Sword in the Lake

That Cameron poster generator

2010-01-23T10:26:00.000Z

Couldn't have put it better myself!

2007-10-03T20:50:00.000Z

"To dismiss a speech as "being of a party leader rather than a prime minister", when Cameron is a party leader rather than a Prime Minister, pretty much sums up the brain power of Ed Balls."

PrinceHal on CommentIsFree.

Music. To. My. Ears.

2007-09-06T11:53:00.000Z

Boris back on form.

Boris Gets It Slighty Wrong

2007-07-12T20:36:00.000Z

In Boris's article for today's Telegraph, our Man for the Mayoralty seems to get a little bit confused about just what increases in the tax allowance for certain individuals means.

As a libertarian Conservative, I believe that beyond a certain amount (perhaps 15%-20% of GDP), tax is effectively legalised theft. The basic position from the secular, political point of view is that our own money, income and property is own own, not the government's.

The state is jusitified in taxing the citizens to some extent to pay for functions of the state that are legitimate and necessary. And I take the view that the legitimate and necessary functions of the state are limited - much less than what the state currently does. Beyond fulfilling a certain relatively small number of legitimate functions, all money taken from us by coercion is bascially theft: the taking with the intention permanently to deprive us of our own money. There's no way that the Government needs to take what it does.

So, I think that Boris has got things slightly the wrong way round. Bascially, he's adopted the Labour approach wholesale.

How does he view people's own private money? He talks about "the taxpayer [coughing] up for a married couple" and married couples potentially getting "£20 from the government."

Actually, what IDS in the Tories' so-called "Social Justice Commission" report is proposing is not to take so much of the married couple's money in the first place. It's not someone else coughing up for me. It's me being stolen from slightly less by the government for the benefit of the re-election of the government's ministers and backbench MPs.

It's my £20 a week that is currently being taken from me without my consent and all that is being proposed is that they no longer take this from me on condition of my being married. Well, frankly, they shouldn't take it from me in the first place, married or not.

So no, I do not accept differential treatment for married and single people. We should all be allowed to keep more, much more, of our own cash. Discriminating between marital status is not really a vote winner - it leaves certain people feeling unfairly treated, and ignores the core philosophical and moral injustice in the amount of taxation we all suffer.

Dragon Boat Racing

2007-06-28T23:50:00.000Z

Fiona Mactaggart...

2007-05-14T20:48:00.000Z

...was, according to her biography on Wikipedia, the General Secretary of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants from 1982-87.

Good job then, since over a hundred have just landed on her constituency doorstep in Slough.

Even Channel 4 news this evening had an "interview" with one of them who was being put on at council tax payers' expense in a local B&B. When asked where the money was coming from she replied, "Social"!

Mactaggart polled over 17,000 votes at the 2005 General Election, with the second-placed Conservative candidate falling well short with under 10,000.

Wonder how many this little event will cost her?

Quote of the Day (May 2007 edition)

2007-05-06T09:17:00.000Z

“[Pupils] will be able to hydrate during the learning experience”

So said Alan McMurdo, headteacher of the Thomas Deacon city academy school to be opened in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, in Autumn 2007...the school for 2,200 pupils that does not have a playground.

Central planning, management speak, New Labour.

Doncha just love it?

Local election rubbish

2007-05-05T09:08:00.000Z

Tim Hames makes a good point in today's Times:-

"this wheelie bin revolt helped to boost Tory numbers. It does, nonetheless, raise the question as to whether the theme of “vote blue, go green” will be a winner for David Cameron in the longer term."

An even bigger problem is that, as Richard North on the EU Referendum blog repeatedly points out, the moves towards fortnightly collections are in direct response to the ever-increasing cost of such collections, thanks to the EU's Waste Framework Directive. This is estimated to cost the UK around £10-£12 billion extra in terms of landfill taxes, the building of recycling facilities, and EU fines for failing to comply in time with the EU's recycling targets.

The Conservatives now taking control of more and more councils will be virtually powerless to negate the effects of these bigger systemic problems. The only hope is that they will be able to find effeciency gains elsewhere that can offset the costs of the effects of the Waste Framework Directive. In some places, they may be able to. But in many they probably won't. Which means that the more the Conservatives win now, the bigger the likely future loss will be when "local Conservative goverment" is unable to deal with this problem effectively.

Since this Directive was inspired by waste management solutions in countries very different from the UK, it is a clear example of how local government has now been all but emasculated not only by Westminster but by Brussels, itself beyond the control of Westminster and the British electorate of any description or configuration.

That is why for the moment, whilst the local election results may be a harbinger of forthcoming Conservative victory in the next General Election, the practical consequences that will flow from a change of administration at the local level will be much less than any main political party will care to admit.

Postal vote fraud in Birmingham

2007-05-02T07:07:00.000Z

The BBC is reporting that the request for postal vote in two Birmingham city wards have dropped since the last election by up to 80%.

The wards mentioned are Bordsley Green and Aston.

The councillors who won the seats in those wards are:-

Bordsley Green
CHOUDHRY, ZAKER [Lib Dem]
KHAN, SHAUKAT ALI [Lib Dem]
SHAH, SHAFIQUE [Lab]

Aston
AZIZ, ABDUL [Independent]
ISLAM MBE, ZIAUL [Lab]
KHAN, AYOUB [Lib Dem]

Yet from listening to Radio 4's Today programme this morning you would never have known it was largely Labour and Lib Dem councillors who benefitted.

Draw your own conclusions.

Lesley White interviews Cameron

2007-04-22T09:04:00.000Z

"He can scratch a pig’s back so effectively that the creature sighs (this I saw with my own eyes); he can castrate a ram with a pair of pliers (I didn’t see this, thank God)".

Watch out, errant backbenchers.

source

Some Members of the Crewe Transport Police...

2007-04-21T16:48:00.000Z

...would appear, from Richard Brunstrom's blog, to be a bit slow...

Brunstrom, Chief Police Officer of the North Wales force, writes:-

"Back up north on the 1549hrs train from Euston. Got to Crewe but had a thirty minute wait for a connection, during which time a foul-mouthed argument broke out amongst a family group (including a young baby) waiting for a Liverpool train on the same platform. The group split up, but one (drunken) youth in particular continued to hurl abuse from a distance of thirty metres or so, across the heads of the passengers waiting for the train. An intervention was needed, with me in my business suit and carry a briefcase.

Luckily I had spotted that the British Transport police were nearby so I went and fetched them, much to the surprise of everyone, including them, and the youth. He was temporarily arrested and led away to be dealt with by fixed penalty ticket; and was I think quite properly prevented from travelling."

Asia's richest woman leaves clairvoyant £2bn

2007-04-20T22:10:00.000Z

From today's Telegraph.

Bet she didn't see that coming.

Newman Offers "Galloway" Defence

2007-04-20T22:00:00.000Z

(click to enlarge)

Covered on his blog yesterday, the Islington Tribune today reports N's joke at the expense of Chris S and myself and the fiasco over the council election voting forms last year.

Basically, without a local campaign agent in Islington North, all the work of verifying nominators' signatures in a number of wards was left to our overworked Chairman, Chris S, now redeeming himself as the extremely hard working, intelligent and no doubt underpaid researcher to Conservative shadow education secretary, David Willetts.

As for the story of the candidacy that was not to be, the situation (rather prosaicly) was that a number of nominators who swore that they were on the electoral register in Mildmay turned out on closer examination not to be. That closer examination took place only about one hour before the close of nominations. Although there was a last-ditch attempt to replace the vital invalid signatures, we still fell one short. Incredibly, Islington Council had managed to put one crucial nominator on the electoral register of an adjacent ward, despite her having resided in Mildmay for years before the date in question.

Anyway, the Lib Dems turned out to be the principal beneficiaries of the signature collection cock-up, retaining crucial votes that otherwise may have gone to the Conservatives and which may have meant Labour narrowly taking the ward, and thus the Council.

Whereas Galloway later protested that his tribute to the Butcher of Baghdad ("Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, and your indefatigability") was in fact addressed to the Iraqi people as a whole, Newmania protests that his words ("the denizens of Mildmay are almost bestially stupid") were in fact meant about me alone.

Still, after this Boris-like escapade it will sadden readers to learn that Newmania will shortly be pursuing alternative career options in another local Conservative association, hoping that the burning building he's fleeing will have engulfed in flames all of its residents (denizens), preventing news about this petite affaire from ever escaping!

Corporate Social Responsibility

2007-04-15T21:51:00.000Z

I think I know what Jim Royle from the Royle Family would probably say about that.

In a recent speech, the Boy Dave has lauded a project by a guy called Tim Campbell to get 4000 businesses to donate collectively £1m to enable 365 businesses to be started up over the next year.

Apparently, this is something that companies should be doing to help teenagers and people in their twenties to become entrepreneurs.

DC said "There is a new spirit of creativity in our country. We politicians need to match this with a new spirit of our own - tearing down the barriers which stop people founding businesses of their own. But only when people themselves - as businesses and neighbours - take responsibility for their own communities, will we build the Britain we all want to see: prosperous, safe and socially just."

There's quite a bit to pick apart here.

First, if there's a new spirit of creativity around, why doesn't this extend to creativity about getting money for a new business?

And aren't you a little bit suspicious of politicians claiming to know what the spirit of the age is up to in a way that conveniently fits with their own interests: remember Gordon Brown saying people are moving away from the cult of celebrity (towards appreciating the merits of boring old gits) just as the Sun was splashing news of the Will 'n Kate split across its front page?

And why would a business want to give cash to a potential new competitor?

