The Conservatives are "strong" on defence...

Lets see how strong they have been thus far:

• Reducing the planned purchase of 22 Chinooks to 12
• Delaying Trident for political reasons that will cost billions
• Cancelling Nimrod MRA4
• Reducing armour and artillery, if reports are to be believed, to the bone
• Reducing surface vessels
• Reducing Tornado
• Withdrawn Harrier GR9′s
• Withdrawing Sentinel
• Slashing allowances and expenses
• Setting up the armed forces for a post Afghanistan change in terms and conditions of service
• Implementing a 2 year pay freeze
• Reducing pensions
• Reducing service personnel by 17,000
• Reducing the MoD Civil Service by 25,000 which will likely result in more work for service personnel
• Removing the External Reference group from reporting on the Military Covenant
• Trying to convince everyone that the SDSR was a considered and balanced review (thats my favourite joke of the year)

H/T Think Defence

I cannot see any reasons left for anyone to vote Conservative anymore, not that there ever really was one, but I think I can confidently say that most us did not think they were going to be this bad once in government. There is more than one way to balance the books especially when your country it at war...

Spot On

I just heard someone say something rather excellent "the Tories are like Palestinians; they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity" how bang on the money that is.

100,000 voices

Yours truly does apologise for his unseemly long absences from this blog. University is taking its toll particularly since this blogger is attending a real university and doing a real course (which his arrogance never falters to mention). Exams are due after Christmas holidays so this post in itself is an outlier. But nonetheless things need to be said and since our pointless MSM continues to be just that, we have to say it ourselves, we the people.

100,000 voices will be required to get motions debated in parliament. A lot of people do not like this, one of my favourite bloggers Mr. North at EU Referendum does not like it either. Yet one of my favourite politicians Mr. Hannan likes it so it would appear we are having a good old bout of difference of opinion. I like it not because I am naive enough to think that it will actually improve democracy in this country but because it is a very useful tool for politicians to shot themselves in the foot with. And since our ruling class is monumentally stupid as it is, you can be quite sure that given the opportunity to shot themselves in their feet; they will.

Politicians nowadays despise the electorate, our current ruling class is a testament to this fact. No one voted for the coalition yet the coalition now votes for us. That is not democracy and certainly not representative democracy where they are supposed to represent us, instead they represent themselves since under the aegis of 'coalition' they threw out their election manifestos, wrote a new one and forced it onto the people under the guise of 'compromise'. We were stupid enough, as always, to swallow that, line, hook and sinker.

Thankfully the public will always outshine private politicians. We have the benefit of 60 million minds and they only have 646 of our kind, not even our best kind, a rather mediocre staple they come from. With few scholars, officers and entrepreneurs. They are by and large sheep and followers, not leaders. Hence it is not a surprise at all that they now think this gimmick of a measure is going to help shore up their popularity (read 'the LibDems popularity').

What will happen is this: we will suggest loads of things we want debated and changed by our "sovereign" parliament. We will submit the HRA for expulsion from the legislature, we will demand that immigration is significantly reduced, we will demand a referendum on the EU, we will enforce very convincingly our commitment to the Armed Forces, we will demand the termination of the Human Rights Commission and we will most likely demand that a number of services such rail traffic and postal services are returned to the public sector. And many others.

They will of course ignore every single one of our requests, when we come, cap in hand, and beg that our masters listen to us.

But what they do not seem to have factored into this ploy is that there will be a lot of these 'citizen's initiatives' - because we, as a whole, despise our politicians and what they have done to this country. When the hoi polloi start to realise that their vox populi is being ignored en masse, even they will realise that their politicians are not serving their best interests.

Hence it will follow; motion after motion will be rejected because it is truly what the people want, people's disillusionment with the ruling class will only grow and grow, the ruling class will become more and more aware of their disillusionment until they one day feel compelled to act on one of the requests.

Alas, this act is a pointless play to the galleries for is should not be needed, politicians should by definition hold the executive to account. They should by definition have balls and a firm spine. But what this act will do is to force the public balls and spine onto our politicians, and there is not a single thing they can do about it.

Unfortunately we are a nation which is going nowhere.

Not a revolutionary prospect but close

You read it here first, a long time ago actually, but the next election will be the election of the so called "fringe". Only difference of course is that the fringe is not longer the perpetrators of the right or the left, they will be the flag-bearers of the left and the right. Why? Because no other political parties do; they have no colours to nail to the mast and no defining streak which sets them apart from the other in the majestic political landscape (notice the sarcastic hyperbole), they are to all intents and purposes 'centre'. Not 'centre-right' or 'centre-left' but bang, slap, middle of the bar, is where most mainstream political parties have set up camp today, and guess what, I reckon that voters will realise this too a much larger extent once the next election creeps closer. Consider why:

Have we had reduced immigration? No

Have we repatriated power from Brussels? No

Is the defence budget being slashed in the middle of a war? Yes

Can gypsies still set up camp wherever they want? Yes

Is the Human Rights Act going away? No

Is health and safety madness still prevalent? Yes

Is political correctness madness still prevalent? Yes

Are the trains and bus-services still too expensive? Yes

Is Britain still being sold off; lock stock and barrel? Yes

Are the pubs still dying? Yes

Is religious insensitivity to every single fucking thing, still clogging the news? Yes

Is there still too much red-tape? Yes

Are the righteous still preaching 24-7 how we should live our lives? Yes

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Now consider why nothing has happened with these rather large issues, it has to with political ideology or maybe it just has to do with vested interests - personally I think it has to with principles or lack thereof rather:

New Labour: Centre-left

Conservatives: Centre-right

Liberal Democrats: Centre-left

The Green Party: useless and pointless

BNP: Left

UKIP: Right

SNP: Centre-left

Now this is what I think is going to happen come the next election. People who at this election were on the verge of not voting for either LibDems, the Tories or Labour wont be on that note again. This time it is abundantly clear that all of their parties have moved away from their traditional ground and into the centre where, as this post so fragrantly demonstrates, everyone hates them particularly those us with a very firm set of principles, and that pretty much entails the entire blogosphere.

