current quarter it was necessary that firms should increase their production, just in order to avoid running out of stock).  Looking forward, it is now less likely that the third quarter will see growth, but my view remains that we will get growth in the fourth quarter and perhaps also in the first quarter of 2009.

This will mean that, going into the likely General Election period, the Government will be able to claim that growth has returned.  It will probably seek to take credit for this growth, as a result of Government policy.  It will be correct, and that is a problem.  Because the growth over those six month will, in my view, be the inevitable lagged effect of a one-off massive policy stimulus consisting of interest rate cuts of more than 5%, a doubling (perhaps by then a tripling) of the monetary base (the quantitative easing programme), and a £200 billion budget deficit.  If economic stimulus on this scale does not result in at least one or two quarters of growth then the economists might as well go home.

Norwich North was a terrible result for Labour and a good result for UKIP

Two quick observations:

a) The swing to the Conservatives was massive, roughly duplicating the Crewe & Nantwich result.  It's one thing for third parties to record huge swings in by-elections that are not repeated at General Elections.  It's quite another when it's one of the main parties.  Labour teeters on the brink of the abyss.  The Conservatives look set for a landslide.

b) UKIP's near-12% result in a UK Parliamentary election suggests that it must be approaching a relevance threshold at which Parliamentary seats may come into the equation.  Furthermore, it is by no means obvious that UKIP votes should really be understood as Conservative votes by proxy in this context - it's one thing for Conservatives to vote UKIP in European elections; quite another for them to vote UKIP in a by-election when the Conservatives were the natural party to vote for to overthrow the government and, at least as the campaign began, faced a material challenge in achieving the swing they needed.  Those 12% look like convicted UKIP voters to me, not Conservative voters wearing temporary anti-EU badges.

What should a plan to reduce unemployment contain?

by Dr Patrick Nolan, Chief Economist, Reform

The latest labour market statistics presented a bleak picture with unemployment rising by a record 281,000 to 2.38 million in the three months to May. Things are going to get worse before they get better – with some forecasters expecting unemployment to peak at around 3.2 million next year. Indeed, as Theresa May recently warned, “Unemployment is casting a dark cloud over the economy, ruining the lives of millions.”

This increase in unemployment creates a real challenge for government. A strategy of standing back and simply allowing any (eventual) economic growth to absorb the increase in unemployment will be likely to be ineffective. Not only are the future prospects for economic growth subdued but much future growth will be in sectors and regions, and among population groups, that are different from those where unemployment has increased.

But what should any government response involve? And what are the likely advantages and disadvantages of different approaches – and key factors in their success or failure?

It is widely accepted that any government response should include active labour market policies. These policies aim to help unemployed people back into work and include job search assistance, training and job creation subsidies. These different active labour market policies are suited to different environments and have different strengths and weaknesses (summarised below).

The BBC needs a new independent academic commentator on elections

During the day, the BBC News Channel has featured regular contributions during its coverage of the Norwich North by-election from Professor Vernon Bogdanor of Oxford University - who was one of David Cameron's tutors if I recall correctly.

He was there as a supposed independent academic commentator, but I fear that his analysis was far from balanced.

Not only has he continually suggested that there is a parallel between the next election and 1992, suggesting that this Government (like the then Conservative Government) can lose a string of by-elections and then be re-elected, he has opined that this result suggests that there is "quite a bit to play for in the general election next year".

I am far from complacent about the next general election and have always believed that if the Conservatives win, it will be with a modest majority. But when you have the Labour candidate attaining the lowest voteshare for any incumbent MP’s party at a by-election for at least forty years - and losing on a swing mirroring that suffered by the Conservatives in Wirral South a few months before the 1997 general election, in what way is there "quite a bit to play for"?

Update: Compare those remarks from Prof Bogdanor above with the brief summary of BBC political editor Nick Robinson:

"A massive 16.5 swing, not far short of what they got in Crewe and Nantwich, will allow the Conservatives to say that this is much better than the results I alluded to in my earlier post. Labour, on the other hand, will point out that the swing originated largely from a collapse in their vote (-27%) and much less by an increase in the Tory vote (just 6.5%). The truth is that Mr Cameron has done more than enough to look on course for an election victory and Labour has done badly enough to fear that one is inevitable."

Random Thoughts 2

Inspired by Thomas Sowell's regular "random thoughts", here are a few minor observations:

• I know I won't get swine flu - I'm self-employed.
• It's raining a lot, isn't it - must be climate change.
• I see that Britain's only wind turbine factory is closing down.  Isn't it interesting that the reason, after one digs through the standard guff on any environmental story, is... lack of demand.  Presumably our Government's targets on wind energy, already comprehensively proven to be totally fictitious by the excellent Christopher Booker, are now totally dead in the water then...?
• Here's a great article over at The Philadelphia Inquirer on an apparent surge in the popularity of the works of Hayek and Rand (hat tip: Instapundit). The part I liked best is the part Instapundit also reproduced, but here it is anyway:
  •  “There is a growing disconnect between the country’s political class and its citizens. It was manifestly on display last month when the House approved the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, which in its final form was longer than Atlas Shrugged and which none of the members voting on it had read. That the free citizens of a free country would be served so cavalierly by their elected representatives is the sort of thing any good novelist would hesitate to invent, for fear it would seem too implausible.”