And how does the creation of new businesses in and of itself help Britain to be more "safe"?

And talk of it being "socially just" seems ripe for the Royle raspberry, "My arse!"

What to do with a problem like Iran?

2007-04-04T23:45:00.000Z

Well, now that the hostages are on their way home, perhaps this idea from a Samizdata contributor can be put into cold storage.

"Blair should offer an apology through the UN to secure their release.

As soon as the servicemen are free he should issue another statement revoking his apology.

The Royal Navy should then mine all Iranian ports and destroy Iran's major cities through the use of the Royal Navy's cruise missiles. The British government should order the immediate construction of 5 Nimitz aircraft carriers and make all Royal Air Force Typhoons flight-deck compatible.

The Typhoons should then systematically reduce the rest of Iran to rubble."

For now.

Arthurian Legend is off to Barcelona for Easter.

Up Himself

2007-04-02T11:19:00.000Z

The Independent today carries an interview that Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger gave to Piers Morgan.

This quote is bound to get one or two people riled:

Rusbridger:

"The Guardian is a liberal, progressive, intelligent, internationalist paper which operates to certain ethical standards. And that's what I have to do. So if you betray that edict by backing UKIP in an election, for example, you would have to leave."

Arrogant little twerp.

Gabb gets Medieval on Kruger's Ass

2007-03-31T13:50:00.000Z

The Director of the Libertarian Alliance, Sean Gabb, takes Danny Kruger to task in this article here.

Kruger is a one-time leader writer in the Telegraph, a fellow old Etonian of David Cameron and now one of Cameron's two leading speechwriters.

Kruger has, though the think tank Civitas, published a short book which seeks to provide the intellectual underpinning of the Cameron project. As I pretty much worked out one and a half years ago, there is not much of an intellectual underpinning to the project.

Gabb's article is well worth reading, not least because he (as a secondary school-educated lad like me) picked up on several errors of attribution Kruger makes concerning quotations from the ancients. I also sympathise a lot with Gabb's exasperation of much of the long-windedness and obtuseness in Kruger's book, since I had to wade through massives of similar verbiage when studying theology and philosophy at Nottingham.

There is much to commend Gabb's dissection of Kruger, although I do take exception to the way in which Gabb expresses a couple of points.

Kruger talks about "a return to market liberty under Margaret Thatcher". However, Gabb on the other hand simply refers to those same economic policies as "big business privilege".

Well, there may have been some privilege accorded to big business, but what about the liberalisation of the telecom market? In the late 1970s, phone lines were installed by the post office 3-6 months after being ordered. In the early 21st century it can take simply a matter of days, with 20-30 competing providers of the service (and 2-3 competitors on the infrastructure side, depending on where you live).

And many other areas of the economy, such as credit and City trading, were also opened up.

Gabb also says: "Government under Tony Blair became more politically correct than it would have been under the Conservatives. But this was balanced by a greater caution in matters of European harmonisation."

Excuse me? Blair has been just as eager to indulge in Euro harmonisation. Defence acquistion with Chirac at St. Malo in 1998? Surrender of the social chapter provisions? Surrender of part of the UK rebate? Come off it, Blair and his crew have been far more eager about EU-harmonisation than most of the Tories were in the 1990s.

Finally, I would highlight this sentence of Gabb's:

"The project common to both Labour and Conservative Parties is the transformation of this country into a place where the upper reaches of the ruling class can enjoy a status and relative wealth not known since early Stuart times - and in which there can be no challenge from below."
Well, I seem to recall recently that the head of the largest UK private equity company was revealed to be a black guy from South East London who grew up on a council estate; a former constituent of Diane Abbott, if I recall correctly. Worth more financially now than the entire Blair cabinet combined, I should imagine.

Still, I shall end with one enjoyable flick of Gabb's devilish tail:

"German philosophy is notoriously a learned gibberish. For nearly two centuries, it has been used to justify every imaginable lapse from humanity and common sense."

Hat tip: Samizdata.

Nott for Broadcast

2007-03-31T09:30:00.000Z

"If you're dealing with the French, you have to realise they are devious: that's how they are."

Former Conservative Government Defence Secretary Sir John Nott gives two splendid interviews to Iain Dale on the re-capture of the Falkland Islands, the British in Afghanistan in the ninetheenth and twenty-first centuries, his wife's charity to help the Slovenians, and other things, here and here.

Update: Under the heading "EU refuses to back Britain over call to threaten exports freeze", The Times reports, "France, Iran’s second-largest EU trading partner, cautioned that further confrontation should be avoided."

Thanks.

More on the Marines

2007-03-28T11:41:00.000Z

Melanie Philips writes about the unfolding story here.

"We just don’t seem able to grasp the true nature and scale of the Iranian threat. Indeed, there is a distinct air of irrationality about a Britain which tells opinion pollsters that it believes President Bush is a greater threat to world peace than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. What terrible moral confusion.

We have consistently shown we are not prepared to defend ourselves. In 2004, the British servicemen who were kidnapped by Iran were spirited to Tehran and paraded blindfold on television, which broadcast their apprehensive apologies for a ‘big mistake’.

It was an act of war against us. We let them get away with it."

On one level, Britain's membership of the EU is not related to this story, but at another I wonder whether it has helped to bring the political class in this country to a position where it seems so weak and devoid of resolve.

"We have consistently shown we are not prepared to defend ourselves", Philips writes in relation to the kidnapping issue.

But in the councils of the EU our economic and political interests have been given a pretty remorseless kicking for the past 35 years. Indeed, whilst we brought it on ourselves, others learnt from our early weakeness and have exploited it for all it's worth.

Have we acted as such a doormat at home that when challenged abroad we also roll over and let the stronger side walk all over us?

Appleyard on Guido

2007-03-27T17:31:00.001Z

Here.

Hat tip: Samizdata

Following on...

2007-03-24T22:49:00.000Z

from the post below...

If, God forbid, Iran were to execute the 15 British Royal marines and sailors, what would Blair do?

Quote of the Day

2007-03-24T15:47:00.000Z

As 15 Royal Marines and British sailors are taken hostage by Iran, this afternoon BBC2 showed the original production of The 300 Spartans, recalling the Battle of Thermopyle and the brave Spartans who died in battle there against the Persians.

The film produced this line from an ancient hill dweller (vaguely resembling Richard Gere in 20 years' time):

"Who can understand the gods? They create lovely girls, and turn them into wives."

Hitch-in-bitch-slap

2007-03-24T11:06:00.000Z

Peter Hitchens (of the Daily Mail) has made a programme about David Cameron which will be will shown on Channel 4 on Monday 26th March at 8pm: Toff at the Top.

Last week Iain Dale said:

"when you see it (if you see it...) you will understand why I turned down an invitation from the production company to advise them on it. It was meant to be a hatchet job from beginning to end - and that's what it will be."

So it was interesting to note that someone closer to Cameron than Dale has agreed to participate. The show will feature:

"Michael Gove's defence of his leader ( Michael, an old friend, generously agreed to put the Cameron case when he didn't have to)."

Party like its 1957

2007-03-24T09:59:00.000Z

Come join the celebrations

Booker has the details.

Meanwhile, Charles Moore makes this comparison between law and practice in the EU and Islam:

"The elites' most sacred doctrine is what they call the acquis communautaire. This is like the Muslim notion of sacred space - the belief that land, once occupied for the faith, belongs to it forever. It says that what has become common European property can never be given up."

Thogger

2007-03-20T07:48:00.000Z

Or is it Thugger? Mugger? Thoggy? Hoodie? Do I get a hug from DC?

Trixy has kindly nominated me.

She has a very good blog and a very nice collection of shoes.

I have seen one pair, and very splendid creatures they are too.

She writes awfully well about the Beast of Brussels.

I only have two nominations. The first is for one of the first blogs that I ever read. It has taught me an awful lot. So a collective Thogger goes to the team and contributors at Samizdata.

The second is for someone who mines a slightly different seam, but who is certainly someone you'd want on your team. He does make me think, and chuckle.

Newmania. Also consider yourself nominated.

Chairman fails to rise to the Challenge

2007-03-19T07:30:00.000Z

Iain Dale draws attention here to one "story" resulting from a recent interview given by the Chairman of the Conservative Party, Francis Maude, to Jonathan Sheppard of Tory Radio.

Arthurian Legend has another story from the same interview.

Let me make this clear. I've never met Francis Maude, but I've listened to what he has to say on a number of matters relating to the internal organisation of the party, and as far as I can judge, he's doing a difficult job well. On a personal level, I have nothing against him. He seems like an OK guy. And I appreciate that he doesn't set policy, and has to defend the "party line". But his defence of certain issues just doesn't hold water at all.

Every month or so, the Editor of Tory Radio, Jonathan Sheppard, puts a number of questions to Francis Maude in a podcast entitled "Challenge the Chairman".

Arthurian Legend challenged Francis Maude, with the following question:

David Cameron has repeatedly stated that taking back the "Social Chapter" powers transferred by the UK parliament to Brussels will be a top priority concerning our relationship with the EU.

Since those powers are now enshrined in Art. 136-145 of the EU Treaty, which can only be given back by unanimous agreement, how will he do it?

This is the answer that Francis Maude gave in the interview that can be downloaded here.

FM: Well, it has to be done by negotiation. Um, these, but as a newly elected government we will have a lot of negotiating leverage".

JS: Hmmm.

Hmmm indeed. What negotiating leverage?

David Cameron to the Council of Ministers: We want to take back these powers.