The Tories will most likely loose a lot of votes to UKIP because after 13 years in opposition and perhaps two or three in government it is as clear as daylight that they do not espouse right-wing policies. A lot of working class voters will probably shift to the BNP because of 13 years in government they were completely ignored and their two or three in opposition was an abject failure and a complete waste of everyone's time, because they are trying to defend the most abysmal mandate period in British political history. They have not yet succeeded in that goal and if anything it will turn into a pyrrhic victory if they do, but then the party at large will probably disappear as well. Here comes the interesting part; a lot of LibDem voters wont know what to do with themselves. They are at face value left leaning people who were not completely convinced by Labour but they have also come to realise that neither their party nor their most obvious successor, Labour, are going to serve as a reasonable substitute for their vote. Who they go for instead is anyone's guess but probably some really weird party like Socialist Alternative or Trade Unionist & Socialist.

And such is my thesis (and has been for about 1.5 years now, remember you read it here first); The election that really counts was not the one past, but the one we are about to have sometime in the next 4 years.

The hand of Fellowship

It would appear that if you lend the right hand of fellowship to the Liberal Democrats, you are bound to loose at least a few fingers. The tail wags the dog and so on, the Liberal Democrats are wielding and awful lot more power than they have the democratic entitlement to. They lost 6 MPs since the last election yet I cannot help but feel that this government feels very fucking 'progressive' and even more left-wing than New Labour.

There are only 646 of them but 60 million of us, I hope they realise whom is supposed to serve who.

Rambling notions of the past [Blur + Blair]

I just watched a documentary about Blur. This in itself is spectacular for two reasons; 1) I have not watched TV since Christmas and 2) it turns out that life in general was a lot more honest back in 1995. I suppose what will not catch your attention is my TV watching habits which are a bit unorthodox - if you find some spare time give me a call.

No, what really struck me after having watched that documentary was how life was so wholesomely different only 15 years ago. We did not have all the fancy gizmos we do now like mobile phones, this computer from whence this little anecdotal essay is being written, nor mocha-chinos in every corner shop. There was not this general zombie-like obsession with possession. You were not socially castigated for not having the latest iPhone or the latest fashion from Paris or New York, it seemed that it was more accepted to just be yourself.

It would appear to my mind at least that one of the potential reasons for the financial crisis we are in right now has been overlooked. Could it just be that the reason the markets are doing so badly is because we do not need anymore pointless shit, we have enough, our houses are filled to the brim with junk, really, that we simply do not have any use for. I had a conversation that with a friend yesterday and he was formally shocked when told him that I only buy things (i.e. not go on random shopping sprees) when I need things. What is the point of having 30 different t-shirts and 10 pair of jeans? This is not an onslaught on capitalism but rather an advocacy for responsible consumerism; what we are doing now is sucking the soul out of people. We pretend that to be something you have to have certain things. Celebrities go to gala parties in £25K dresses and what are you supposed to say to that? A mere mortal as you are? £25K for a fucking dress?

Entschuldigung?

But what more struck me about '95 was that people seemed to be wearing basically only what made them happy. There was no uniform dress code which you would adopt in order to fit in. Now I cannot with hand-on-heart say that I think people should dress differently, women of my age are doing a formidable job in drawing attention to themselves and for that I salute them. However, what I do wonder is this; do they really want to wear all that or are they doing it just to please everyone else. Lets not pretend that males have anywhere near the same social pressure to dress appropriately, so if you are from the Equality Commission you can piss off. Rather, would it not be better if there was not this social stigmata against independence of thought? Why are people more brainwashed by the media today than they were 15 years ago? Surely the internet cannot have had that big an impact and with the dawn of the celebrity culture... Why do people want to be like them? They have nothing to their name but scandal and contort, no desirable virtues and only the worst of vices. They drive everything from government policy to Olympic planning. This used to be a country or art, culture and above all good taste but now it is one of celebrities; those that are famous for being famous.

But really going back to the documentary could it just be that back in the day we were just a bit more upfront about our intentions? We said what we liked and if someone disagreed then so be it. We wore what we did and if someone disagreed then tough luck, same thing with food and entertainment.

But now...

I cannot smoke where I want because it is not allowed anymore

I cannot wear what I want because if I do I will be labelled anti-social and provided with an ASBO

I cannot say what I want for in this culture of hypersensitivity I am sure to insult someone

I cannot write what I want for if I do I will be sued for libel

I cannot question what I want for if I do I will not "conform" and ensuing character-assasination is as sure as Saddam's beard.

I cannot drink what I want for if I do I will labelled a drunk and the prices raised to prevent me from drinking anything but lemonade

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I think life was more honest because the word 'progressive' had not yet entered into mainstream parlance. And the group of progressive had hitherto been hiding in the shadows waiting for the opportune moment to seize the day and the people. When someone declares themselves a progressive, my hackles rise. What they mean in reality is that everyone else must be forced to bend to their vision of society, to conform to the socialist utopia they espouse, to be a good little prole. Progressives have no place for independently minded individuals. Progressives are the enemy of individualism, and are, therefore, the very essence of misanthropy. They choose to forget that society is composed of individuals. Progressives are to be despised utterly and completely. Perhaps, most of all is their mangling of the language. Progressives do not want progress, but regression to the dark days of the cold war eastern bloc style of living – the tractor stats will always be going up, despite the enslavement of the population and the collapse of the economy. There is nothing progressive about a progressive, just as there is nothing liberal about a liberal.

