The conservativehome.com blog

When you go home, tell them of us and say: for your tomorrow, we gave our today

The prayers of commitment listed below were part of a special set of prayers used throughout churches today to remember the WWII generation - rightly called 'the greatest generation' - who sacrificed so much for the freedoms we enjoy today:

Will you honour all who bore the pains and adversities of war?

By the help of God, we will.

Will you offer them your help and support, and protect their dignity and welfare?

By the help of God, we will.

Will you remember the causes for which they endured adversity and for which many fought and died, by promoting peace, justice and harmony among all people?

By the help of God, we will.

Will you always acknowledge how precious are the gifts which God has entrusted to us, and exercise the freedoms and opportunities you have with gratitude and humility?

By the help of God, we will.

May Almighty God, who has given us the will to undertake these things, give us also the strength to perform them: for his name's sake.

Amen.

I believe...

Do you remember Michael Howard’s January 2004 statement of beliefs? They were criticised at the time for their motherhood-and-apple-pie character but they did amount to an aborted CCO attempt to embrace positive politics. I recently came across a Canadian ex-blogger’s beliefs statement and I thought I’d try one of my own. I’ve outlined at least one belief for each of conservativehome.com’s main ten themes:

67% of Britons want EU referendum to go ahead

Mori undertook a telephone poll for today's Sun which found that 67% of Britons still want the UK to hold a referendum on the EU Constitution - even though the French and Dutch have already voted against it. The same poll also found that 56% would use that vote to say 'no' to the Constitution and only 22% would say 'yes'.

The British people's enthusiasm to vote is perhaps a reflection of their lack of trust in the EU's bureaucratic leaders. There are already signs that some of these leaders are trying to ignore the French and Dutch verdicts. Luxembourg's PM has already said that "the show must go on". The British people want their opportunity to vote and to make it absolutely clear that it's 'game over' for Old Europe. A big UK 'no' vote would also strengthen the hand of Britain's government in any future renegotiations. At present the pressure for concessions will all come from France.

Part of the reason for the way EU leaders are trying to wriggle out of the French and Dutch rejections is that they are not used to decisive election results. Most of them are elected by forms of proportional representation. After most PR elections the balance of power is changed within a coalition government but there's rarely a decisive change of government. PR systems force parties to work together and to seek consensus. Parties with strong, non-consensual views are rarely seen as prospective coalition partners and so they gravitate to the establishment view (on such questions as European integration) or they never get a taste of power. This week's referenda results are unambiguous orders from European electorates to drop the Treaty. Most of Europe's politicians are not used to such direct democracy.

Old-fashioned democracy thwarts EU's grand plan

Sometimes people removed from the complexities of a situation can gain the most clear-sighted of bird's eye views. The 'democracy thwarts EU's grand plan' headline in this morning's USA Today describes the European situation perfectly. In the last week the score has been 'Democracy 2: Bureaucracy 0'.

The great citadels of the European fortress are slowly falling away. On Sunday France fell. Yesterday Old Europe lost the Netherlands to euroscepticism. Today, there are even signs of euro-realism within The Independent.

Jeremy Warner, The Indy's Business Editor, wrote:

Why isn't Peter Mandelson expelling France from the EU?

The excellent Labour MP Kate Hoey was on Radio 4's PM this evening - being interviewed about France's 'non' vote. She reminded listeners of how Mandelson and other Labour Europhiles had said that the Conservative "rejectionists" of the Brussels Treaty were endangering Britain's membership of the EU. Rejection of the Treaty wasn't compatible with full membership of the Union we were told. 'No to the Treaty' would leave Britain in a semi-detached state, on our way to full separation.

Has Mr Madelson told President Chirac about France's new semi-detached status or was New Labour's great propagandist performing his usual dark arts?

The Tories' passé modernisers

In a brilliant article for today's Scotsman Bill Jamieson demolishes the platitudinous language of the new Tory Constitution:

"Earlier this week, the [Tory] party's new chairman, Francis Maude, issued what he described as "a statement of the party's values" (as if it previously never had any) which would be enshrined in the new constitution.