President of France, Chancellor of Germany, Prime Ministers of Belgium and Italy: No. The UK will gain a competitive advantage if it does that. It will mean businesses are more likely to locate in your country than in ours. It will damage European solidarity. You are being awkward. You English, You Conservatives always want the same thing. Wanting to go back to the past. Not wanting to be a full part of the European dream, always dragging your feet, not wanting to be part of a single Europe.

David Cameron: Oh. Well, that's not fair. I told people I would get these powers back.

Rest of European Council: Tough.

David Cameron: Hmmm....

Francis, we ain't got any leverage without playing HARDBALL. Any I mean playing dirty. Like threatening to withold our £9 billion annual contribution. Or leaving altogether.

But what if they said, "OK, leave". Would DC agree? Would he be prepared for that? Would he have put in the groundwork to prepare the country for it? Would he have got all the plans in place for such an eventuality? I don't think so.

So what is the point of making this promise if you aren't going to do what is necessary to fulfill it? To try to keep the "euro-sceptic right" on-side? To get elected? OK, but if 84% of laws in Germany stem from the Council of Ministers in which Germany only has a formal 8% say (and a similar situation pertains in the UK), what is the point of getting elected? All that hassle, and you can't even run your own country?

Helen Szamuely mentions the launch of the new Global Vision campaigning group here.

Global Vision is aiming for a wholesale renegotiation of our relationship. Much more than what Francis Maude envisages. But the major sticking point is how we are going to achieve it - whether it be the restoration of UK sovereignty in one area, like the "social chapter", or in every area? Helen comments:

"But can their own plan be put into action? The launch had its share of Tory MPs, all of whom congratulated Global Vision on its brilliant new approach and, sadly, its share of friendly skeptics. “Devil’s Kitchen” asked how they were going to persuade the political elite of this country. Lord Pearson pointed out that there was not going to be another major constitutional treaty negotiation, as a good deal is coming in through the back door and the remaining treaty will be too small to make an impact. Anyway, he added, what can we do with our veto while the "enhanced co-operation" is in place?

Representing the Bruges Group and EUReferendum I decided to take part in the discussion as well, asking Lord Blackwell how they were going to persuade 26 other member states to agree to Britain acquiring that different relationship. It seems from his lordship’s reply (supported, I am sad to say, by Martin Howe QC) that this would not present too many difficulties as they would understand that a new relationship was in everybody’s interest."

I think it not unreasonable to suggest that nothing short of the "nuclear" option will achieve anything that Eurosceptics wish for. So far, there is no hint in the Cameron camp that they have appreciated this, even for their limited ambitions.

I wonder, when will they?

N.B. It's a shame that Jonathan Sheppard doesn't use the oppotunity he has to press for some more detail when given less-than-convincing answers...Or perhaps he takes the Andy Marr to Gordon Brown approach of not wanting to scupper the chances of getting the next interview by declining to remove the pin from the hand grenade that Arthurian Legend or some other awkward character lobs in to the trenches...

Private Healthcare

2007-03-12T11:52:00.000Z

"I along with I think something like five million other people do insure, to enable me to go into hospital on the day I want at the time I want and with the doctor I want. And for me, that is absolutely vital."

Mrs Thatcher, circa 1989.

The clip can be viewed via Nick Robinson's BBC blog here.

Then we have this from the Daily Mail.

"South African-born Mr Druian said that Mr Brown had been a regular patient at his practice on the edge of London's fashionable Hampstead district since he left the NHS to go private nearly 20 years ago.

The Chancellor has had routine dental treatment and also used Mr Druian's hygienist.

He told The Mail on Sunday: "Mr Brown is like many of my patients who opt for private treatment because they can phone me up in the morning and get an appointment the same day if they need one.

"We are not jam-packed with other patients so we can fit people in when they want.

"We have been looking after Mr Brown for such a long time and people don't usually like to change their dentist."

Maggie had the honesty to say it like it is.

With Gordo, it's a different story:

"Using a private dentist is not the same as using a private doctor," said one friend of the Chancellor."

UPDATE: Of course, when Tony had to undergo medical treatment for his irregular heartbeat, he got pretty sharp treatment on the NHS simply because he could use his position as Prime Minister to get it. That is the same type of treatment that is denied to other people on the NHS. No need for private insurance for Tony when we can all pay for him instead (even with his £200,000 per annum salary) and help to maintain his credentials as a supporter of the taxpayer-funded NHS to boot.

Mad mad mad

2007-03-11T11:28:00.000Z

This is the BBC's electoral map of the UK following the 2005 general election. It shows which political party's candidate won in which part of the country.

As you can see, the constituences forming the south-west tip of England, a good part of Scotland, and some other coastal regions, are held by Liberal Democrats.

The Conservative party needs to be challenging the Lib Dems in these parts of the country. To do this, it would help to have some policies that would be attractive to local voters.

One "industry" that still has some presence in these parts of the country is the fishing industry. However, since the United Kingdom entered the European Community on 1st January 1973, we have had to cede access to all of British fishing waters to the European Community - including France, that has its own fishing grounds, and land-locked Austria and Luxembourg, which have none.

The shameful way in which this came about, and the ensuing destruction of Britain's fishing industry, has been charted admirably by Richard North and Christopher Booker in The Great Deception. Before the last General Election, the fishing situation in the waters around Britain had got so bad that Conservative Party leaders had formally endorsed the Fishing Green paper produced Conservative MP Owen Paterson.

But when Cameron became party leader, he shelved this committment.

Christopher Booker today reports:

"Brussels has allocated 73 per cent of the cod quota in the English Channel to France, only 8 per cent to Britain."

What electoral sense does shelving the admirable and right-thinking and appealing fishing policy make in those coastal regions of the UK where the Conservative party doesn't currently have any elected MPs?

Putting their size twelves all over your cash

2007-03-11T10:00:00.000Z

"Maybe it's time for a Sponge Footprint, in line with the Carbon Footprint, to gauge how destructive these individuals really are."

Commentator "Chip" on the story of the group named ""Student Action for Refugees" (Star).

Will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the (Euro) light bulb?

2007-03-10T08:54:00.000Z

More here.

Another Islington Landmark

2007-03-10T08:37:00.000Z

No sniggering at the back there.

Maggie's Classic Hits

2007-03-08T13:17:00.000Z

"It is better to wrap yourself in the Union Jack than the Red Flag!"

Margaret Thatcher, House of Commons, October 1990

From the archives here.

Other great quotes include the famous "No, No, No" to the Delors proposals for the European Community to become a European super-state, and Thatcher calling Kinnock "little Sir Echo".

Steve Norris, Norman Tebbit and Nicholas Ridley also showed themseves to be on good form.

However, Mrs. Thatcher's speech did bear out the analysis of Booker and North that the Conservative Party has always failed to appreciate what the Project is and has always been about, where it is heading, and their mistaken belief that they can somehow stop it.

Mrs T.'s heart was in the right place, but she still hadn't full grasped the forward momentum of the EC beast, and the fundamental inability of Britain to stop or divert it from its course.

Kinnock had one or two good points, but let himself down with blatantly opportunistic attacks which exposed his own muddled thinking. Pantsdsown was just awful, and got rightly handbagged.

Hat tip: Iain Dale.

David Cameron Plays The Field

2007-03-06T13:39:00.000Z

And loses badly...

A "Carefully Understated Natural Tory".

Or so Thaddeus Tremayne thinks.

Richard North also lays into DC's Telegraph article here.

I wonder whether Cameron or his advisers will bother to read the comments posted beneath Cameron's article on the Telegraph website...

One article that is worth reading in today's Telegraph is this from Frank Field.

Although I understand how Field joined the Labour Party, and Dave joined the Conservatives, it is really hard to explain why each continues to occupy his respective position in light of today's revealing juxtposition of execreable mumbo jumbo from DC and the highly insightful piece from Field.

Can it really be that spin and nonsense is so much more valued and succesful than wisdom and straight talking?

UPDATE: The Devil has also put his boot in. Eloquently.

UPDATE II: Dan Hannan has also read what Cameron has had to say, and draws a rather optimisitc interpretation from it. But, Hannan asks, "Am I reading too much into one speech?"

His answer: "I don’t think so."

My answer: Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.

UPDATE III: I have just read Dave's speech. My verdict: incredibly naive.

Grand Designs

2007-03-06T07:30:00.000Z

This is Kelly. And the chair that he sculpted for my father in law from the root of a 30-year old palm tree, imported from Myanmar.

More on him in a moment.

The other day, Helen Szamuely, one half of the EU Referendum team, drew attention in this article to one person's ecological house.

"It has 25,000 gallons of rainwater storage, gray water collection from sinks and showers for irrigation, passive solar, geothermal heating and cooling. “By marketplace standards, the house is startlingly small,” says David Heymann, the architect of the 4,000-square-foot home. “Clients of similar ilk are building 16-to-20,000-square-foot houses.” Furthermore for thermal mass the walls are clad in "discards of a local stone called Leuders limestone, which is quarried in the area. The 12-to-18-inch-thick stone has a mix of colors on the top and bottom, with a cream- colored center that most people want. “They cut the top and bottom of it off because nobody really wants it,” Heymann says. “So we bought all this throwaway stone. It’s fabulous. It’s got great color and it is relatively inexpensive.”

Whose house is it? Not Al Gore's. No sirree.

George W. Bush's. The house in question is his Crawford Winter White House.

Back to Kelly. Kelly has been building his own eco house. It will shortly be featuring on the Channel 4 show, Grand Designs. At Christmas, I was privleged to take a look around. I won't show you the insides - that's embargoed until the show airs, but here's a sneak preview from the outside.