Perhaps the best way to finish this little tour-de-force is with a comment on the 'rant'. What used to be perfectly legitimate and sensible commentary on issues which certainly were important to the great majority of people have now become 'rants' and the diminished status which accompanies this particular form of essay. What today for the most part, to me at least, passes for informed and serious debate is cast aside by the media and a lot of bloggers as 'rants' purely because they refuse to listen to what is being said. Where does the imaginary line go between a 'rant' and a 'informed comment' why has the former completely engulfed the territory once housed by the comment? If you complain about something today it is automatically labelled a rant. All papers do it, most bloggs partake in this form of self-censorship and the readers, as a result, do not take the content seriously and merely go on to the next point on their reading list without actually taking onboard the gist of what was read. Like the Tories' favourite phrase "don't bang on about Europe" this is what results from labelling everything a 'rant'; people get pissed off by not being taken seriously. We will bang on about fucking Europe and the EU because it is fucking important, it might not fit your little shitty political agenda but that's life - deal with it. Just because you do not take an active interest in them does not mean they wont take an interest in you and more importantly us, those of us who have to live with the legacy of your incompetent helmsmanship of the country.

Blur might not have been the most suave of bands and they certainly indulged in a lot of profanities at the best of times. But at least they were real, and so were their fans. Could the same thing be said of Lady Gaga?

The Magnificent 118

No chaps this is not a post about the 1922 Committee, I simply pay my homage and gratitude to them for daring to stand-up to the party machine. On the outside 'secret vote' does what it says on the tin, but in Parliament (I am reluctant to put a capital 'P' in Parliament for it would signify my respect for that institution, sadly that respect is dwindling faster than I thought possible) there is very little which is secret and most people know what is not.

I regret to say that I have been posting very sparsely due to extenuating circumstances; exam week is among us (or me should I say) and spend I most of my days hobbled up in the university library, studying and taking occasional brakes where a lot of anti-PC jokes are thrown about between myself and my peers. Lovely days these would have been indeed, had it not been for the blessed revision; where one needs to somehow fit a year's worth of study into the space of a month and actually know what one is talking about. A daunting task needless to say, but I remain reluctantly confident in not blowing my chances completely.

Until later, rejoice for there will soon be a '2010 Committee' and we can all have a laugh about 'progressive' politics; where apparently we have a new government but it is seemingly turning out to be no different from the past.

Fight on your feat or Live on your knees

What a fucking joke the Conservative Party has become. The only solace that one can take from this is that once there is a new leader he wont be anything but a proper conservative - he would not dare be anything else. Of course by the time that happens, there probably wont be a Conservative party.

If it is not blindingly obvious I just happen to be one of those "right-wing grassroots" that everyone is talking about, and how they will revolt, and we have; here I am revolting. I find Mr. Cameron even more pathetic than I did a year ago but at least now I am 'revolting' about it. I suppose it does feel good to have your long standing scepticism confirmed once and for all. To the rest of my fellow grassroots, if any, please step our of Mr. Cameron's ass for just one second, and realise that you have been royally shafted; there is nothing conservative about the current government and that is the way it was intended. I do not base this upon a Daily Mail article, no, but on every single reaction so far being of muted scepticism from Liberal Democrats. Of course you wont be hearing a lot of noise from the "official" grassroots retreat on the internet, they, you understand, 'support' Mr. Cameron even though he has nothing but contempt for them it would seem. Good thing the new intake of MPs are a lot more independent than the last, three line whip or not, if Mr. Cameron does not take care he will be whipped - out of office, and not too soon either.

Alas, in the meantime, until they get rid of that ridiculous poster boy fronting as a conservative (Mr. Cameron) I think I am going to be an independent. Something of a pseudo-mix of UKIP, American Republicanism (monarchist I remain nonetheless) and a large dose of Libertarian. Same principles but different name, now that my normal abode has been invaded.

This is what I believe in?

I am sure that I am not alone in feeling very betrayed this evening as the party I nominally and instinctively agree with a lot seems to be fading before my very eyes. Sure I could always fall back on UKIP but they have nowhere near the history and excitement of the Conservative Party (yet it would seem) - who really were the only realistic choice in getting us out of the EU. Perhaps 'lost' is the word which most appropriately describes the situation, a situation where suddenly there is nothing even hinting of right-wing in the Conservative party. David Cameron has made it 'modern' (whatever that means) sure, where principles are exchanged for privilege at the blink of an eye, but what should the rest of us do who do not have luxury of controlling the party of Churchill and Thatcher, who actually stick by with what we believe and think, and are not afraid to air our opinions in the face character-assasination and the PC-brigade? I have no power over my principles and cannot just 'replace' them with others like a lot of Tory activists seem to be doing tonight.

Have they actually read the LD manifesto? Researched Clegg? Cable? Ashdown? They are anathema to everything the conservatives, with a small 'c', stand for. Sure some argue that now we can take the LDs down with us when all the cuts that need to be made are made, and then the media has to blame them as well not just the Tory Toffs. But that is opportunism, a strong leader should take responsibility for his actions however harsh they might seem. I am not sure what actually has passed tonight but it feels very very wrong. I could wish for the coalition to fall apart but the same people who made it happen in the first place will still be there, the same people who notionally appear conservative but are in fact something completely different. But maybe that is alright, as a Court of Law has shown; political parties do not need to honour their manifestos. Why should they then be made to honour their principles? I suppose I ought to wish them all the best, and I do, but I was sort of only half-believing what I was seeing until now. That perhaps there was a plan B for the party, a cunning operation whereby we not only sorted out the welfare state but also told the EU to sod off and reinvigorated Britain with a sense of purpose and direction, a place where one could be proud to live and not a place where 75% of the people want emigrate from.