Related post: Random thoughts 1

Abracadabra

While we're whiling away the minutes until the Norwich result comes out, my attention's been grabbed by a Twitter update from Luke Pollard, a Labour PPC in the south-west. Luke has discovered that the Harry Potter actor is a Lib Dem. Someone acidly remarked (OK it was me) that it makes sense for Harry Potter to be a Lib Dem: barely literate fiction, written for children, more popular than reason demands.

But it makes you think, no? Which of our favourite childhood characters would support which party, and why?

*
"My goodness," sighed Anne, plumping up the cushions in the caravan. "It's so lovely to be back here in this rolling rural idyll, but I do worry that we might not have sufficient access to our parents and their colleagues, in order to furnish us with the informal networks which middle-class children such as ourselves will use to propel themselves forward in the professions in later life!"

Buy the best

One of the few things that have definitely improved over the last few years is the recognition of our troops via the revival of homecoming parades. A well deserved moment of pride over a job well done (as ever), loved one’s relief after a safe return, of joy for families reunited. A chance for family, friends and the wider community to show their support, belief and thanks to a military that has always been there for us even though we haven’t all always been there for them.

But all too often someone or several are missing from the festivities.

British forces have seen some of the fiercest fighting since the Second World War in the all too aptly named Helmand province of Afghanistan, and the toll has been high. Each soldier missing from the homecoming parade lines is a son, brother, and often Father lost from a family. Each family missing from the cheering crowds is a family that will forever henceforth be incomplete.

Their deaths get a brief mention on the evening news, a few words of condolence at the dispatch box, before joining the regiment of statistics.

Have you ever had bad customer service? Here's your hero...

We've all had bad customer service and wanted justice. This Canadian guitarist got his justice when his anti-United Airlines video became a YouTube sensation. United's share price fell 10% after he exposed how his guitar had been broken by baggage handlers and United had then repeatedly ignored his complaints.

First an ITN report...

...Then the video itself...

An amusing misunderstanding

I thought that I was in agreement with Kim Jong Il for the first time as I read this headline in The Washington Post, :

            N. Korea Escalates War of Words, Calls Clinton Vulgar, Unintelligent

And then I realised that I'd misunderstood - they meant the current Secretary of State.

Daniel Kawczynski MP: Local planning decisions must not be overruled by unelected, unaccountable quangos

Daniel Kawczynski MP writes an open letter to David Cameron seeking an assurance that a Conservative Government would change the law to ensure that locally-made planning decisions cannot be overturned.

Dear David,

You have long talked about the existing imbalance of responsibility and power that has developed under this current Government, and championed the need for people to be given a meaningful say in the decisions that affect them.  I should like to draw to your attention an issue that has occurred in my constituency of Shrewsbury & Atcham.  It is an issue that not only highlights the despicable flaws in the current top-down planning system, but which also demonstrates why local people feel such apathy towards the British political system.

After reading this letter, I hope you will agree that our planning system needs to be overhauled radically so that it is built upwards on the wishes of local residents.  Only when there is a democratic, accountable, and decentralised planning system in Britain can people feel empowered over the local decisions that most affect them.  I also hope you share my belief that, only if elected politicians and councillors are given substantive authority over all local planning issues, can they be effective representatives of the communities they act on behalf of.   We can have a Planning inspectorate if needs be but they should only have authority to overturn local council's decision if they are of national strategic importance. At present this inspectorate can intervene and challenge decisions on the smallest of development plans.

The secular fundamentalists don't want any Christianity in Parliament

David Kerr is the SNP candidate for the forthcoming Glasgow NE by-election (caused by the Speaker's resignation).  Until recently at the BBC, David Kerr has come under some fire for being a member of Opus Dei, the controversial Catholic group that famously includes Labour's Ruth Kelly.

The National Secular Society has led the charge:

"The concern for voters would be that such a person would have their allegiance to the Church and not to the SNP. It is one thing to bring your religious beliefs to politics, but it is another to bring the dogmas of a right-wing Catholic organisation. That would be the worry for voters."

The NSS are making a fake distinction between Opus Dei and all Christianity.  The NSS' true agenda is pretty transparent.

I am not a member of Opus Dei. I am not even a Catholic. But I am an Anglican and I worry that the attacks on Opus Dei and David Kerr are the latest stage in a secular fundamentalism that is trying to push people of faith outside the public square.  The Buttiglione affair - with illiberal Liberal Democrats leading the Inquisition (and, sadly, Matthew Parris) - has been the most prominent episode in this new manifestation of intolerance.