It's octagonal. The central column consists of an eight hundred-year oak, possibly planted by a member of the Royal family in the middle ages.

The insulation is straw, with lime rendering as the cement. It has several large water tanks inside which will collect rainwater for washing.

Electricity will be generated from solar panels and a wind turbine. David Cameron, eat your heart out.

It is absolutely stunning. The work of a creative mastermind. Make sure you watch the show.

The Countryside at Christmas

2007-03-02T22:59:00.000Z

Arthurian Legend's outlaws live on a farm in the wilds of Cambridgeshire.

Having himself been brought up in Kent, with its undulating and varied landscapes, the flatlands of the fenlands are not in his blood.

But this Christmas, they got under his skin.

Here are some photos that I took on a walk on Christmas eve.

Concorde. Times three.

A jaunty tree sits amid a lush green field, the hinterland obscured by mist.

The outlaws' house, across the peat earth.

Life can be lonely at this time of year for some.

But other parts of creation rejoice with upspread arms.

Down, but not out.

The green on black provides a vivid visual contrast.

Guess what these are...

Not potatoes. Sugar beet.

Dykes, fenland-stlye.

Unexpected visitors.

Llamas roam the land here. And Michael Jackson's nowhere to be seen.

A giant agricultural watering can. Spot the prestigious NFU number plate.

From here to...King's Lynn (eventually).

The husks of last autumn lie in anticipation of the new year.

Recycling and the environment

2007-03-02T13:00:00.000Z

Auberon Waugh, Daily Telegraph, 14th May 1990:

"Just as the Greens propose a universal 50mph limit to reduce emissions of green-house gases, we learn that another villain is the domestic cow. The average cow emits 400 litres of deadly methane gas every day, we are told. Cows and other ruminants account for between 12 and 15 per cent of all methane emissions, or so the US Environmental Protection Agency claims."

Boris Johnson, Daily Telegraph, 11th January 2007:

"There are 1.3 billion cows on this planet, and every year each cow produces about 90kg of methane, and as greenhouse gases go, methane is about 24 times worse than CO2 in sealing the heat in the air. According to a recent report by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, agriculture produces 18 per cent of the world's greenhouse gases, as measured in CO2 equivalent"

Cameron's fox: Shot!

2007-03-01T18:57:00.000Z

Arthurian Legend has noted before David Cameron's assinine approach to EU-related matters, including his "committment" to reassert the supremacy of the British Parliament concerning the "social chapter" provisions (over which Blair surrendered control to Brussels when he came to power).

One of Legend's contacts even attended a swanky do in the City where DC was schmoozing the money and boasting that he would take back control of this area.

From the mouth of the President of the European Commission himself, we now have confirmation that Cameron can't do what he says he will do:

"The Commission assumes that when the Honourable Member refers to the Social Chapter in the Treaties, he is referring to the social provisions contained in the articles 136 to 145 of the EC Treaty. These provisions are part of the whole Treaty and cannot be isolated. All Member States are bound by the Treaties they have signed and ratified and which have entered into force, including the social provisions they contain. Consequently, a withdrawal from these provisions by a Member State would require an amendment of the EC Treaty in accordance with Article 48 of the Treaty on European Union."

There were two particularly silly things about making this committment:

1. It appeared to be in exchange for dropping the fishing policy - a fishing policy that was hailed by those who studied it as a good plan and one that was likely to command wide support in the areas of Britain most directly affected

2. I suspect that people will be more concerned about the Conservatives "taking away their rights" in this area (even if the EU should not have been involved in the first place) than the previous policy of repatriating the powers ceded under the "Common Fisheries Policy".

Anyway, it's another naive Cameron promise on the European Union which he looks likely to drop when he finds it too awkward to stand up for British democracy.

Polls and Polling (1)

2007-03-01T08:50:00.000Z

Some while back, ConservativeHome ran a breathless editorial hailing the fact that according to a recent poll (I think it was an ICM one), the Conservatives had edged ahead of Labour by a couple of points in the confidence that the public had in the Party to manage the NHS. I think that the relative results were 29-27 in favour of the Conservatives.

Big deal, I thought. OK, so it's not bad news, but with the margins of error that exist, hardly a ringing endorsement. I decided to dig a little deeper and look at the full poll results. What I was shocked to see - what the big story should have been - was that around 41% of the people surveyed trusted NO POLITICAL PARTY to run the NHS.

Now, as a libertarian Conservative, I can fully understand that. I don't trust politicians to "run" the NHS - whether Labour or Conservative - in the same way that I wouldn't trust them to run the supermarkets, make my clothes, produce the music I listen to or write and publish the books I read.

Now, I know that it is not as simple as saying:

"The largest group among you trust no politician to run healthcare, and quite rightly so. We can't. Therefore, we will return most of your NHS tax money to you to help you to buy personal health insurance or enable you to join another healthcare scheme that will provide you with healthcare when you need it. That scheme or insurance will be able to buy services from whichever GP, hospital, clinic or consultant they wish, and there will be free entry into the market to provide those services, subject to minimum government-specified standards, to oblige all providers to compete to provide value for money and high quality services, therefore driving up standards for everyone."

Those who are reading this who are Conservatives know (or ought to know) that in the vast majority of cases that would improve standards, reduce waiting times, and cut the unnecessary waste from a system where "everything is free"). It would also encourage charity on the part of healthcare providers to treat the poorest for free. It would also eliminate the huge costs of 'health tourism'.

Now, there is hardly anyone who disputes the need to then provide specific assistance to some people who would genuinely be unable to afford to buy insurance or other protection, and would need some subsidy. But it would be far more effective to give direct cash subsidy to those people than have a masssive NHS centralised bureaucracy to run healthcare instead without any open market competition.

But apart from some in the DirectDemocracy group in the Conservative party, and perhaps David Laws in the Lib Dumbs, no major political figure seems to be edging in that direction and making that argument - despite the clear evidence that people do not trust politicians to run healthcare.

Polls and Polling (2)

2007-03-01T07:30:00.000Z

Here is something else about polls:

After reading The Hitch's blog for the first time last night (it's very funny), I went on to catch up with the original Peter Hitchens (of the Mail on Sunday).

Following a very extensive and interesting post in which replies to a number of readers' comments, I saw this further comment from a reader, which stood out:

"During the late 80s/early 90s I used to be one of the poor drudges calling innocent people at home on behalf of Mori. There was one Greenpeace did on peoples' view of Trident submarines (topical now, no?) where the questions were deliberately phrased to make the respondent feel guilty if they didn't take the anti-Trident line it was appalling the double bind they put people in, and of course they got the result they wanted. And if there was a political poll, the Tory Voters were always the ones who said they didn't want to reveal who they voted for which made me feel quite sick, because I was a Tory voter in those days and the fact that every foul mouthed Rock Journalist, 'Artist', British Filmmaker etc at the time were using vicious, obscene and hate filled exaggeration to denounce the Conservatives all the time was evidence of their Evil, not Conservative me. No point being a Hidden Conservative, being Hidden is what Communists do.

So yes, polls represent nothing, but will always be held in biblical reverence by the Highbrow media, as much as the Tabloids so the rest of us can all laugh at Paxman, Humphries, Wark etc as they try to convince us how serious and clever they all are."

O how fallen! how changed...

2007-02-28T09:30:00.000Z

A nation that once had an empire over which the sun never set no longer has the power to change its light bulbs.

See here.

Michael Cockrell: thoughts on the second Blair documentary

2007-02-28T08:20:00.000Z

This piece may be refined, amended or added to after posting...

I have admitted in a previous post that up to and during the Iraq invasion I had supported Blair's decision to send British troops to depose Saddam and to try to impose better governance of that country.

But Cockrell's film helped to crystalise a number of thoughts that had been gradually developing and taking shape over the past 12 months or so.

In brief, these are some of the conclusions that I have tentatively formed:

1. Britian's earlier operational successes in deposing in fairly short order the hostile military regimes in Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan were successful precisely because British military might was so much greater in comparison to the opposition that it faced.

2. Blair's successes in these conflicts emboldened him in a way that weakened (I think perceptibly) his critical faculties, and made him less hard-headed in his calculations not only of Britain's best interests, but whether what was planned was likely to succeed in the time frame that was open to him as Prime Minister. He was almost like a gambler on a winning streak who thought the cards were always going to turn up for him.

3. I never believed before the invasion that British forces in Cyprus or elsewhere were at any significant risk from Saddam. If Saddam had pre-emptively sent rockets to attack Britain or British forces then he should and probably would have known that we had the capacity to bomb his country back to the twelfth century. And quite possibly would have.

4. Before the invasion I had believed, from reading Con Coughlin's biography of Saddam, that Iraq had WMD, before I had read the published document from the Government on the issue. But the presence or absence of WMD was not to my mind the crucial justification for armed intervention: the fact that Saddam himself was a one-man WMD was good enough, I thought.

5. Blair had at least implicity committed Britain to intervene in Iraq from as early as the "Colgate summit" in early 2002; I think that he had also made up his own mind then in a way that, given what I can deduce from his psyche, would have made it extraordinarily difficult for him to change.

6. If it had all worked out well, order had been imposed quickly, and democracy and a peaceful society had begun to flourish within a year of the invasion, then the "Not in My Name" crowd would have looked even more ridiculous than I thought they did at the time.

