Jonathan Delaney: The Conservatives must remind voters that we are the genuine "party of liberty"

Jonathan Delaney is working in the private sector, having been a Professor of International Relations and 20th Century History at Montgomery College, Maryland. He worked within the Veterans Coalition for the McCain-Palin campaign and is a former adviser to Conservative MEP Geoffrey Van Orden.

Though we may not like to think about it in such terms, politics is about nothing more than control.  Beneath its more acceptable veneer of public representation, our political system – and every other variant in history – is, at its core, one designed to regulate human behaviour: encouraging those traits conducive to our vision of a civilised society and discouraging those that are not.  The traditional agreement has been that we relinquish absolute freedom, also known as anarchy, in return for a sensibly curtailed version that strives to ensure equal protection for all persons and property, allowing us to pursue our aspirations and ambitions.

This tacit accord between the rulers and the ruled is now at breaking point.  The rampant proliferation of cameras in the high street and on the motorway, plans for a national ID card, the largest police DNA database in the world and intrusive government activities that routinely delve into personal territory all combine to make us the most surveilled society in existence. 

Just as we seem to have learnt from Zimbabwe how to finance our unsustainable state spending through printing more money (with which we buy our own debt, in chicanery worthy of all those nasty investment banks that have become the scapegoat for all the world’s ills), we also seem to have learnt from China how to excavate every last detail about nominally private citizens.  The dictators of yesteryear would jealously eye the powers possessed by our supposedly benign leaders to find out absolutely anything about us that they so desire.

But it does not have to be this way. As attested to by all the polls, the public is desperate for a big issue that distinguishes one party from the others.  The Conservatives therefore need to emphasise what differentiates us from the two parties of bigger taxes and bigger government.  The message is most effective at its most basic: whereas they want increasing control over every aspect of your lives, we do not.

Jonathan Delaney is working in the private sector, having been a Professor of International Relations and 20th Century History at Montgomery College, Maryland. He worked within the Veterans Coalition for the McCain-Palin campaign and is a former adviser to Conservative MEP Geoffrey Van Orden.

Jonathan Delaney: How the Left has sought to use coal, steel and now carbon dioxide to introduce supranational structures as a pathway to global governance

Jonathan Delaney is a Professor of International Relations and 20th Century History at Montgomery College, Maryland, and worked within the Veterans Coalition for the McCain-Palin campaign. He is also a former adviser to Conservative MEP Geoffrey Van Orden.

Forgive me for stating a truism, but we are living in an age of unprecedented internationalism.  Having started early in the 19th century (with the 1814 Congress of Vienna) this process slow-burned until the 20th century, when, in the aftermath of two World Wars, support exploded as political leaders across the spectrum pledged their allegiance to this fledgling concept.  From the IMF to the World Bank, from the GATT to the WTO, from the League of Nations to the UN, from the EU to the African Union, from ASEAN to MERCUSOR to NAFTA to CARICOM, there is not a single matter of import today that is not considered at the international level. 

If your conspiracy theory sensor is starting to sound the alarm, then allow me to pull back from the edge and offer something more tangible.  First, though, a clarification: international cooperation is vital.  Unless we desire to become a hermit state akin to North Korea, there will always be a significant role for international organizations of the strictly intergovernmental kind.  This is welcome.  But the increasing trend towards supranationalism is not. 

Let’s consider the case of the European Union.  The precursor to the EU was the Economic Coal and Steel Community of 1952, established by France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.  The initial integration of six European countries was focused around the steel and coal sectors for a very precise reason: it was a technocratic first step, deliberately confined to this sphere to prove to European populaces that integration could produce beneficial results.  This is the functionalist theory of integration, whereby spillover from the coal and steel sectors would then provide the impetus for further integration in related fields, now with added public approval.

Jonathan Delaney: How British rejection of the European Security and Defence Policy could lead to fundamental reform of the European Union

Jonathan Delaney is a Professor of International Relations and 20th Century History at Montgomery College, Maryland, and worked within the Veterans Coalition for the McCain-Palin campaign. He is also a former adviser to Conservative MEP Geoffrey Van Orden.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Let us begin by assuming a Conservative Party victory in the coming General Election – hardly an incredible leap of faith given Labour’s spectacular and ongoing meltdown. Comprehensive disillusionment with Labour’s failed experimentations will afford the Tories a remarkable opportunity to change fundamentally many aspects of the United Kingdom (and not for the first time, either). The Tories are preparing meticulously, determined not to waste the political capital they will possess in the event of a sizeable victory.

Many issues will demand instant action, not least of all our – hush, don’t say it too loudly around the Conservative Party – relationship with the European Union. At this point, many of you will be steeling yourselves for the inevitable barrage of platitudes that this could finally be the moment to shift the EU in a direction more palatable to the UK.

Bear with me, though, because this time it could well be true.

Many options are open to the Tories but there is one policy choice that is guaranteed to have a seismic impact in Brussels. Imagine that the first policy announced by the Tories is the complete withdrawal of all of our support for the misguided European Security & Defence Policy (ESDP).

Jonathan Delaney: Today's world leaders are leaders in name only

Jonathan Delaney is a Professor of International Relations and 20th Century History at Montgomery College, Maryland, and worked within the Veterans Coalition for the McCain-Palin campaign. He is also a former adviser to Conservative MEP Geoffrey Van Orden. Here he rails against the current generation of world leaders whom he accuses of being unwilling to tackle our most pressing problems.

Has the well run dry?  Are there no more good ideas left?  Never mind ones that are original, creative or groundbreaking (that’s obviously too much to ask), I’d settle at this point for some that don’t simply recycle current policies or repeat past failures.  In both Europe and America, the problems with which our politicians supposedly contend are largely the very same that have plagued our countries for decades past.

Education?  Healthcare?  Immigration?  Taxation?  Welfare entitlements?  Public order and licentiousness?  The desirable size of government and reducing corruption and waste?  Point to a time during the last fifty years when these were not the primary issues.  These problems have not persisted for want of time, evidence or money.

Or is it that politicians no longer have much nerve?  Once upon a time, our leaders would propose ambitious ideas to match the enormity of what faced them.  Whether ultimately successful or not, a succession of twentieth century leaders possessed courage rarely seen today.  In response to regular, and increasingly destructive, outbreaks of European warfare, Woodrow Wilson created the League of Nations, the first attempt at a body for global mediation.