Obama's fight for universal healthcare

While we debate how to sustain our universal, free healthcare (see ConHome yesterday), Obama is burdened with how to obtain universal healthcare. As the Times says today, it defeated Clinton and the people and professionals are not liking what they are being offered this time either. An article in the New York Post today sets out the reasons why.

Jesse Norman: Why James Purnell is becoming a Conservative

By Jesse Norman

Demos's new initiative Open Left is long overdue.  Debate on the Left has been dead for years and needs renewing.  Having resigned from government, James Purnell has done well, and may do good, in trying to lead a process of intellectual self-assessment. There is only one slight difficulty: it will lead him to conservatism.

The two key questions are these: When more of the state isn’t the solution, and conventional economics is dead, then where is politics to go? And: What principles should inspire and direct reflection on politics and policy?

Historically, the Left has always reflected three overlapping strands: non-conformist traditions of religious, cultural and political dissent; working class traditions (often thoroughly small-c conservative) of self-help; and Fabianism, which sought power for itself by increasing the power of the state.

In the 20th century Fabianism won. In the first 50 years the Left was captured intellectually by the Fabian middle class: the Webbs, Harold Laski and the rest of them. In the second 50 years it was captured politically: and again by the Fabian middle class, latterly in the form of Messrs Blair and Brown.  

What can we do about traffic jams and congestion?

There is nothing I hate more than traffic jams.  Sure, better public transport would help.  Major projects like High Speed Rail will make a big difference, yet will take time to come on line. And even longer to change the fact that the average person goes nearly 6,000 miles a year in a car, but just 1,000 miles by public transport (see table 11.4 here - little changed on the late 1990s as shown by table 10.6 here).

But it’s more than the tedium of sitting in traffic queues for an age while the kids scream in the back. It costs us money. Lots of money.  £20 Billion a year according to the CBI. And there’s an environmental cost too. We are not talking about a carbon footprint here, it’s more like a giant carbon boot. An hour in a jam results in about 2.36 Kg of Carbon according to the AA.  So traffic jams are an all round bad thing.

I write this as while stopping off on a trip recently I saw how things can be done better.  The (clickable) picture shows road workers busy on a Sunday.  A team was scraping off tarmac on one side of the road while on the other they were resurfacing.  The whole operation was being done at incredible speed. Often we see one person do the work while one or two others look on.  Not here – everyone was hard at it and very well organised.  Which made me think how an incoming Conservative Government could do much to tackle traffic jams and congestion.  Here are some ideas:

• Works on busy roads should be overnight or on days where road use is lightest. Motorway works should only be done overnight unless there is a very good reason not to;
• Rent a lane should be used as much as possible to encourage contractors to get a move on;
• It should only be possible for utility undertakers to dig up a road once a year in co-ordination with other undertakers except in real emergencies;
• Traffic lights should be phased to minimise jams and keep traffic moving; and
• The necessity for traffic lights that cause hold ups should be reviewed – anyone heading to Norwich by road lately will have noticed that the lights on the A11 through the Thetford Forest routinely cause long tailbacks polluting the forest . . . could a roundabout not make things go more quickly? There are lots of examples like this up and down the land.

We know that money will be tight for a Conservative Government. These ideas are not about big money – they are about how we can do more for less. And do more to protect our environment at the same time.

Low aspiration: The guilt belongs to the Left

So, we have another report bewailing the fact that social mobility has been reducing, not increasing in recent decades.  Many commentators on the Right seem to think that the obvious culprit is the demise of widespread grammar school education.  But it seems to me that a more obvious and more directly culpable factor escapes much criticism: the Left.

What do I mean?  Well, the Left spends an inordinate amount of its time telling everybody how prejudiced professional people are and how difficult it is for anyone from a low income background or from a ethnic minority or who is a woman to get ahead in the world.  They moan and moan in their defeatist fashion, exaggerating and distorting.  Their pernicious negative delusions permeate their client cultures, and in particular the teaching profession.

The Government has failed us in the fight against swine flu

Have you ever seen this experiment? Volunteers one by one were put in a waiting room with people they believe to be other volunteers but are in fact actors who have been told to sit still and calm. The volunteer thinks they are waiting to be told what the test is, but in reality they are already in it. After a short while smoke begins to waft under the office door; gradually at first, but then in ever greater quantities, filling the room. All logic says there’s a fire. But what do you do? Do you go to look, or press the fire alarm? You mention it but the others are sitting calmly. They aren’t worried, so why are you? You don’t want to look like a paranoid, do you?

The majority do nothing.

The experiment was devised after a fire killed numerous people in a restaurant, most of whom had stayed calmly seated eating their chips. No one shouted “Fire, everyone out!” and so no one acted. In the 9/11 attacks at the WTC some offices left fast but others ambled even with the alarm – the average time being 5-8 minutes – and some took up to 40 minutes; finishing emails, logging off, shutting down, tidying up. No one wanted to be seen to panic, to be seen as over-reacting, or acting disproportionately.

That’s where we’re at now with swine flu.