7. However, Iraq was crucially different not only from the countries to which Blair had previouly sent forces, but also from how it was in the 1920s when Britain was last there in force as a colonial power. Oil money, telecommunications and the instruments of war had distinctivly improved the trouble or resistance that people on home soil (including those from Iran and Syria) could deploy against British and Amercian troops.

8. The geographical size of Iraq, and the relatively small number of British forces available exposed again the fact that Britain is no longer an imperial power which impose itself almost at will on an Arab state - if it ever could.

9. Just because some particular outcome is desirable and even "right" (as Blair might put it) (for example, toppling a bloody and brutal dictator), this doesn't mean that the operation to do so is wise and therefore "right". There are some times when it is better to take a hard-nosed approach to British interests and err on the side of caution, rather than gambling massively that what you do will work out.

I think it is this point perhaps above all others that I refused to accept before and during the invasion. Or rather, that I thought that the risks were worth it. Perhaps I didn't think it was actually much of a risk at all - that success in toppling Saddam was certain. And on that I was right.

But I didn't fully consider all the ramifications of the action, and understand what else needed to be done after the invasion to maximise the chances of success. And that resulted, I think, simply from a lack of knowledge of military history, of the culture of the region, and of the practical logistics. Something that as Prime Minister you absolutely have to know before making any decisions.

10. The massive size of the task, and the vastly greater US contingent, meant that Britain would not be on equal terms this time around, or even realistically think that it could critically influence the way in which the US forces operatated and the decisions that were taken.

The supposed justification for British intervention that we would somehow improve matters to a sufficient extent if we didn't allow America to 'go it alone' seems quite thin, given the relative weight of the respective armed contributions.

11. The argument about failed states, rogue regimes, proliferation and an inter-dependent world requiring greater amounts of intervention is only neat if the intervention works. Somethimes, it may just be necessary to live with that threat where the resources and will to deal with it properly are not there.

12. By contrast, there is some evidence that Blair's determination to send ground troops into Kosovo swayed Clinton, and that as a result of the snowballing pressure started by Blair, France and Russia joined in and persuaded Milosovic to back down.

13. Aspects of the way that the US fight are deeply uncomfortable to British sensibilities. This meant that the Prime Minister and the British participation in the war in general was going to take a lot of flak. Without a VERY good justification for our presence there, it was going to be very significantly tougher to live with those negative aspects. These include:

a) the repeated complaint that not every US soldier or airman will double- and triple-check before firing on supposedly hostile forces (which turn out to be British)

b) the distasteful gung-ho rhetoric in at least some of the pre-action pep talks

c) the openly disrespectful attitude of some the immature US forces towards the Iraqis (I think of that scence where the soldiers in the US tank drove around Baghdad listed to loud music with lyrics that screamed "burn mutha f****r, burn"

14. On the subject of "international law": I don't have any significant problems in principle with Britain and the US and other democratic countries in the Anglosphere conducting military operations without explicit UN backing, particularly if it is the old suspects France, Russia and China that are holding things back purely for their own self-interest. But if you are going to do something without formal UN backing, for goodness' sake make sure that the 'intelligence' you are presenting is watertight, and that you make all the preparations and provide all the resouces necessary to execute the policy competently and successfully.

15. On the pre-war 'intelligence': "sporadic and patchy" was not "detailed, extensive and authoratative". Blair might have felt that telling the whole truth about the intelligence would have meant that a mission which was in his eyes right and justified would not get the necessary backing, and that therefore it was permisible to be less than candid about the full picture.

This was both a moral and a strategic mistake: the truth will find you out on an issue of such importance and on which there was such public scrutiny.

16. It may be that some people would not have supported Blair that otherwise did so on the basis of the evidence available. But others may have respected his honesty, and been more willing to trust his judgement if there was not the issue about his truthfulness.

17. But if Blair couldn't have got the support required by telling the whole truth then it would have been noble to resign: and history may well have judged him better than it is currently doing.

Islington: The Nice Bits

2007-02-27T08:00:00.000Z

Out with Mrs. Legend on Sunday afternoon for lunch and a stroll round part of the borough.

There are some very attractive streets - constructed long before the socialist/Nazi/Lib Dumb menace blighted this part of London.

Then there are some lovely squares:

And some highly elegant houses

...and then we have THIS monstrosity:

Commissioned and designed by someone with an aesthetic lobotomy.

Anything, surely anything, could be better than this.

OK, if the Conservatives were ever to get in, perhaps it wouldn't be the FIRST priority to raze. But replacing this hideous eyesore with somthing other than what David Blunkett splashed down on paper after a tab of E could perhaps feature somewhere on the list..?

Anthony Crosland: 30 Years Ago

2007-02-26T08:00:00.000Z

On the week of the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Anthony Crosland, Tom Watson wonders what he would have to say about the current state of British politics.

Mr Crosland's proud ambition? As his wife put it in her biography of her husband, "If it's the last thing I do, I'm going to destroy every fucking grammar school in England"

In 1974, Hackney Downs Boys' (Grammar) School, with an excellent academic reputation, was made a Comprehensive.

20 years later it was described as the 'worst school in Britain'.

Even the local socialist MP, Diane Abbott, refused to send her son there.

So what would Crosland have to say about the current state of play in British politics?

Frankly, who cares...

Tony Blair's "madness": a response to Rachel from North London

2007-02-25T18:46:00.000Z

My view on Tony Blair's domestic record is, as those who know me will testify, that on the whole it has been a collosal missed opportunity, a massive waste of time, and in many ways deeply regressive. Simon Heffer's column the other day summed up many of my views (though for the record, I did not agree with absolutely everything he said, and he also missed out important failings of Blair's time in government, particularly regarding EU-related matters).

But my view on Blair's foreign policy record is more mixed. At least in the beginning I was a strong advocate of British intervention in Iraq to depose Saddam. I'm not so sure that I would support it again if we now found ourselves back in early 2003, but that's a discussion for another day.

However, I do take exception to Rachel's assesment of Blair's Today programme interview with Humphreys the other morning.

Here's what I posted on her blog in reply to her comments on Blair's "denial" of responsibility for what is currently happening in Iraq:

"So, if an Iraqi or Iranian terrorist plants a roadside bomb in Iraq that kills a passing family in a car, opens fire on people queuing up for a job interview, or commits some other random act of murder, they are NOT to blame? Is that what you are saying?

Human beings are not hornets; we are (or at least ought to be) aware of what is right and wrong, and we are aware that it is wrong to commit murder. If you make anyone other than the person who in cold blood deliberately explodes the bomb or pulls the trigger that is aimed directly at ordinary and innocent citizens with the express intention of killing them, then that is a despicable moral position for a "liberal" person to take.

And as for that imagined Home Office conference - yes - it IS the people who are shooting other people who are morally responsible. And if it wasn't for them doing the killing, there wouldn't be any need for that imagined conference.

Responsibility for doing something lies with the police and home office officials by virtue of their paid employment - but that is a very different kind of responsibility from that of those actually doing the killing.

I didn't understand Blair to be disclaiming responsibility in the sense of disclaiming responsibility for trying to do something to try to improve matters: clearly, instructing the British army to train up and support the Iraqi army is "taking responsibility" for trying to improve the situation. But you can't hold Blair sitting in a studio in London "responsible" for drive-by shootings in a Baghdad cafe as if it was his finger on the trigger. Even the person whose finger was on the trigger would not accept that...and would probably laugh at you for suggesting it…"

How Much Did The Times Spend on That New Look?

2007-02-24T20:10:00.000Z

Not enough, obviously.

Either that, or new Labour's influence has spread even to the type-setting department...

L'Italia Glorious

2007-02-24T16:56:00.000Z

Italy is Arthurian Legend's favourite Continental European country.

By quite some margin.

Scotland: 17 Italy: 37

That margin just got a bit wider.

UPDATE 1: Ireland 43-13 England ...oh dear ...

UPDATE 2: Scotland 17-37 Italy ... not a good day for the home nations, was it...

Police Chase

2007-02-24T12:18:00.000Z

Via PC Copperfield...

May take a little while to load...but it's worth it.

How many offences can you:

a) spot
b) not unreasonably deduct

from this little event...?

Have I Got (Old) News...

2007-02-24T09:19:00.000Z

The Hoff
In what was by and large a very good column from the Heff on Wednesday entitled What have the past 10 years of Blair been for?, he used the word "spavined" to describe schools in Britain.

According to the Collins English Dictionary, this word means "lame; decripit or worn out".

The Heff
Without knowing the precise definition beforehand, my initial guess was that the word "spavined" was a contraction of two other words: spastic and bovine.

In its derogatory sense, spastic is defined as "A clumsy, incapable or incompetent person".

Bovine, when applied to people, means "dull; sluggish".

I think it a little unfair simply to state "our schools are spavined" as a general criticism, when this is clearly not true for all or even a majority. And the word denotes primarily the physical condition of the object to which it refers, which could lead you in to the Labour trap of concentrating more on the infrastructure than what goes on inside the school buildings. But as a one word summary of most of our governing Party's philosophy and policy actions, you can see how my interpretation is at least as good in capturing the essence of new Labour, body, mind and spirit...

(with apologies to all people with cerebral palsy, etc., who don't deserve to be compared to a new (or old) Labour minister or policy initiative)

(p.s. the citing of the picture of The Hoff in this article is in no way intended to impute on his good character any of the descriptions utilised in this article for people whose contribution to the common weal has been far less substantial)

Bleary-eyed, he stumbles for the keyboard...

2007-02-23T08:23:00.000Z

...for last night Bacchus descended to the humble quarters of Islington Conservatives HQ.