Tory activist tonight keep saying to people like myself who comment on 'certain' pages that 'the country has moved on' and 'your wing of the party is out of favour with the public'. But if that were really true then why did they vote for the Conservatives in the first place then, why did UKIP double their share of the vote? Why is there a consensus in the media that socialismUK has not worked at all and that toryism should be given a shot? Clearly I have got it all mixed up and I feel that I was born 100 years too late, and perhaps I was, I do not know. I made a promise to myself that if Labour won the election I too would emigrate but here again I am stuck in a limbo since that pledge was on the condition that the tories won, not that they won by teaming up with a gang even worse than Labour. You might think that I am bitter, I really am not, trust me on that, just exceedingly confused.

I am not sure what to do now and neither does Melanchtron it seems, but he has at the very least put it a lot better than myself.

Changing the voting system. Fixed term Parliaments. A vigorous opponent of religious freedom as Education secretary.

Maybe I've been looking at this all wrong. I'd been assuming that I was a Conservative, and that the Conservative Party, though its platform had many elements I approved of, had chosen certain non-Conservative paths (I hoped temporarily) which I considered ill-advised both in Electoral terms but also in terms of integrity - because they were non-Conservative they were not True to Who We Are.

But maybe that's back to front. Maybe the truth is that I am not a Conservative, and that although the Conservative Party (sadly, to a true modern Conservative) continues notionally to support some delusional ideas that a non-Conservative such as myself finds attractive, it has moved considerably in the direction of true modern Conservatism and will shortly purge itself of its last residual delusional aspects.

I am a believer in the classical British constitution, moulded and worked over hundreds of years, a mixed creature in which Platonic guardian and representative democrat ideas were intermingled. I believe that Britain is, or at least should be, (to appropriate Henry VIII's phrase) an empire unto herself, making all of her own laws and applying those laws only within her borders. I believe in constitutional monarchy, in an unelected second chamber, in an elected house of representatives (not delegates) who are spokesmen for their areas. I believe that in voting we elect our rulers - we do not aspire to "rule ourselves". I believe that the prime goal of the constitution is the promotion and preservation of ordered liberty.

I favour a constitution that is organic, husbanded by an establishment class of self-sustaining oligarchs who understand their duty to interpret the constitution anew in each age, and apply it for the promotion of ordered liberty whilst always respecting justice and true religion.

I favour law that conceives of itself as in the first instance about natural or divinely-ordained justice and only secondarily about the arbitrary choices of Man.

I want a tolerant society, not a society that is politically correct and intolerant of deviance from secularist, atheist, amoral, libertine norms.

I believe that there is no true peace without justice and that war can be righteous in a righteous cause.

I believe that our rulers should be encouraged to deport themselves with dignity and honour, not vanity and mawkishness.

I have faith that what is right and true will eventually defeat that which is wrong and false, and that if it does not that matters only a little, for all crookedness will be made straight in a Judgement at the End. In particular, I believe that democratic politics is a battle of ideas, not a struggle of classes or interest groups, and that if we argue for what we believe to be right - of course being pragmatic in respect of what can be achieved in any one age and of course respecting the need to cooperate with others in teams to achieve anything at all - that if we argue for what we believe to be right, then if we are correct in our belief we will eventually be vindicated by events and be recognised as such by a fair and reasonable press and voting public.

I had assumed that such beliefs made me a Conservative. But perhaps not. Perhaps the Conservative Party is actually a liberal and Democrat party, in fact, and would be happier if, as Michael Portillo hopes, it has the opportunity of "ditching the Tory party Right wing" (I presume he means the likes of me) which the removal of first-past-the-post would give it. The Party has obviously considered the likes of me an embarrassment since the mid-1990s, what with our wanting the Party to argue for what it believed in rather than what it considered popular (reversing our repeated error of 2001, 2005 and 2010), that the public would see through a lack of integtrity and not trust us, that we should offer policies we considered in the country's best interests and in particular in the interests of the marginalised and the oppressed, both at home and abroad, even if our methods for so doing were not the Statist solutions favoured by the Left. I'd kind of assumed that what was embarrassing about me was that I was a Conservative. But perhaps, all along, I've misunderstood. Perhaps what was most embarrassing about me was that I wasn't a Conservative but the voters might assume that I was. I thought Cameron hadn't changed the Party enough, that it was still ruled by that vanity and fear of the voters that had plagued it since the mid-1990s. But perhaps it's me that's got this wrong all along. Vanity was not an error - it was a brand. Conservatism is not about organic evolution - it is about revolutionary change. Tolerance, self-discipline, honour, dignity - these are not virtuous, but repressive. Truth is not our ally - it is our enemy.

I understand it better now. Pardon my mistake. I withdraw. Might not post in a while whilst I collect my thoughts.

Principles

Well, I for one still despise the Liberal Democrats even if the supposedly conservative Tories (WTF are they 'conserving' ?) have decided to drop that ideological principle. Groucho Marx would have been proud:

"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others."

Historical juxtaposition in its most serene and ironical take on life. If you want to make the 'put the country first' argument then I ask you this; if they really wanted to put the country first, then why the fuck are they arguing about the electoral system when Athens is burning?

