We've just read THE best indictment of the Labour years.
The Centre for Policy Studies is relaunching its pamphlets this week with a new bullesye-style logo and an old-fashioned colour style that reminds us of those great Penguin paperbacks.
The first in the new series of pamphlets is written by Lord (Maurice) Saatchi. Written in the style of a prosecuting barrister it makes the case that Labour has acted as the 'Enemy of the People' over the last ten years:
"The People charge New Labour on seven Counts:
- Conspiracy to make citizens dependent on the State.
- Conspiracy to force citizens to claim benefits to pay higher taxes.
- Incitement of poor people to pay more tax than rich people.
- Solicitation of multiple tax revenues by stealth.
- Attempt to obstruct the right of citizens to independence.
- Conspiracy to mesmerize and anaesthetise citizens.
- Attempt to conceal their true status as an enemy of the people.
On all Counts, the defendants are found: Guilty."
It will formally be published on Wednesday - when we'll publish key extracts. You'll be able to get a copy from the CPS website then. You won't be disappointed.
Conspiracy to remove and destroy personal liberty and freedoms just a little bit at a time?
Where is the real support for David Davis?
Posted by: Curly | July 07, 2008 at 12:38
designed to look Orwellian, I'd say - plain cover with 'the people' and 'Ministry of ...' style target stamp.
Posted by: Norm Brainer | July 07, 2008 at 12:40
So Saatchi has suddenly got a conscience? I seem to remember he was very cosy with Blair et al. Presumably, even he has realised the wind is changing... methinks he is a fair weather friend!
Posted by: Watervole | July 07, 2008 at 13:23
Are you thinking of the right Saatchi, Watervole?
Maurice Saatchi was Tory Co-Chairman at the last election.
Posted by: Editor | July 07, 2008 at 13:29
It is relevent to remember that Saatchi never writes anythig himself. It is all ghost written and if he feels it gives him some publicity on a good grandstand he adds his name. Always done it this way. Sad
Posted by: bill symonds | July 07, 2008 at 15:50
Poor people don't pay more tax than rich people.
Posted by: Facter | July 07, 2008 at 17:07
What happened to Saatchi lambasting the Conservative Party for being too centrist, out of touch with the core vote and useless? 21 points ahead in the polls - thats what.
Ignore him.
Posted by: Oberon Houston | July 07, 2008 at 18:05
(Obviously more tax as a proportion of income.)
Posted by: EML | July 07, 2008 at 18:12
"What happened to Saatchi lambasting the Conservative Party for being too centrist, out of touch with the core vote and useless? 21 points ahead in the polls - thats what.
Ignore him."
I don't think that happned.
I remember him criticising the 2005 campaign for focussing on imigration.
Posted by: Dale | July 07, 2008 at 18:22
"(Obviously more tax as a proportion of income.)"
Do the poor pay more tax as a proportion of income? Even with the better-off paying 40% rates?
Posted by: RichardJ | July 07, 2008 at 18:54
Dale:
He said the whole campaign was a mess, critisised the party for being without purpose and urged a return to the 'moral case for tax cuts', i.e. a return to the Thatcherite agenda he pushed in 1979. The attacks were timed just at the heigh of the Brown bounce, when Camoeron was most vunerable and needed support rather than a kicking...
Saatchi critisised Cameron in July '07 saying "nicey nicey" politics wouldn't win him the election, and...
"Not a single poll in a single month in the past 15 years has given the Conservative party a sufficient lead to win a general election,"
Lord Saatchi argued that voters were put off by the two main parties vying for the centre-ground, insisting that the Tories needed to find "an expression of true Conservative ideology" (not yesterdays speech, but read as 'Thatcherite', which largely ignored the poor in the drive to reflate the economy.
He added that the inconsistency of the Tories' approach, as seen in the grammar schools row, led voters to think: "He's only saying that. He doesn't mean it."
Tebbit was also getting stuck in throughout the 'Brown Bounce' -
You cannot trust these guys - fair weather friends as long as your pandering to their evangelical beliefs, and they'll stab you in the back in a flash when you propose an alternative.
Posted by: Oberon Houston | July 08, 2008 at 09:26
So sad to read the comments of people who have forgotten the service that Lord Saatchi has given the Conservative Party.
I remember speaking to him (on the telephone) and to his secretary on a number of occasions, and he was always a Gentleman to me and very generous with his remarks and thanks. The Saatchi brothers will always
be true Tory Gentlemen to me, and at my age,73 years, I seem to have known them all my life. Regards, ATFlynn "Norfolk's Mutineer"
Posted by: ATFlynn | July 22, 2008 at 09:46