Those who paid obeissance to the deity were graced with fine vintages of sparkling white wines from Spain and Champagne, and were led in revelries by the esteemed Jacob Gaffney of the Wine Spectator and author of the Interwined blog.

Fortune was also smiling on Arthurian Legend as he succeeded where so oft his hopes have been dashed against the cruel rocks in that ancient rite of the Conservative raffle...The Hand of Fate drew his number and a 2004 Kirchspiel Riesling that the night before had graced the German ambassador's table was in a flash transported to a new and better home.

And to crown the evening with the happiest of garlands, he received a call from his sister to inform him that last week in New York her boyfriend had asked for her hand in marriage and she had accepted..! Hurrah!

Steve Norris - Legend!

2007-02-21T22:00:00.000Z

I've never really heard Steve Norris speak before, and my views on him had been coloured (regrettably) by reports of serial womanising and the supposed negative implications of his job with Jarvis that was spun like crazy by Red Ken's team (which, sadly, I accepted a little too uncritically). However, on his inaugural appearance on 18 Doughty Street last night I loved him from the off... He said, quite openly, that frankly a £100,000 salary was going to leave him quite a bit short if he stood again for Mayor. You really wouldn't get that frank honesty from many Labour politicos, would you?

And on substantive issues that I care about, Norris said:-

1) He'd try to get the Routemasters back, or design new ones. I love these buses: the iconic design, the hop-on, hop-off open platform, the natural air conditioning winter and summer, the fact that they had ticket inspectors to verify and collect fares, and provide information and assistance. Truly Ken was a complete **** when he got rid of them.

2) He'd scrap the bendy buses. Hurrah! They're worse than the conditions in which cattle are transported, and they make me sick when travelling facing backwards.

3) He'd be quite happy for Britain to have an amicable split with the EU and leave on good terms...(OK, so he's not the foreign secretary, but anyone who's open about that gets a cheer from this quarter).

What a legend.

Sorry Newmania: I'll leaflet for you for the council, but this guy seems seriously good news as a prospective London Mayor...

Fisking Wicks

2007-02-21T07:30:00.000Z

The learned and worldy-wise readership of this blog (that’s both of you) will of course need no reminding of the old saw that some politicians make an awful lot of speeches, and others make a lot of awful speeches…

One such sorry specimen crossed my desk yesterday; not the worst offender, I’m sure (that competition is eagerly fought for amongst the caucus of Scottish cabinet ministers), but nevertheless one that concerns an area about which I have some vague knowledge and interest.

Without wishing to infringe too much the territory of the esteemed Croydonian, I do wish to pick over the some parts of the rotting carcass left by the Member for Croydon North, Malcolm Wicks.

From his website biography, he doesn’t appear such a bad fellow (and indeed a further bit of rooting around suggests that he's perhaps one of the more sensible ones), but the junior researcher (please don’t tell me it was a senior civil servant at the DTI) putting this effort together really does show signs of having worked for the party that little bit too long...

Malcolm Wicks Speech to the IP Crime Group 8 February 2007

“Good afternoon, it is a pleasure for me to be attending my first IP Crime Group meeting and speaking to you about how we can overcome intellectual property crime.”

“Overcome” intellectual property crime? Tackle it, perhaps; address the grossest abuses, I would hope, but "overcome"? How on earth does the man think that in this fallen world, the filthy lucre to be made from all manner of knock-off Hollywood DVDs, counterfeit Nikes and downloadable MP3s can ever be vanquished from the face of the Earth?

“If we are to get the full value of our ideas and creativity, the UK must have a robust and effective IP regime”

What you mean is, if Gordon Brown is going to get his hands on 40% of your personal income plus 30% corporation tax (main rate) plus 17.5% VAT then YOU need a “robust and effective IP regime”. We, on the other hand, need a robust and effective change of Government.

“I cannot emphasise strongly enough the need for intelligence to drive forward enforcement action.”

Hmmm, new Labour has a love-hate relationship with “intelligence”, doesn’t it: so seemingly devoid of it themselves so often, so eager to see it where it doesn’t exist elsewhere…

“It is vital that the regional and national structures that the Patent Office is putting in place can develop intelligence…”

Well, sounds like you’ll have ‘em licked in no time…

“Together the OFT, DTI and trading standards authorities have established 12 regional analysts, and this will create a clear structure for developing intelligence and a detailed and accurate assessment of the problems that we have with IP crime throughout the country.”

They’ll be quaking in Romford market, Minister, I can assure you.

The Patent Office have a strong role to play in continuing to facilitate this work, and they and I are committed to continuing to grow the resource at the Patent Office with the flow of intelligence.

Leaving aside the offending "grow the resource" phrase, in the early years of new Labour the good officers of the Patent Office were delighted to welcome onboard many new recruits from Labour’s much-vaunted “New Deal”. Now, whilst I can’t be absolutely certain, I think that you can be fairly sure that that move contributed significantly less to “the flow of intelligence”.

“IP Criminals should know that the UK is not a safe place”

You don’t have to be an IP Criminal to know that.

“The risk of up to 10 years imprisonment and unlimited fines is very real and from this date forward a markedly higher risk.”

Hmmm, remind me how many thousands of prison places are lying empty right at this moment ready and able to accommodate these villains, then…And it’s a good job you didn’t sell off that prison ship a while back, isn’t it..?

“The Gowers review also recommended that the penalties for online infringement should be increased in order to match those for physical piracy. As you will appreciate, this may require primary legislation but we are considering the options.”

Don’t worry, with more criminal justice bills since new Labour came to power than in the previous 50 years combined, I’m sure you’ll find room for a few more before they drag you off…

“Local authorities increasingly recognise that IP Crime damages communities.”

Aaaah!! New Labour’s “communities”. We’ve had it all, now, haven’t we? But no, there’s room for one last gem:

“The Patent Office…are also providing tools for enforcers such as training CDs and the investigators notebook, which has proved to be very popular.”

Brilliant! Sheer genius! With those “investigators notebooks”, they’ll all know the game is up…

Last Chance Saloon

2007-02-20T08:30:00.000Z

Bringing this to a smaller audience than the original...

Nadine Dorries wrote this on her blog the other day...

"If the Conservative Party is ever to be in power again, it absolutely has to win the next general election with a comfortable majority.

If we go to the country on 38% or 39% it will not be enough, and we will be forever in opposition, no matter what percentage of the vote we pull at any future election – we will never be in government again.

In the event of a hung Parliament, the Liberal Democrats and the Labour party have one thing in common, a desire to keep the Conservatives out of power.

Remember, the majority of Liberal Democrats are left of New Labour; they would have a long political journey to even get close to the left of the Conservative Party.

This is very obvious during long debates in the chamber. If a Conservative MP makes a good point or speech, a Liberal Democrat will intervene with a line totally in sympathy with the government’s position.

Sometimes I find this breathtaking. When I recently attacked the government and the Public Health Minister over sexual health and the out of control rise in STIs amongst teenagers, Sandra Gidley, the Liberal Democrat, intervened and attacked me, with much encouragement from the government front bench!

If you sit in the chamber for hours and absorb the minutia of the debate you can see very clearly what is happening. The Liberal Democrats have no natural synergy with the Conservative Party. Too many of their seats have a Conservative as a close second. They like to bash the government, but they relish attacking the Conservatives.

Ming and Gordon are friends. If we have a hung Parliament there will be another Lib-Lab pact and the price will be PR, which is being used in the Scottish local elections this time round. PR is already knocking on the border.

Gordon will be pragmatic enough to realise the New Labour salad days are over.

A Lib-Lab pact will be the lesser of the evils. PR will be the price, but Gordon will have had his time as PM, and the upside of course is that never again would Labour be forced into opposition for eighteen cold years as it was last time.

PR won’t seem too big a price to pay to ensure that the Conservative party never takes power again."

Frightening...

The Dark Side of Thatcherism

2007-02-19T07:48:00.000Z

Last night I watched an excellent discussion programme on libertarianism on 18 Doughty Street.

One highlight was seeing Newmania morph into a Swedish-style social democrat apparently arguing for state-provided piano lessons to expand our freedoms and abilities...to play the piano! Well, Newmania, I've never learnt to ski, so perhaps if you could just spend the next week at work paying for my trip to Val D'Izere next year I'd be most grateful. And then another couple of day to pays for the apres-ski. After all, it would expand my freedoms and potential in this important area terribly...

One publication that Sean Gabb and Brian Micklethwait did mention was The Full Coercive Apparatus Of A Police State: Thoughts On The Dark Side Of The Thatcher Decade.

I quote some extracts below:

"Under section 27 of the Transport Act 1982 - given effect in the summer of 1986 - the Police are empowered to hand out fines to motorists whom they believe to have been speeding or committing some other traffic offence. The money involved is negligible - £24 at the most. The principle is a disgrace. Penalties are now imposed without the ghost of due process. I’m told that, in many European countries, the Police have still wider judicial powers: they even collect the fines. But there hasn’t been a properly limited government anywhere in Europe since the middle ages. Foreigners are so used to misgovernment, it’s no surprise if they stand by grinning while their wallets are gone through by men in uniform. What they’re willing to put up with is no precedent for us."

"Under the old common law, an accused had the right to challenge thirty-five Jurors without showing cause. Anyone who has looked into Howell’s State Trials will know how extensively this right was used in the 17th and 18th centuries. It was there to ensure a more subtle and reliable fairness in the composition of a Jury than could be achieved by the means of showing cause to the Judge. To be fair, the right had already been substantially taken away. The number of peremptory challenges was reduced to twelve in 1925, to seven in 1948, and to three in 1977. But it has fallen, as ever, to this Government to take the decisive step, and reduce the number to zero. The prosecution, of course, keeps its old right of unlimited peremptory challenge."