Furthermore here is some free advice for Mr. Cameron or the next Tory party leader: throw the eurosceptics a bone for fucks sake. Anything, drop the CAP, Common Fisheries Policy, Elements of the Maastricht, Amsterdam, Rome treaties or a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, do not just repatriate powers from the social chapter dump the whole damn thing, get us out of the ECHR, make British courts the highest legal offices in the land or something else of similar gravity. Just do something, anything. UKIP lost you the election and they vote by principle and not by tactics and their share will not decrease but increase if you do nothing it really is as simple as that. Give a firm pledge that the treasury will hold a full blown cost-for-benefit analysis of Britain's membership of the EU. But whatever you do, do something, Tory EU policy is not up to scratch for the country, which everyone has been saying for the past two years. Please do listen.

Finally I am about to get very unpopular at my university. I am writing a very long and fairly incisive (I think) article in defence of FPTP system (with boundary changes and fewer MPs). As you might have heard those annoying things with completely random and reactionary principles, commonly known as students, habituate the wast realm of universities. Furthermore they for some reason or another decided to vote, en mass, for the Liberal Democrats. Hopefully I have bulked up enough at the gym to defend myself from UAF-like students who do not handle criticism well. Failing that, I will whip out a copy of Milton Friedman's 'Capitalism and Freedom' - it is to students what crucifixes are to vampires.* Trust me, it works and please try it yourself but whatever you do, do not, I repeat, do not confuse any proper work with Marx' 'A communist manifesto' - a great scholarly theoretical piece but to students who fail to grasp its utter ineffectuality in normal life, it is like ecstasy. Student vampires on ecstasy - would you want that? Did not think so, please take care.

*Hayek's 'The Road to Serfdom' has equal if not greater effect.

Death to the Tories

...is how Peter Hitchens feels about the current Conservative Party and its leader David Cameron.

Many people believe that the Conservative Party is significantly different from the Labour and Liberal Democratic Parties. This is no longer true. It has, especially under Mr Cameron, become a copy of those parties on all the issues about which its own voters care most. I go into this in far more detail than is possible here, in my new book 'The Cameron Delusion' ( This is a revised paperback edition of 'The Broken Compass') . I recommend this to any readers who wish to follow these arguments further. But here, for everyone, is a concise guide to the reasons why proper patriotic conservatives should not support the Tory Party at this election. I don't and won't offer any advice on how else they should vote -except to urge them not to vote for the BNP . I would also stress that there is no duty to vote when you are offered an insulting lack of choice. In fact, I would stress that there is an important right not to vote, which sometimes needs to be used against politicians who treat us with contempt. I will not be voting in this election. What follows is a short summary of the main reasons why the Tory party has forfeited the trust - and ought to forfeit the votes - of its traditional supporters.

UPDATE: In a striking display of repartee I have just been notified that a couple of friends are going to pre-election meetings with their respective university societies - but none of them have the right to vote in this country (international students). Noble they are for interesting themselves in a future they cannot influence, it would have been far better if their peers -with voting rights- could have attended those meetings. But I suppose that is a prerequisite for being cool today; do not care about what happens tomorrow. Thanks for that Labour. Yet, I am young cynic so I will reiterate my prediction: this election will mean sweet bloody all. It is the next one that really counts. Now we are basically being asked to pick from three identical shitty old Pandora boxes made from rotten IKEA wood. I would rather have an election where there was more difference between party policies than their leaders' ties.

I think it is worth to note that key parts of the electorate may not consciously have embraced the statist and green and politically correct ideologies of the Establishment. But they have been desensitised to them. They regard any alternative as eccentric or even alarming. They have stopped questioning.

Hung Parliament and Proportional Representation Maths

I am going to do some maths now with regards to the voting system know as Proportional Representation. Proportional representation (PR), sometimes referred to as full representation, is a type of voting system aimed at securing a close match between the percentage of votes that groups of candidates obtain in elections, and the percentage of seats they receive (e.g., in legislative assemblies).

Ralph Waldo Emerson said "Beware what you set your heart upon. For it shall surely be yours." I am just not sure the Lib Dems are aware of this nor anyone else for that matter.

Consider the election results in the European Election. Turnout across Great Britain was 15,136,932, representing 34% of the electorate. Which means first of all that no one gave a shit since it was such a profoundly pointless election anyway, more like elected dictatorship.

Conservative, votes received: 4,198,394
UKIP, votes received: 2,498,226
Labour, votes received: 2,381,760
Liberal Democrat, votes received: 2,080,613
Green, votes received: 1,223,303
BNP, votes received: 943,598
SNP, votes received: 321,007
Plaid Cymru, votes received: 126,702

Anyhow, 15,136,932 people turned out and that will form our main body from which the proportional system is based. If PR were used in a national election then a higher turnout would be expected somewhere around 30 million perhaps. But I want to demonstrate what would happen if the above number of voters in the EU Parliament election, were used for Westminster elections.

There are 646 seats in the British Parliament in Westminster.

The maths is trivial: Take the number of votes received per party, divide this by the total number of votes cast and take this number times the number of seats available i.e. 646. Then this is what would happen:

Conservative, seats received: 179
UKIP, seats received: 107
Labour, seats received: 102
Liberal Democrat, seats received: 89
Green, seats received: 52
BNP, seats received: 40
SNP, seats received: 14
Plaid Cymru, seats received: 5

Only the most naive and arrogant political pundit or mandarin would suggest that these results could never happen. This is politics, nothing is certain, who thought that arch-mongrel Nick Clegg would actually have a real shot at Nr 10 a few weeks ago? And this is the fundamental message of this exercise, if you adopt PR you will truly adopt elected dictatorship and the UK will most likely follow in the steps of every other major European nation: revolution, death, war and finally a shit coalition government to sort the mess out. The BNP would get 40 MPs for heavens sake! What is more, the LibDems love the EU yet the do not seem to realise that adopting PR might actually results in the UK leaving the EU. You might wonder then why I am so against the PR if it aids the UK leaving the EU, simple: I want to leave on the strength of argument not simple human shortcomings reflected in the PR system. I want to convince people, make them see and believe that the EU is a very very dangerous concept which does control our lives to a very high degree. If you convince by argument, reason and debate you win, if you do it with a hodgepodge coalition government who gave the people a say on the EU because of political advantage - that is not fair play. I do not care what the current political class or what the current 'Political Science' Degree tells its students; always country before party, those are my principles. Always.

