The conservativehome.com blog

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:

Hypocrisy isn't the worst vice

The charge of hypocrisy is one of the media's favourites. It crushed John Major's 'Back to Basics' campaign, for example, as minister after minister was forced to resign for some serious, and some not-so-serious, indiscretions.

An excellent (subscriber-only) article in National Review argues that a zealous preoccupation with hypocritical behaviour can discourage politicians from adopting any kind of moral stands. Ramesh Ponnuru writes:

"A surefire way for a public figure not to be judged a hypocrite, and thus a good way for him to keep his moral lapses out of the papers, is not to uphold moral standards in public life."

Many sixties socialists may like the idea of discouraging traditional moral positions but they can also be vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy. Ponnuru points out that some lefties talk about the environment but use private jets. Others support affirmative action but have yet to employ a black staffer.

I'm not optimistic but there would be something more grown-up if our culture encouraged (1) more politicians to stand for moral idealism on the family, the environment and poverty and (2) the electorate understood that it was only human for those same fallen politicians to sometimes to fail to live up to that idealism?

Blogs attack China's dictatorship

This blog recently reported on France's bloggeurs and effective bloggers in the US and Canada. But bloggers may be most powerful in resisting totalitarian regimes. Nicholas D Kristof has penned a thoughtful piece in this morning's New York Times about China's subversive bloggers.

Noting that 100 million Chinese people now have access to the web, Kristof lists a number of dissident websites and bloggers, including one leader of the Tiananmen democracy movement. Despite constant attempts by the Chinese authorities to ban websites the criticism of China's corrupt establishment is surviving on proxy servers.

Kristof highlights the website of Li Xinde:

Can Robin Aitken 'Goldberg' bias at the BBC?

Bernard Goldberg’s ‘Bias’ book caused a sensation when it was released in the USA. Bernard Goldberg was a CBS insider and he exposed the institutional left-liberal biases at America’s top broadcaster. Goldberg started an avalanche of exposes that has seen trust in America’s old media plummet.

My big hope is that Robin Aitken’s forthcoming book - Taking Sides: Bias At The BBC - will do the same.

Aitken, a veteran reporter for the BBC, encouraged Corporation executives and the Board of Governors to address its “unconscious, institutionalised Leftism” but was met with polite indifference. Now having left the Beeb Aitken is taking his message to the licence fee payer. In a Damian Thompson interview in Saturday’s Telegraph (not available online) Aitken catalogued some of the BBC’s biases:

Les bloggeurs threaten President Chirac with constitutional indigestion

Bloggers haven't had much impact on Britain's General Election. Blogging is meant to be slightly subversive - offering alternative voices to the mainstream. In Britain, however, the most popular blogs have been launched by the old mainstream media - notably the BBC and The Guardian. Anthony Wells' excellent Polling Report* is one of the few successful independent blogs - giving a very informed view of what each day's opinion polls mean.

But France and Canada are showing that blogging isn't only an American phenomenon.

Articles in today's Independent* and Thursday's FT* note how 'les bloggeurs' have played a leading role in France's 'no to the constitution' campaign. The French bloggers have broken through the consensus amongst their country's major parties and media and exposed the many faults of Valerie Giscard d’Estaign's nightmare Treaty. France has 24 million internet users - a big audience for les bloggeurs.

The Independent article also notes that Canadian bloggers led the expose of the scandal* that has skewered that country's Liberal Party. The Liberal Party have dominated Canadian politics for over a decade - since they reduced the Conservatives to just two seats. The Liberal Party's current scandal offers Canada's Tories an unexpected and possibly imminent return to government.

Will The Daily Mail help to elect more LibDem MPs?

Those people who hate Tony Blair have probably already decided that he isn't going to get their vote. The voters that the Conservative Party still needs to attract are those who have as many reservations about Michael Howard as they have about Labour's leader. As the Tories reflect on this difficulty they would do well to avoid the example of The Daily Mail. Today it screamed:

"Blair's credibility blown to shreds by bombshell leak of Attorney General's grave doubts over the legality of Iraq invasion."

and:

"Blair lied and lied again."

and:

"This will stain Blair for ever."

