A Weasel Writes

Apparently. It’s National Potential PM’s Publish Vacuous Articles Week. Laban alerts us to a piece of steaming gunk from SCOTLAND’S Gordon Brown, while there’s this from Camewrong:

'We can see he looks like a winner, but what does he really believe?" "Isn't he just copying Blair?" "Is he actually a Conservative at all?" Daily Telegraph readers tempted to think that the Conservative Party leadership is distant from its grass roots should know that party members and activists ask me these questions – sometimes more robustly than I could repeat in a family newspaper – all the time.

Does he really think anyone will believe he talks to the ordinaries ?

And my answers are clear.

No one will believe that.

What I really believe is that if we're going to make our country a better place to live – with a stronger economy, well-educated children and lower crime – everyone needs to understand that top-down central government is never going to do it on its own. Businesses, parents, and local communities must be given more responsibility. I believe in social responsibility, not state control.

It’s the worst of both worlds. On the one hand, The Forehead will do nothing to dismantle the elephantine state sector – nor, of course, the taxes needed to maintain it. Hey, at least Gordon Brown supports Big Government because he genuinely believes that if the rest of us were left to our own devices, we’d end up stabbing ourselves to death with our own pens. Cameron wants to keep the machinery of Big Government, but when it’s time to deliver on his side of the social contract, tell all and sundry to stand on their own two feet.

Far from copying Tony Blair, I am learning from his many and serious mistakes.

Indeed. Just look how much flak he got over ‘Education. Education. Education’ or ‘Tough on crime’. You won’t catch Cameron doing that – nope, he’ll say nothing of any substance whatsoever, that way there’ll be no comebacks.

Instead of simply accepting the political consensus of the time, as Blair did, I am challenging it.

Presumably the concensus that there’s no room in Britain for three left-wing parties ?

New Labour was all about coming to terms with Conservative victory in the battle of ideas.

The Conservatives won the battle of ideas ? I guess that’s why judicial activism is a fading memory, there’s never a ‘five a day’ coordinator around when you need one and Trevor Phillips is on the streets with a sign saying ‘Will provoke meaningless racial conflict for food’.

The modern Conservative Party is about replacing the failed New Labour experiment, not aping it.

Admittedly, is so far as even Tony Blair never dreamed up anything as barking-at-the-moon nutso as fat permits, Cameron truly has taken Big Government onto the next level.

Those who ask whether I am a Conservative need to know that the foundation stones of the alternative government that we're building are the ideas that should unite us all: the ideas that encouraged me as a young man to join the Conservative Party and work for Margaret Thatcher.

Pity he didn’t get inspired to work in the real world, but thanks for the reminder that you’ve never had a proper job, you silver-spoon totting retard.

Those ideas are profound and enduring: freedom under the law, personal responsibility, sound money, strong defence and national sovereignty.

As Stan says, them’s not ideas, them’s ideals. Anyway, if the Conservatives won the battle of ideas, why is it necessary for a party leader to emphasise that he’s in favour of ‘national sovereignty’ ? Mind you, that’s still better than claiming you support ‘freedom under law’. Even John Reid would claim to support that.

That is why, under my leadership, we have opposed ID cards and will replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights that better protects both our security and our freedom.

Or it would do, except Britain would still remain bound by the underlying, supra-national legislation meaning that, at best, these idiot rulings would simply be handed down from the European Court of Human Rights instead of from the High Court.

See, this policy is Cameronism in a nutshell. The case against the human rights industry is wide-ranging, covering issues like the way the definition of rights have morphed to include entitlements, the overruling of elected governments by unaccountable lawocrats, the effect on national sovereignty, and so on. And Cameron’s response ? A headline-grabbing yet completely meaningless change of no strategic importance whatsoever.

It is why I have made the strongest commitment to supporting the family and marriage that any Conservative leader has made for a generation.

In so far as Cameron is known for anything at all, it’s throwing in his hand with the Pink Wedge. True, it was a politican who came up with the phrase ‘if you can’t ride two horses at once, you shouldn’t be in the circus’, but this really is too much. Cameron it was who took the Tories down the road of ‘everyone’s special’ moral relativism, where everything was the same as everything else and the only true evil was judgementalism. As with everything else Cameron has ever said, his commitment to marriage amounts to a calorie-free endorsement of feel good nonsense, bereft of any policy implications whatsoever.