The UK was taken into the EU on a lie, lets take her out on the truth.

Just because the establishment is drenched in dirty politics does not mean that we have to be; raising the bar is no particularly hard seeing as it is set so low already. Perhaps I am just a sucker for historical poetic justice but somehow I think it is wrong to change the constitutional settings for short term political gain. It leaves a very bad taste in the mouth.

However, we do get the final say on PR. The cattle are yet again queuing up to get whacked. Funny how they always fall for the same lame old story: the farmer just pretends that they’re going on a little trip to pastures new where everything is nice and sunny and lovely and the grass is greener etc. Today we have the politicos herding the bovines into the same old queue with the same old yarn and telling them that the politics is greener on far yonder hill, in the next valley, over the hill, just beyond the rainbow, round the bend.

Changing the system is the easy way to out, taking responsibility for their actions is not, clearly why no one is offering that platform.

By the by, you do not have to be a Ladbrokes Mathematician, with a PhD in statistics to work this out; I did it with Excel at 2AM in the morning.

An interesting insight

This following piece of connected words and dots is not of my making but it is nonetheless very interesting.

Everyone needs to take a deep breath and calm down. Fact: people want change. Fact: the next election will provide it. If one thing is clear, Labour are dropping towards their hard core vote and are effectively dead. We are just watching the body twitch. We just need the stake and the mallet. If the Lib Dems have one and we the other, then so be it.

The reason is that New Labour no longer exist. Gordon has marched back to the old Left, back to where the union money is – leaving all the New Labour voters looking around for something they can identify with. For some, it will be us. For others, it will be the Lib Dems – who are the natural left of centre political party for a modern Britain, much more so than Labour. I believe history will show that New Labour were the last gasp of a mass labour movement whose original goals have been effectively fulfilled.

So, what do we do? Make sure nobody pushes us off the middle-to-centre-right ground, which is an honourable position to hold in a democracy and which will win us elections. New Labour worked because times were good and people could vote with their hearts. Now times are hard, people will vote with their heads: we just present a simpler case based on 4 core messages – less waste, less government, less unnecessary immigration and (as soon as possible) less tax. Do not mistake this for using a dog whistle: these are not the old messages, they are the new reality which will be implemented in a pragmatic way. People know we have to do it, they are just waiting for it to be clearly promised, with the invitation to throw us out after a term if we have failed. This is just a short step from where we are now: harden the tone and cut down on the mood music. The Big Society may work, but people need to hear the Big Points very clearly first.

For those in UKIP who want to fight battles over Europe first and foremost, I would say that those battles must come: but unless Labour are dead, none of us can ever fight to regain powers that were never Labour’s to give away. Hold your noses and vote for us or what you want will never, ever happen. Judge by actions in power, and hold us to account after a term.

People want to punish Labour. Let’s make that happen.

Mr. Spitfire again; this is a very motivational post and it does strike some very important chords. Like Mr. North over at EU Referendum, I too think that the only way for Britain to leave the EU is for the Tories to take such action - not a minority party like UKIP. That said, I do not know this, it is just a hunch. Naturally they cannot leave with the current Tory administration and a couple of UKIP MPs would be very useful in compounding the message.

But how to vote on 6th of May? To me at least it seems as if all the best Prime Ministers were bald. None of the current people standing are bald; they all have hair and are hence not fit to rule the country since they are not bald. Bald is good, implies wisdom and implies having lost sleep over something important, which implies that the person cares about something which means that the prospective candidate has principles which guides his morals.

None of the candidates are bald, this is bad. Prospective candidates shave head, implies will get vote from Spitfire. Simples. Sod personality; bald is where it is at.

EUthanasia

If the 'Blue Mob' get in, they are not going 'to get powers back'.

The very nature of the Grand European Project means that it can't give powers back as to do so would threaten the rationale of it's very existence. And before you go down the "it's no longer a treaty it's the law" line, bear in mind that when Wilson offered the 1975 referendum on leaving the EEC, Parliament had "ratified" our membership in April of that same year.

The powers in Brussels make no secret of this fact therefore sooner or later, Ol' Cast Iron is going to have to face the choice of either going along with the current European Integration project or getting out.

No 'ifs' or 'buts'. The UK isn't going to get anything back from the EU as to do so would force a 'reset' of the EC Councils core philosophy as espoused by d'Estaing and continued by his successors.

It is disengenuous on the part of David Cameron to pretend that under his leadership huge swathes of EU law will simply be ignored or somehow disappear into the 'ether' (the matter in which light was supposed to travel in).