"Sections 37 and 39 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 have made theft of a motor car and common assault and battery offences triable by magistrates alone. The excuse given for this was that Crown Courts were too overloaded for there not to be a certain shedding from the list of indictable offences. Between 1979 and 1984, we were told, indictments rose by 48 per cent. But this wasn’t the only answer to the problem. There were at least two others. The first was to stop creating so many new offences. The second was to build and staff more courts. This would have been expensive. But what is expense to a Government that takes and spends upwards of £150 billion every year? If the Department of Trade and Industry was allowed to spend £13 million last year on what was essentially Conservative propaganda, what is the objection to giving a few dozen million extra to the Lord Chancellor’s Department? Which is a more basic function of the State - financing Lord Young’s vanity or providing justice?"

I can't say that I disagree with any of the pamphlet. So much of our political class have forgotten or have never even learnt about England's historic liberties. And so have many of the public. Thank God for the Libertarian Alliance.

And if the Thatcher decade was a decidely mixed bag on the issue of civil liberties, that's nothing to ZaNuLabour's last ten years.

One large problem is that reversing the decline in our liberties would involve repealing some (possibly) fairly populist legislation. Some of that legislation was brought in as a response to or in an attempt to deal with certain social problems. Now, it could well be that those social problems were exacerbated by state intervention in the first place and have not been materially assisted by the legislation to any great degree. But the connections between state intervention and undesirable social outcomes are often complex, and the time delay in cause and effect is often spread over years, if not generations.

Still, the show was an inspiration for Conservatives, UKIP and Orange Book liberal democrats (all five of them) to make the principled case for liberty and the practical case for rolling back the powers of the state.

Self-serving? Me? No..!

2007-02-18T11:08:00.000Z

Loved this extract from an interview with Kim Hollis, the (black criminal defence lawyer) woman who was recently reported as having had an affair with the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith.

(Interview so far: fawning, self-righteous, poverty-blathering, Ghandi-name dropping stuff..)

[Black Lawyers Directory] If you could rule the world for a day what would you change/do?

KH: Shake up the criminal legal defence system by educating people about the worth of criminal defence lawyers in particular and the valuable work we perform on behalf of society in ensuring that all defendants are entitled to representation and a fair trial , whatever their crime. The value of work is routinely placed on a par with our clients who are charged with murder, rapes and other crimes. We are paid the lowest rates of all the specialist bar...

Where is the Auberon Waugh de nos jours who could crucify this type of stuff with a most acerbic and damning pen...?

hat tip: Iain Dale

Where the Conservative Party went wrong (Pt 1)

2007-02-17T10:00:00.001Z

Hindsight is a wonderful thing

1986-1987: At the zenith of Mrs Thatcher’s power and popularity, the failure to include any commitments in the 1987 General Election manifesto to liberalise the market for the supply of health and education services has meant 20 more years of dirigiste central planning, government targets, Whitehall second-guessing, political interference, inefficient monopoly provision, waste, duplication, lack of innovation and second- or third-class outcomes for many.

The continuing failures in health and education between 1987-1997 (largely due to state control and 100% state subsidisation of supply) gave the Labour party a valid stick with which the beat the Conservative government, and some rational justification for voting ‘new’ Labour in the hope that it would improve matters.

1987 onwards: Mrs Thatcher failed to purge the cabinet of most of the old wets and failed to promote the new blood and new thinking: the failure to have a staunchly supportive cabinet weakened her fatally during the crucial November 1990 leadership challenge.

Leaving Kenneth Baker in charge of the National Curriculum, and the feeding frenzy it provided for the Marxist-inspired teacher training establishments and left-leaning educational bureaucracy was to be one of the worst legacies of her final term in office.

1989: Lawson and Major bullied Mrs Thatcher into accepting British entry into the ERM. The lady was opposed, but Lawson and Major prevailed. That fatal policy was to undermine the reputation of the Conservative party for economic competence for a generation. Mrs Thatcher was proven right two years after leaving office, but by then it was all too late…

1989-1990: It could be argued that the Poll Tax was a noble attempt to prevent left wing councils from racking up spending and debts and saddling the richer taxpayers with the consequences of their excesses. So, good intentions, but we all know where they lead...

Possibly it would have been better to have continued to allow the left to expose its economic madness for all the world to see. It would have made the subsequent “new Labour” re-branding exercise much more difficult to pull off, and much less convincing.

The Direct Democracy campaign has some good ideas on reforming local financing.

More tomorrow…

Hold The Front Page!

2007-02-16T07:30:00.000Z

Just below stories about kids "getting stuck into noodles" and a water leak:

More here and here.

One quibble with the story. I thought that the BNP should be classified as left-wing (in favour of nationalisation, economic protectionism, state interference in private relationships, etc...)? Surely we ought to be tarring the left with the BNP brush, not the "right"...

Rather a shame to shunt those lovely photos off the top spot, but hey ho...

Tory MEPs should join Ind-Dem Group

2007-02-15T12:38:00.000Z

Within a month of becoming Conservative party leader, David Cameron should have fulfilled his promise to remove Conservative MEPs from the integrationist European People's Party.

And the reasons for joining UKIP MEPs in the Independence and Democracy Grouping of the European Parliament just got a whole lot better...

IEA - Still the best

2007-02-15T08:30:00.000Z

Arthurian Legend is deeply grateful to the IEA for its excellent series of monographs, Hobart Papers, etc. that stimulated his interest in the "soulful science" during his A-levels.

It may not be in the fashionable vanguard of conservative-minded think tanks; was it ever? But the quality and consistency of its publications and events is in the top rank.

Here are two up-coming events for your diary - Arthurian Legend hopes to get along to one or both.

Scrap the BBC! - 1st March 2007

More information here.

Has State Education Failed? - 7th March 2007

(Arthurian Legend went to one of Alistair Campbell's "bog standard comprehensives". Hence, Arthurian is now just a blog standard writer...)

More information here.

Seven Deadly Sins

2007-02-14T07:30:00.000Z

Via Brian Micklethwait, I found this from Indexed.

There is one very annoying person in our block of flats who plays her music loudly at anti-social times of the day and night (i.e. when we're around). She is on DF.

Because I have an AG (!), I don't have to resort to AC (not that I would anyway...). Others, such as BG, are sometimes not so fortunate.

What's your story?

Radical Proposal

2007-02-13T08:42:00.000Z

In their book Free to Choose, Milton and Rose Friedman put their finger on the following problem:

“As the scope and role of government expands – whether by covering a larger area and population or by performing a wider variety of functions – the connection between the people governed and the people governing becomes attenuated. It becomes impossible for any large fraction of the citizens to be reasonably well informed about all items on the vastly enlarged government agenda, and, beyond a point, even about all major items.”
…
“No federal legislator could conceivably even read, let alone analyse and study, all the laws on which he must vote. ..The unelected congressional bureaucracy almost surely has far more influence today in shaping the detailed laws that are passed than do our elected representatives.
…
Bureaucrats have not usurped power. They have not deliberately engaged in any kind of conspiracy to subvert the democratic process. Power has been thrust upon them. It is simply impossible to conduct complex government activities in any other way than by delegating responsibility.”

Arthurian Legend’s question

In light of this, should a new parliamentary procedure be established?

What about the following:-

No MP may vote upon a piece of legislation unless he/she has read it.

After each vote, 10% of voting MPs will be randomly picked and set a basic test by the Speaker concerning the legislation. If an MP cannot get 70% or more in two tests then he/she is automatically obliged to resign their parliamentary seat.

This would take us a lot further towards the position where MPs only voted on what they have read and understood; it could help to increase the amount of “free thinking” and reduce the power of the whips. It would make for fewer laws (which MP could read all that legislation?) and hopefully, with better understanding, it would make for better laws.

The only problem, as I pointed out yesterday, is this:

Power and decision making in the European Union

2007-02-12T11:16:00.000Z

Or, the conspiracy against democracy

1. The governments of different nation states make treaties with each other. Most often, this occurs without an explicit and direct mandate from the people, and without a fully-informed and lengthy period of explanation of all the details and consequences.

2. National parliaments ratify those treaties (often without a prior referendum; where there is a referendum, the full implications of a ‘yes’ vote are never spelt out)

3. The treaties hand law-making powers to supra-national institutions

4. The European Commission (unelected) has the sole power to propose new legislation, supposedly within the areas conferred on it by the Treaties

5. Proposed legislation is discussed and amended by various committees of the European Parliament and by the Council of Ministers.

6. Virtually no-one knows their MEP; hardly anyone outside the parliament truly understands the decision-making process. Only one minister from each nation state sits in the various Ministerial Council meetings; the voices of hundreds of nationally-elected and accountable MPs have been silenced; that one minister wields all the power of his nation. And the power of each nation has been truncated.

7. Even the UK only has around 8% of the voting power in the Council. The power of veto scarcely exists…which means that often the UK can be forced to accept laws on all sorts of thinks which go partly or fully against its own national interest. And even if the laws were “perfect” for the UK, effective democracy would still have been destroyed.

8. Once the laws have been finalised, national parliaments are obliged to implement or enact them; failure to do so within the specified period can result in legal actions and fines.

9. Of course, after all this, not all countries implement them fully or enforce them...

I say: Better Off Out

Who owns these lovely knashers?