This kind of language isn't going to do anything to convince floating voters to support the Conservatives. Yes, The Mail is a successful newspaper but you could treble its circulation total and still not have enough people to elect a Tory government.

Was it Dubya wot won The Sun for Blair?

So, as predicted, The Sun has come out* for Tony Blair. In the week that white smoke announced the Vatican's election of Cardinal Ratzinger, mock red smoke from The Sun's Wapping HQ announced The Sun's decision.

The Sun was so supportive of Michael Howard in his early months as leader and, loved the Tories' agenda on tax, crime, Europe and immigration. But, in the end, the red top has given New Labour a final chance.

I wonder if George W Bush had anything to do with it?

'W' couldn't help Tony Blair - his war buddy - in many ways. An endorsement would send TB's poll rating crashing. Bush's massive base of financial conbtributors can't fund a UK election. But Bush is very close to Rupert Murdoch, owner of The Sun and Fox News.

All but one of Murdoch's 170 or so global newspaper titles backed the liberation of Iraq. Murdoch's American media empire was energetic in support of Bush's 2004 campaign. If Bush could help deliver one thing for Blair it was The Sun...

Dworkin the talk

The Sunday Telegraph’s Jenny McCartney* is latest conservative commentator to eulogise the far-from-conservative Andrea Dworkin. Other unexpected mourners include David Frum, Maggie Gallagher and the Daily Telegraph leader column. The outpouring of rightwing regard for the radical feminist has not gone unnoticed by Sarah Baxter, writing* in the Sunday Times:

“Derided for years by the right as the archetypal “feminazi” man-hater, the outsize, dungaree-clad writer went on to respect and befriend leading conservatives while becoming alienated from many left-wing champions of women’s rights.”

It seems that pornography was the crucial issue that led to Dworkin’s alienation from the conventional left and to her tentative dialogue with some conservatives. Dworkin never deviated from the old feminist line that “pornography is the theory, rape is the practice”. She was therefore appalled when liberals and leftists began to embrace pornography as an aspect of “sexual liberation”. Indeed, these days the anti-porn left is a lonely place – just ask Clare Short.

But who will check the fact checkers?

The big new trend of the current election campaign is the rise of the self-appointed fact checker. It seems that trust in politicians has fallen so low that we’d rather get a second opinion from, ahem, a journalist. Channel 4 have made the biggest splash so far with their FactCheck* service, BBC online catches up with Election fact check* , while the pages of the Guardian are graced with ‘Truthwatch’.

But who will check the fact checkers? Could it be a job for the blogosphere? Why, I guess it could. So, first up on the dissecting table is today’s TruthWatch* from the Guardian.

This features an investigation into the utterances of Tory education spokesman Tim Collins and in particular his claim that  “what works in the teaching of reading is the proven, traditional method of phonics." Could this possibly be true?

Truthwatch refers to “a much-publicised study in Clackmannanshire in Scotland, which shows that synthetic phonics had a dramatic effect on literacy. The study of 300 children put them more than three years ahead in reading and almost two years ahead in spelling at the age of the 11.”

But then comes the shocking revelation that the Tories had somehow neglected to mention that “although the Clackmannanshire children were 3 years ahead on word recognition at 11, they were only three months ahead on comprehension.”

The Daily Telegraph: from news-paper to views-paper

The last two days have not been proud days for The Daily Telegraph. Not so long ago, Martin Newland, its editor, appeared uncomfortable with its 'Torygraph' image. But over the last couple of days The Daily Telegraph has used its frontpage to make highly partisan attacks on Labour.

Yesterday its front page screamed: Labour ‘lie’ shot down in flames*. The article was accompanied with an image of Blair and Brown separated by a flame (see left). Today the banner headline on page one is less emotive but still biased: Another taxing day for Labour*.