As much as DC tries to hold both wings of the Party together when it comes to Europe, sooner or later the dancing on the head of the pin will have to stop and he will have to accept the fait accompli that is Europe or get out... Why am I telling you this, well because clouds of pragmatism seem to have blow from Iceland, along with the ash, onto my head. I truly, with my whole heart, despise the EU and I certainly make no secret of this whenever the floor is given. But, the Tories are the only thing resembling anything remotely right-wing in this election (Labour, LibDems, Greens, BNP - they are all left wing) so my pernicious vote is standing in the balance. Either it goes to the Tories or it does not. I am more than aware that what currently constitutes the Conservative Party is nothing conservative whatsoever. But it appears that this is all we have in this very troubling monoglot Fabian world. Where do we cast our allegiance when the receptors have no intent of using it? We are in a no-mans land really; every election is a defining moment for a country but not anymore. Not as long as the bulk of sovereign power lays in Brussels with the EU (notice the oxymoron) - is a vote for the Tories a means to an end or an end altogether? Can we trust them to swing that mighty Trident of the British Parliament like it was swung 60 years ago? Or will it simply be left in the English channel to rust and be withered away by the waves of time.

Blue Labour or New Labour... perhaps it doesn't matter when powers are in the hands of the great Eye in Brussels. UKIP are not the last hope of getting the UK out of the EU. UKIP are the last hope of getting the UK out of the EU politically. In the mid 1600's men fought and died for the right to vote for our political leaders - no-one voted for the 27 EU commissioners who are our political masters now. In the early 1900's women also won the right to vote for our political leaders - no-one voted for the 27 EU commissioners who are our political masters now. Whatever this Orwellian construct is, it is not permanent.

The Economist - fine verbose but just wrong

I rank the Economist as one of the finest newspapers out there, I tend to nick my parents' copy whenever I am at home and subsequently get a mouthful for not "sharing" (if you are not quick enough, then that is your own fault) it with the rest of the family. Well, tough love I suppose. This week, the Economist has done a lot of pieces on the Tories and their supposedly eurosceptic stance. You know as well as I do that there is nothing conservative or eurosceptic about the current Conservative party, but lets role with the myth and see what the Economist has to say on the subject.

In this piece aptly named "David Cameron's splendid isolation" they have it in the last paragraph that (my emphasis)

Sooner or later, though, Mr Cameron has some home truths to tell his own backbenchers. These surely include the fact that on many issues Euroscepticism has won. After the damp squib of Lisbon, further big treaties look unlikely. Thanks to a changed intellectual climate, to enlargement that took in ten largely free-market countries from central and eastern Europe, and not least to Britain’s own influence, the EU has become both more liberal and keener on competition—not a million miles away from the club the Tories always wanted. If they would only look and learn, the Conservatives could find some strong allies in Brussels, not just implacable enemies.

This is where you ask yourself 'and this is supposed to be a respected sociopolitical periodical?' - that is certainly what I did. They appear to have completely missed that only last week did Angela Merkel of Germany propose that the EU needed just such a big new treaty to create something of an EU-IMF. Thus I wonder is the Economist trying to pervert the truth or are they just trying to plant a false sense of hope into their readers, a hope which says that the EU is benign; that it has no federal aspirations; that it does not want an EU Army etcetera. I am quite frankly astounded that they completely ignored that tiny slither of news, particularly since it has the potential to bring down both an incoming Tory administration as well as a coalition government (which will fall anyway). Labour backbenchers are eurosceptic, the Libdems want a referendum on a complete in or out of the EU, and the tories are eurosceptic to the bone, all except the front bench of course (with some exceptions). Now if a new treaty were to be rolled out that means that there will have to be a referendum in the UK of some kind, which means that the parties will do everything in their power to prevent the people from having a say on the EU. For if they do, it will be very nasty indeed. The result will begin the slippery slope towards the UK's exit from the EU. But the Economist seems to just have blissfully 'forgotten' this - how very convenient.

They have another one on David Cameron if you can be bothered to read it, myself well I am very disappointed; I thought that if there were any paper out there which stood their ground as the paragons of honesty then it was the Economist. Well, what a wasted paradigm that turned out to be. Mr Carswell appears to share my sentiment as well.

Numerical Analysis

1997: £6bn Deficit

National Debt: £350bn

2010: £167bn Deficit

National Debt: £860bn

The General Election, the outcomes

The general election has three possible outcomes:

1. The Conservative Party will win with a workable majority.
2. The Labour Party will win with a workable majority.
3. There is a hung parliament.

Nr 3 is of importance here because it is by far the most interesting one. This country does not do hung parliament as does the continent. They just break down completely. Some might argue that we had a coalition government during WWII, and we did but the keywords you are missing are in those two 'W's. There was a World War going on, not cooperating means loosing, it is as simple as that. Hence that is a completely moot argument because that was an extraordinary situation handled by an extraordinary government.

Further, Nr 3 is interesting because it presents some very curious consequences. If there is a hung parliament there will almost certainly be a leadership election in either party. Simply because either has failed in gaining a workable majority in the Commons. What is also certain is that there will be another general election within months to sort out the mess that currently inhibits the great halls of Westminster.

This is interesting particularly for real conservatives (with a small 'c') like myself. There is the real possibility that a real conservative takes the helm of the Conservative Party and delivers a manifesto that us conservatives can relate to. I think it is no a secret that most of us are leaving in droves to parties like UKIP and UKLP (scaremongering rarely works such as "a vote for any party but the Conservative Party is a vote for Labour" - bollocks to that). Whilst I see no light in the end of the tunnel with Mr. Cameron there is certainly enough brains and talent in the Conservative party, to produce a leader worthy of the helmsmanship. I am not going to insult the reader's intelligence by listing those people for he or she is most likely more knowledgeable than myself.