2007-02-11T09:50:00.000Z

A "new" Labour minister who grew up in the socialist heyday of the 1960s and 70s advertises the glories of a state run dental service "free at the point of use"...

As Timmy likes to put it, "The NHS - it's the envy of the world, don't you know..."

"New" Labour's Nanny State

2007-02-10T08:55:00.000Z

Observe, everyone, as Gordon Brown's client class sucks at the teet of the British taxpayer.

A turning point in Arthurian Legend's attitude to "new" Labour was reading Frank Field's devastating analysis of the insidious effects of this socialist Scot's welfare policies.

Truly, Field damns the Gorgon with faint praise...

I do hope that this isn't a socialist cousin of Mr Eugenides...

(source)

Life on Fraggle Rock (or, in the mind of a Lib Dem)

2007-02-09T07:30:00.000Z

Simon Hughes
"The Labour Party has betrayed, sadly, what I thought were its libertarian principles"
Simon Hughes, Question Time, BBC1, Thursday 8th February 2007

Muppet
Seriously. What planet is this guy on?
The Labour Party? Libertarian principles? WTF?

Next he'll be muttering, "With the recent gassing of all those Jews, Adolph Hitler has regrettably undermined his previously good reputation for encouraging a tolerant and multi-ethnic society".

New Labour do not do housing maintenance and repair...

2007-02-08T08:00:00.000Z

Or perhaps they did, and this is what happened...

Either way, probably the most incompetent Government in history.

Arthurian Legend railed against more overbearing and incompetent Labour (mal-)administration of housing in the People's Republic of Islington on Sunday: read it here.

Inspired by these guys here.

(p.s. feel free to copy and circulate, with a tip o'the hat)

The Bard and Contemporary Political Figures (Act I, Scene I)

2007-02-07T08:00:00.000Z

Shakespeare ’s capacity to depict and to lay bare the nature of mankind in his triumphs, weaknesses and failings is without peer in English dramatic poetry. He was a man for all men, and a man for all times.

On a number of occassions over recent months I have been struck by a number of lesser-known lines from a Shakespearean play or sonnet, and their potential to address figures or events on the political stage of my lifetime.
Many will remember the summer of 1995 when John Major challenged his enemies in the Conservative Parliamentary party to “back me or sack me”.

Shortly afterwards, Michael Portillo was discovered to be installing new telephone lines into the offices of his unofficial campaign HQ. Had he stood, Portillo may well have got the number of votes necessary to secure Major’s resignation, and the crown of the Conservative Party. In the eyes of many, it was there for the taking. But Portillo never went through with his challenge. He lost his nerve, the less popular Redwood stood and, although Redwood secured a creditable 89 votes, Major held on until the oblivion of 1st May 1997.

Some may know these lines of Menas, Pompey’s pirate comrade in Anthony and Cleopatra:

For this,
I'll never follow thy pall'd fortunes more.
Who seeks, and will not take when once 'tis offer'd,
Shall never find it more.

And indeed, although Portillo went for the leadership in 2001, the poisoned chalice was handed to Iain Duncan Smith, and Portillo announced his resignation from Parliament a couple of years later.

Is you bein' racialist?

2007-02-06T07:30:00.000Z

Newmania has sparked off a heated discussion with the publication of his discovery of overtly racialist recruitment policies of Islington Local Education Authority.

The perceived problem is the lack of male role models for young black boys. Islington LEA's proposed solution is to create 40 places on a teaching assistant training course. For black men only. So, racist AND sexist. Way to go, Islington Council...

The subject puts me in mind of a book that I heard about a few years ago: Ten Things You Can't Say in America. Its author, Larry Elder, has confronted policies like this head-on. Needless to say, it has not made him terribly popular amongst some from his own 'community'.

The Cato Institute quotes Elder as saying, "“America’s number-one problem is children, who cannot feed, clothe, and educate a child, having children.”

Newmania offers his own answer to this type of problem in the UK: "The answer to fatherless homes is to stop paying people to have fatherless children, not offer them further inducements."

I wonder what would be on the list for a new edition of Larry's book, The Ten Things You Can't Say in Britain..?

The Fat Lady has now Sung...

2007-02-05T17:10:00.000Z

If you're an 88 year-old former opera singer, you're not too nimble on your feet and you walk with a zimmer frame, DON'T dash out in front of a 15-tonne tipper tuck...

Suz has the gory details...

Islington School in Trouble

2007-02-05T12:08:00.000Z

This week's Islington Tribune reports the sad story of a local primary school which appears to be floundering.

Apparently, 78% of the children at Clerkenwell Parochial are failing to meet the Government's 'maths targets'; 96% are failing to meet the 'writing targets'. 20 children have removed from the school by their parents in recent weeks(including one child of a parent govenor).

Who is to blame? The school? The parents? Islington LEA? The Government? All four? And what is the relative weight of blame to be attached to each? A tricky question, even for those with first-hand knowledge of the situation, which I certainly don't.

But what is clear is that after 10 years of Tony Blair, new Labour has failed to deliver what it promised...And this in the spiritual home of new Labour!

Fortunately, Think Tanks in the conservative constelletion have been giving serious and detailed thought to analysing the situation and what to do about it. The Policy Exchange publication More Good School Places shows in detail how, in so many cases, state education is still failing to deliver what was promised of it. But encouragingly, the document also charts a way forward.

Key to improving education in their view is the opening up the provision of education services to new providers. The power of Local Education Authorities to monopolise the supply of education services should be removed. Money should follow the pupil much more than it does at present. Bureaucracy and Government interference should be drastically reduced. Schools should be accountable primarily to parents, not council officials or the man (or woman) in Whitehall.

There is much more in there. It is a must read for those concerned to find a way to deliver genuine improvements in the standard of state education in this country.

One thing is for certain: Labour new and old have been tried and found wanting.

If the Conservative Party is to present a coherent and radical agenda for improving education, David Cameron should show that he is serious about the ideas argued for by think tanks such as Policy Exchange.

A twentieth century cult

2007-02-04T19:36:00.000Z

"The system is set up in such a way - with [the] IGC (Inter-Governmental Council) and unanimity - as to prevent reform. As does even one vote prevent the EU constitution being adopted, so would one vote (from, say, Luxembourg) prevent any dilution of the sacred religion of European Integration so espoused by that strange cult, the "Europeans" (may peace and harmonisation be with them). As I indicated in the latest post, the European Union is a belief system. You cannot reform a belief system - you can only destroy it or let it wither away through lack of use."

The inestimable Richard North, explaining why David Cameron's proposal to reform the EU won't work...

Read the main post here.

Euro Trash

2007-02-04T19:10:00.000Z

Islington residents, we are told, are keen on recycling.

However, of the eight flats in our block, it seems that the inhabitants of only two are actually keen enough to practice it. We lead in this cause. The basement/ground floor residents run a close second.

However, to boost participation, indoctrination is well underway. They're getting to 'em young. Islington schools organise trips to the local recycling plant. Unfortunately, the kids only see the inside of a special 'education room'; no chance of actually getting to view the tin cans and plastic bottles being melted down and turned into something else. (What do they turn them into?)

So, a bit of a rubbish school trip, really.

What you can be sure of when you get there is that they won't be telling you about this.

"our Government is obliged to implement a waste policy imposed by the European Union, which dictates that by 2020 we must reduce the amount of waste we landfill to a third of its level in 1995. We are so far short of our EU targets that, as the National Audit Office reported last year, our local authorities will soon be incurring fines from Brussels of £200 million a year.

The idea is that we should increase our recycling of rubbish to 27 per cent (which in reality means shipping millions of tons of waste collected for "recycling" to other countries such as China). The only other way we can legally dispose of up to half our rubbish is by building these huge incinerators, which make very little economic or environmental sense, and which cause such distress to those living nearby."

Read it in full. And weep.

Prescott Dumps on Islington

2007-02-04T16:04:00.000Z

In 2001, Labour's John Prescott decided to fleece thousands of people in Islington, and hundreds of thousands more up and down the country. It was one of the most illiberal and anti-democratic acts of this most anti-democratic and illiberal government.

The context was the failure of over fourty years of socialist housing policies. The dead hand of the state weighed heavily in Islington. It had created a nightmare situation where state-built or state-owned properties had fallen into disrepair. The virtues of private ownership had been ignored - principally to the cost of the people living in these properties.

Decoration had all but ceased. Decent care and maintenance were patchy at best. Non-existent at worst. "Public ownership" meant being owned by no-one. They had been largely disowned.

So Prescott decreed that all these properties must be renovated. Under the direction of the state. By 2010.

But the residents got no say in it. No option to organise decoration themselves. No chance to spread it over over an affordable period of time.

The result: 56% 'management' fees for all. Bills for the lucky of £5,000. Bills for the unlucky of £40,000. Payable in two years. Even for pensioners. Even for those who did not directly benefit from Mrs. Thatcher's original "Right to Buy" discounts.

Another fine mess that 'new' Labour has got Islington and the rest of the country into.

Advancing Islington's Conservative Movement

2007-02-04T15:22:00.000Z

Good men used to win in Islington. Or rather, Goodman did.

Albert Goodman was the most recent Conservative MP to have been elected by the voters of Islington North to the House of Commons. It happened in the 1931 General Election.

Labour was split. The Liberals were split. The Conservative Party won 470 of the 625 seats. O rosy dawn.

Stanley Baldwin
Tory PM 1931
There is a new Conservative movement in Islington. It's being added to one blog at a time. Newmania led the way. King Arthur's in support. Other good men and women are following fast. Surely the moment when the opposition splits, 1931-style, is only a short time away. Watch this space...