"We are a national party", this statement declares, "committed to serving the entire nation and open to and respectful of everyone in Britain, regardless of their background, race, sex or religion. We believe in strong communities, cohesive society, personal freedom and responsibility, limited government, the rule of law and an enterprise culture."

WELL, that's sure one in the eye for all those out there who believe in weak communities, anarchic society, personal enslavement, big government, lawlessness and a Soviet economy.

It is a perfect example of how what today's modernisers seize upon as "new" is already passé and well past its sell-by date. Such vapid and meaningless statements of the obvious neither uplift nor inspire. On the contrary. These litanies have descended on our public culture like a dampening fog...

The Tory Europhiles have a problem with democracy

The British people have never been trusted with the truth about the European project. We were promised that we were joining a purely economic project by Ted Heath. Twenty years later we know that the plan is for Britain to belong to a country called Europe with its own president, parliament, army and foreign policy.

Fortunately the British people have been granted the opportunities to stop this ambition of the European elites. Tory eurosceptics have forced Labour to hold referenda before we join the euro or have to sign up to the centralising EU Constitutional Treaty.

Would the Tories have won 27 more seats if they'd campaigned more on Europe?

John O'Sullivan writes an interesting article in this morning's Sunday Telegraph.

It contains three main observations:

(1) Working class voters are drifting Rightwards and should be aggressively targeted by the Tories. O'Sullivan's prescription is based on the fact that more prosperous voters - once the core of the Tory vote - are drifting towards New Labour and the Liberal Democrats. George W Bush and John Howard made big inroads into the working class vote in their recent elections. O'Sullivan's advice is directly the opposite of the conclusion drawn by Daniel Finkelstein in Wednesday's Times. Although Bush and J Howard showed that a winning coalition was easier to create by winning striving lower income voters than stopping the drift of professionals to the liberal-left parties, Finkelstein wrote:

The politics of fear

A favourite theme of the chattering classes right now is the politics of fear: Apparently our politicians have been scaring us in a desperate attempt to win our votes. A cursory glance at the political battlefield reveals that the voters are dying of boredom rather than fright, but let us press on regardless.

The latest outing for the PoF hypothesis was on Radio 4’s ‘Analysis’ programme – a sort of on-air think tank featuring a comprehensive range of opinions from across the centre-left spectrum. Of particular note amongst its presenters is David Walker, who is Mr Polly Toynbee and a contributer to a Guardian think-tank-style column called, er, ‘Analysis’. On this occasion, however, the Radio 4 version was presented by John Kampfner of the New Statesman. This was most informative, and fearlessly revealed that the politics of fear are in fact the politics of getting up the nose of John Kampfner.

A bird's eye view on Britain's election

Sometimes an international correspondent - adopting a bird's eye view of things - can remind us of the most important aspects of something like a UK election. Domestic experts can have more knowledge but they get lost in the detail of a situation.

This article* from today's International Herald Tribune contains a number of 'food-for-thought' observations:

The powerful continuation of Tony Blair's 'magpie' phenomenon

"Tony Blair has repositioned the Labour Party as a centrist, catch-all political party," said Anthony King, a professor of government at Essex University. "And one of Michael Howard's difficulties is that neither he nor any Conservative Party figure has a clear perception of precisely what the Conservative Party should stand for. After a decade, the party still has not worked out what it wants to say."

The similarity of Tories and Labour on some big issues

"Irwin Stelzer, a conservative scholar with the Hudson Institute in Washington and a columnist for The Sunday Times of London, said: "There is no reason to vote for the Tories. They're not offering anything different on tax policy. They are not offering anything different on crime policy. What the Tories have been unable to do - partly because Blair has been so successful at stealing their clothes - is to come up with a distinctively different policy."

"Tony Travers, a political analyst at the London School of Economics, noted that Conservatives had proposed shaving just £4 billion off the £450 billion budget proposed by Labour - a difference that The Sun newspaper described as "pathetic." ...When the Tories start acting like Conservatives, they might deserve our support," the paper said."

British politicians don't do religion

"When Howard appeared in the pulpit at the Tabernacle Christian Center on the outskirts of London on Sunday, he did not mention God or religion once in a 20-minute speech, an omission that would have been unthinkable for Bush or John Kerry."