We have not had a lot of hung parliaments (for reasons explained above). The most recent elected hung parliament in the UK was that which followed the February 1974 general election, which lasted until the October election that year. Prior to that the last had been following the election of 1929. Hung parliaments can also arise when slim government majorities are eroded by by-election defeats and defection of Members of Parliament to opposition parties. This happened in 1996 to the Conservative government of John Major (1990-97) and in 1978 to the Labour government of James Callaghan (later Lord Callaghan of Cardiff) (1976-79). You can clearly see thus, that the track record is not good for that type of governing in the UK.

And finally, as always, a real conservative would have Britain tell the EU to Foxtrot Oscar.

This is what they believe

Mostly good I suppose. I would like them (the prospective Tory parliament candidates who were queried) to be more conservative but this will have to do for now. Myself I am torn on the capital punishment issue. I remember having a 5 hour discussion with a friend regarding it but I cannot recall that we reached any meaningful conclusion.

Source

Which is why we wont be voting Tory

The two-day visit to Brussels, which begins on Tuesday, by the most pro-EU member of David Cameron's cabinet-in-waiting is seen by European officials as a signal that a new Conservative administration will work with the EU executive rather battling against it.

Mr Clarke, who will be accompanied by Mark Prisk and John Penrose, junior shadow business ministers, is expected to seek concessions on financial and employment regulations during the meetings, which are not listed on the European Commission's official diary.

Fiona Hall, leader of the European Liberal Democrats, suggested that the secrecy surrounding talks meant that "the Tories have something to hide".

"The question is what deal will he do? Will he sell out his own beliefs or those of his anti-European colleagues?" she said.

Which is why we wont be voting Tory - and think I do not need to speculate further on who "we" actually are since there are so many right now. Someone might then say 'well Labour will be even worse and sell out everything left of the UK, so you are only betraying yourself if you vote anything but Tory'. Labour at least believe in their own policy of selling out the UK they have the ideological advantage. The Tories again don't believe in anything, nothing which qualifies as conservative.

Why cannot Dave seal the deal?

Many bloggers and news columnists have been posting similarly titled pieces as this. I thought I would take a stab (can you say 'take a stab' nowadays or is that non-PC?) at it myself.

People are at heart conservative, or so I believe. I too was attracted by the the 'philanthropists' policies of marxism when I was younger. I even devised my own system when 16 but that is for another time. At first glance marxism or socialism, whatever have you, seem good for the people. They will help the greater lot at the expense of the few. It is my firm belief that when Marx envisioned socialism, he wanted to make a world where everyone would be happy. Tragically, however, his ideals were taken to the extrema, corrupted and turned into something vile he never, I believe, wanted.

The properties of socialism can be summed up:

• All members of the economy share benefits, regardless of their economic value to the system.
• A healthy socialistic system results in non-economic productivity.
• In environments with plentiful resources, socialism provides all members with their survival needs, through the redistribution of wealth.
• Members that cannot participate economically - due to disabilities, age, or periods of poor health - can still impart wisdom, support and continuity of experience to the system.
• Leaders not producing, should have absolute say over those who are producing.

But it never work. Humans are hardwired to reach for the top, we get a kick out of being the best. I know I do, it does not happen a lot due to the people I socialise with are far cleverer and better at most things than myself. But, when it does happen, it feels good. Depriving an entire society of that emotion is unnatural. It is like trying to remove the emotion of love from society that would equally unnatural and wrong. Giving credit where it is due though, the socialists tried that as well. Because socialism inherently seeks to undermine so many basic human interactions and emotions that are imprinted on our dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and other areas of the brain - at some point it just breaks down. It breaks down, where the authorities have to use force to impose a system of belief they themselves do not believe in. I do not think socialism is evil but the people who exercise it are so convinced or their own self-righteousness that you cannot stop them. Look at the past 13 years of Labour. They are convinced socialists and will not listen to reason or anything at all save for themselves. This is the worst government ever seen by the United Kingdom - and I say that not as a Libertarian/Real-Tory person but as a casual observer with a firm knowledge of British history. Nothing beats them in incompetence and mistreatment of this country.

Now this is what I think are vote winners:

1. Reduce immigration with a proper compassionate policy. Let those in who want to work, who can work, who are healthy and can support themselves. This is the second most populated country in the world so zero net-immigration is a must at least for a few years until things have settled down. Social services are cracking under the pressure of too many people. This scheme is applied to EU countries as well.
2. Return to EFTA - most people hate the EU and it is not going to go away.
3. Proper foreign policy with a 5-10% spend of GDP on the armed forces. The world is becoming more dangerous not less. Remember the man who stood in the street and waived a pointless white paper in the air and called it "victory".
4. Social welfare; it is extraordinary that people get £20,000+ every year for doing nothing. People must be enthused about getting a job and earning their daily bread. People are not ashamed nowadays to say that they are on benefits and have scammed the government (when in reality they scammed their fellow taxpayer man).
5. Leave the civil service alone; depoliticise it.
6. Bring back the Law Lords.
7. Legislative controls the Executive. Finito.
8. Semi Quango Genocide save for the ones who are actually involved in proper business.
9. Seeing as the Glaciers are all going to melt in 5 years (according to the IPCC) wait and see five years before adopting any "Green" policies. See if it makes any difference at all.

That will do for now but that is what I think, to some extent, encompasses the reasons why Dave cannot seal the deal; he is not a Tory, he is a modern Conservative. If people vote Labour again, that is all right as long as they know what they are in for. I think it is important that we remember that the public at large cannot namedrop paragraphs from relevant EU treaties, know what the 1922 committee is etcetera. Politics in the real world is very simplistic - we can rage all we want in the blogosphere about what a humongous cunt Mr. Brown is but the way the voters see it is this; 'if he can cry on TV he deserves my vote' and that sadly is the intelligence level we are operating on.