The conservativehome.com blog

Seb Coe and Jacques Chirac bring Olympics to Britain

Many people - Tony Blair, Ken Livingstone, Steve Redgrave, The Princess Royal, David Beckham - deserve credit for winning the Olympics for Britain.

But I'd like to suggest that two people deserve a special mention...

Lord Coe - the chairman of the bid. The Tory peer took over what was widely seen as a flagging bid and took London to victory. A fantastic achievement for William Hague's former Chief of Staff and an ideal springboard to a run for London Mayor?

But let's also pay tribute to Jacques Chirac. His rudeness at Britain's expense may just have given London the edge. Paris was beaten by 54 to 50 votes. France's embattled President wasn't just rude about British cooking - he singled out Finland for special disdain. It would be great to think that the Finns - and one or two other IOC members - might have been influenced by his unsporting intervention.

And, yes, I know it's childish, but did you see some of those jokes in today's Mail...

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?

Poor Lord Saatchi

...Well, not that poor obviously, but nevertheless rather hard done by. He must have hoped that his CPS pamphlet on the future of the Conservative Party would have served to stir up debate. Instead it has elicited a chorus of derision.

Tuesday’s Times editorial was particularly cruel, even poking fun at his lordship’s outsize specs. To some extent Saatchi is the author of his misfortune. His ostentatious mea culpa for the election defeat was a thinly veiled j’accuse aimed at all around him, including Michael Howard: “I do blame myself for not preventing them doing certain things.” It would have sounded better if he’d simply said: “I wasn’t in any position to prevent them from doing anything. The fact is I was pretty much sidelined. Maybe I should have resigned, but at least I witnessed the car crash at close quarters and can give you an accurate description. Who knows, someone might take notice and do things differently next time.”

That would have set up subsequent analysis quite nicely – which, by the way, is well worth reading...

Conservatives should stop Tesco killing Sunday

First Tesco bit chunks out of Sainsburys. More recently it gobbled up Cullens, Europa Foods and a host of other small retail chains. But Tesco is still hungry for more growth. It now fancies a bigger helping of Sunday.

Our materialistic, consumer-driven culture doesn’t like the fact that large shops can only open for six hours on Sundays and Britain’s dominant supermarket chain wants to be the champion of that culture.

Tesco is a hugely successful retailer and it’s doing what any dynamic business should do – its eyeing bigger profits. But that does not mean that they should be allowed to destroy the last vestige of the British Sunday. A real Conservative Party would stand in Tesco’s way. A little history explains why…

Some cartoons are worth a thousand words

This image was taken from the Indiananopolis Star. For background on embryonic stem cell research visit here.

This blog is hibernating

In order to concentrate on the development of conservativehome.com's leadership blog this blog is hibernating. It will return soon.

13th June update: A Tory strategy blog has also now been added.

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:

If you only read one thing today, read this...

During the General Election campaign this blog highlighted the death of 400,000 people in the Darfur region of Sudan. The Darfur genocide - for that is what it is - hardly featured in Britain's decadent election. But the huge death toll in Sudan is small in comparison with what has been happening in Congo (formerly Zaire).

On belief.net Sarah J Coleman writes about the 30,000 lives lost every month in Africa's bloodiest nation:

"Add up all of the American deaths in every single war we’ve fought in since 1776, including World War II and the Civil War (1,540,665). Now add to that the estimated deaths from the recent tsunami (169,752 confirmed dead, 127,294 missing). Next, add to that the estimated death toll in the conflict in Darfur (400,000). Then, add to that the victims of genocide in Rwanda, one of the most horrific slaughters of the 20th century (937,000). Add all of the deaths together–and you still have a smaller number than the 3.5 million people who have died in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) since 1998."