It is why we are pledged to share the proceeds of economic growth between public services and lower taxes, thereby ensuring that over time the state takes a smaller share of national wealth.

Now, ain’t that nice ? He’s promised to share the proceeds of growth with us. Except it’ll be our hard work that secures the growth in the first place, so he’s offering to share our own money with us. Except when we fall off a ladder, either metaphorically or literally, we’ll get little lectures about how top-down government can’t do it all, so you’re on your own, dude.

It is why we support the replacement of Britain's nuclear deterrent and have led the campaign for better conditions for Forces families.

Another truly Cameroonatic policy. When people talk about the need to increase defence spending, they’re talking about vehicles which have more survivability than, say, a Mini, or ammunition that actually goes bang. But no, that’s all a bit manly for the Pastel Prince, so instead it’s new bathrooms for the wives and kiddies. Yay for that, but I think they’d rather dad had the stuff he needs to end up not dead.

It is why we will restore Britain's opt-out from the European Social Chapter, and it is why we have announced our withdrawal from the federalist European People's Party.

Always assuming of course that the other 24 countries let us opt out. And if they decide to reimpose the provisions of the social chapter via the back door by, say, rebranding them as health and safety measures, what then ? Given that Cameron promised to pull out of the EPP in the first week of his leadership, I wouldn’t bet the farm on the social chapter disappearing anytime soon.

Our new Movement for European Reform is a pan-European campaign to promote a positive vision of an outward-looking Europe rather than an inward-looking EU obsessed with its own bureaucracy.

But who the hell couldn’t sign up to that ? Newsflash: Cameron criticised by Labour MPs calling for insular, self-obsessed, sclerotic EU. No, I don’t think so.

We will continue to oppose an EU constitution that is about transferring power away from nation states and we will keep the pound as our currency.

Except up until ten minutes ago the Tories were telling us they opposed an EU Constitution in principle. Ahhhhh…and he just got through telling us how eurosceptic he was. Guess it’s true – never trust a Tory.

But these Conservative intellectual foundations are just the start.

Listen, Dave, this stuff doesn’t even count as intellectual tent pegs.

We must now apply them to the hopes and aspirations of people and families today, just as Mrs Thatcher applied Conservative principles to the challenges of the 1980s.

Hold this thought until you see what’s coming next.

Commentators such as Tim Congdon seem to have forgotten much of what Mrs Thatcher said and did. It was Mrs Thatcher who launched the Scarman inquiry in 1981 in an attempt to understand the alienation of young black men. And it was Mrs Thatcher who launched modern environmental politics with her Royal Society speech in 1988.

Thereby neatly debunking the whole point of Cameroonacy, namely that traditional Conservatism must be ditched in order to deal with social problems. Mrs Thatcher did deal with issues like inner city decay, the environment and the like. How successful was she ? Decide for yourself, but she proved that you don’t have to be a Kool Aid drinker to be concerned with these issues.

The reduction of Thatcherism into a sort of laissez-faire libertarianism does not do justice to her record.

So stop doing it then, you prat.

She was animated by a vision of the good society – a vision obscured by decades of economic dirigisme and cultural relativism. The task she set herself was to restore not only personal liberty in economic matters, but also a sense of duty, respect and moral obligation in social matters.

Has this guy got ADD or what ? This is another case of Cameron contradicting himself in the same paragraph. They key word is ‘restore’. Mrs Thatcher wanted to protect the traditional values that had served Britain well for hundreds of years. She emphatically did not have want to use the state to impose any wacky visions or utopian wish dreams about the ‘good society’ or anything else.

I, too, am animated by a vision of the good society.

Who isn’t ? The question is whether or not you want to use the power of the state to impose that vision on other people. Mrs Thatcher defended traditional British values against Leftists social engineers. Cameron positively supports the idea of government indulging in Frankensteinian attempts to remake the culture.

What I call social responsibility – responsibility to family and community, nation and planet – is as central to my politics as economic liberalism. Indeed, I believe the two are closely related.

Much as shagging and virginity are.

It is that combination of social responsibility and economic liberalism that is best placed to deliver what people really want from politics today: a government that helps to improve their quality of life.

Hang on, when we came in Cameron was telling us that top-down government couldn’t do that. Which is it ? Or does it change depending on who the Forehead is talking to ?

So when I talk about social responsibility and social enterprise, when I express anxiety about the commercialisation of childhood or say we need to create an inspiring national programme for school leavers, I am not proposing some vast expansion in state programmes.

But what is, for example, a ‘national program for school leavers’ if not a massive expansion of state power ? Someone’s got to fund it, and run it.

On the contrary, I am identifying the priorities for independent social action that will allow us, over time, to help improve the quality of people's lives.

Yep, the patrician snob is taking time out to identify priorities for independent action. Makes you wonder what ‘independent’ means in his world.

The past year has been about establishing the Conservative Party as the party of change, optimism and hope.

Yep, they’re optimistic that people are so desperate for a change, they’ll vote for any old bunch of idiots and hope for the best.

For years we have allowed ourselves to be presented as narrow-minded and backward-looking.

Mostly by Tory MPs upset that the plebs insist on them actually displaying some modicum of Conservative values.

This perception was never true of our philosophy, nor of the vast majority of our supporters.

But it was true of some supporters then ? For the sake of Camoron’s absurd argument, can we get a percentage here ? Just how many supporters does he think want to legalise wife-beating, for example ?

I am proud that we are once again regarded by our fellow citizens as decent, competent and comfortable with the modern world.

Again, this is where the rubber meets the road. Which parts of ‘the modern world’ should we be comfortable with ? The violence, the collapsing educational standards, the failing health system ? These, and many others, are all serious issues, and Cameron’s ducking the lot of them. I guess we’re supposed to chill out and accept that ever-increasing numbers of kids leaving school unable to read and write is the way of the world.

For all their prancing and posturing, the Cameroonatics have not the slightest idea how to deal with real world problems, so instead they’re becoming to the political equivalent of the eye-rolling teenager whining that going on about the NHS is, like, so ten minutes ago. Cameron’s most dramatic achievement has been how he has extinguished serious political debate in the Conservative Party and replaced it with trivia and nonsense.

Modernising the party, increasing the number of women candidates, leading the debate on the greening of British politics, making clear our commitment to the NHS and state education, challenging Labour over the need to tackle entrenched poverty – these were all important steps forward for the Conservative Party in 2006.

Yes – it’s his cunning plan to beat the Left by adopting all their policies

But now the real work begins.

Which would be a unique experience for Cameron.

If 2006 was about changing the party, 2007 is about preparing to change the country.

But I thought he was at ease with the modern world ?

Over the coming months our policy review will report.

Speaking personally, I’d rather have a PM who didn’t need a think tank to tell him what he believes.

We will be going firmly on to the offensive against Labour, and the record and plans of Gordon Brown in particular.

Mr Brown's recent clunking attempts to steal our clothes – talking about social responsibility and the environment and even, preposterously, suggesting that he believes in decentralisation and local autonomy – are evidence of his moral and intellectual exhaustion.

As opposed to the Nu Tories, who never had any morals or ideas in the first place.

The Conservative Party now has a huge opportunity.

But to do what ?

We can present Britain with a clear choice: a modern and coherent Conservatism, based on the idea of social responsibility, or a divided and defeatist Labour Party wedded to the old ways of state control.

Social responsibility, state control, potat-oh, potat-ah.

I hope all true Conservatives will join us in the fight.

Dude, we’ll join the fight. Just not on your side, you slimy toad.

Well, OK, that was David Cameron’s message to the nation’s Conservatives, his big ideas. All the same garbage we have now, except that Cameron won’t even pretend that his ideas amount to anything at all.

At least with Blair there was - behind the sleaze, the triangulation and the sheer awfulness of his lowest common denominator politics, the rotting remains of a genuine idealism. True, Blair’s policies were mostly insane, but he understood that politics had to be about more than just the moment. That’s what’s wrong with Cameron, not just the arrogance, the sleaze, the incompetence and the thousand other things. It’s that underlying it all is a nothingness, a soulless shell. Hey, Blair had an excuse: Liberalism was always sick and disgusting, but to hollow out Conservatism the way Cameron has done, now that takes skill.