Iran has been accused of having a hand in the bomb attacks which killed some British troops in Iraq. Apparently, the bombs used in the attacks bear Iranian fingerprints all over. Tony Blair has of course condemned this, stating without irony that there could be no justification for Iran, or any other country, interfering in Iraq.
Nothing more to say here.
The Conservative Party annual conference has come to an end. We had a chance to hear all the five leadership contenders speak, and my! how things have changed. David Cameron delivered the most inspiring speech of them all, and apparently is now favourite with some bookies to win. David Davis, erstwhile favourite, gave a lacklustre performance. I had expected this, anyway, as public speaking is not one of his strong points. Kenneth Clarke did well, and I don’t feel so hostile to his candidacy anymore. Liam Fox did better than expected, and may well supplant David Davis as the candidate of the right. Malcolm Rifkind got the loudest ovation, probably because his speech reminded the Tory activists of the good old days of government. There is definitely a buzz in the air as the MPs return to Westminster to begin the first round of voting. Momentum is building, and the excitement is palpable. Blackpool has fired the starter gun, and now, as the great Murray Walker used to exclaim, it’s go, go, go!
Television chatshows in the United Kingdom have one staple: a warring young couple with two or three children apiece and a shared baby. The typical story runs along these lines: young girl has two children from a previous relationship; she meets young boy who already has a child of his own. Young boy is sent to prison, invariably for burglary or joyriding. Young girl is pregnant. When young boy comes out of prison, he accuses young girl of cheating on him, and they end up on a television show with the theme: Lying ex! Is my baby really mine? Or even the more threatening ‘I want the truth TODAY!’
The understanding chatshow host gives both parties a chance to put their stories, and then runs through some standard questions, well knowing what the answers will be: did you plan this baby? Is there a history of alcohol abuse in the family? Is there a history of drug use in the family?
As the chatshow host does not really have any answers to the problems, or more likely, dare not express her real views on the matter, she falls back on a default statement, ‘the innocent party in all this is the child. You should think of the child’.
This statement can be guaranteed to bring applause from the studio audience. By the same token, any member of the studio audience who utters these magic words is generously applauded and acknowledged with the sort of respect normally reserved for a guru or psychic.
This would lead us to believe that the British are a nation of children lovers. Do not be fooled. That is far from the truth. This is a nation which has not yet worked out what children are for. To some, they are a tool with which to beat guilt-ridden working mothers into submission (Daily Mail). To some parents, children are little gods and goddesses at whose pampered altars they must pay homage every Christmas. To the Government, they are little beings to be bribed with precious taxpayers money (Child Trust Funds, anyone?) in the hope that the appreciative parents will do the right thing and vote wisely.
Perhaps it is the Government’s ambiguous relationship with the nation’s children that is currently causing the confusion. The Government that thinks nothing of jailing a mother because her teenage children refused to go to school is the same Government that doles out contraceptives to 14 year olds behind their parents’ backs. So who is responsible for the children? Legislation exists to penalise parents who give their children a good whipping, yet these same parents are blamed by Tony Blair when their children turn out bad. (Contentious issue, I know, but I will point out that there is a difference between chastisement and inflicting violence. On my side of this argument, I have no less an authority than the Bible. Proverbs 13.24, since you ask.)
Children are tough young things, and well able to weather some of these things that we feel would cripple them. Mother going out to work? That’s nothing! I was brought up with the sort of studied nonchalance that would have landed my parents in jail were it to happen in this day and age. I don’t think this harmed us in any way. My mother went out to work. It didn’t even occur to me and my brothers that it could be any other way. My parents frequently went on their annual holidays around Europe and America while we stayed at home with our grandmother and uncles. I remember they once went on holiday and left us in the care of a slip of a girl who had just finished her A’levels. We were all happy with the arrangement. For us, it also gave us a break from our parents for a month, and we could hardly wait for them to leave. I still remember the jubilant celebration as they drove off to the airport that night. However, if that were in these times, my dear mother would have been on the front page of the Sun, above the caption ‘Monster Mum leaves Tots for Month-long Jolly’.
A recent study on happiness has just shown that, contrary to what we may think, having children does not make us any happier. So why are we sitting here pretending? Because we feel too guilty to admit that. For the most part, guilt plays a huge part in our relationship with our children. We know it. The tabloids know it. Trisha Goddard the chatshow host knows it. The Government knows it.
So what can we do about it? Nothing much. Accept the truth. Accept that with children, we can never be 100 per cent right. Accept that Princess Michael of Kent was right when she said earlier this year that the English take the breeding of their horses and dogs more seriously than they do that of their children. To quote her, ‘God forbid that the wrong drop of blood should get into their Labrador, but their children marry however they wish’. Accept that, and get on with it.
This blog will be launching an additional service from the end of this week. Every Friday evening, I will present you the news story to which I have awarded the Lunacy of the Week prize. Given the state of affairs in the country at the moment, I am expecting that competition for this award will be stiff. More on Friday!
Ann Winterton, the MP for Congleton, is in trouble again. This seemingly foolish Tory MP has a knack for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. She was sacked from her Shadow Cabinet position in 2002 for making a joke with the punchline that Pakistanis were ‘ten a penny’ in the United Kingdom. Last year, she had the party whip withdrawn for telling a joke about the Chinese cockle pickers who drowned at Morecambe Bay. Mrs Winterton has now written an article in which she stated that ‘the United Kingdom is still, thankfully, a predominantly white, Christian country’.
Hmm. Given her past record, it is not surprising that Ann Winterton holds such views. What is surprising this time around is the absence of the outrage that normally greets such pronouncements from La Winterton. I believe that this is because, given the current climate (to borrow a phrase), Winterton’s views are resonating with an increasing number of people. The only complaint I have so far seen has been from the Cheshire Racial Equality Council. Even the Conservative Party, nowadays anxious to dispel any whiff of racism, has not said much.
What do I think of Ann Winterton’s comments? Difficult question to answer, but I do not want to duck the issue. Perhaps I would do a better job of answering it if I pretended that the comments were made by anyone other than Winterton.
I can see why she would feel ‘thankful’ that her country is ‘predominantly white’; after all, no one likes change that much. What I resent is the implication that it would be a bad thing if it were not the case; the suggestion that a country is that much better for being ‘white’. Anyway, her opinion. I don’t have to agree with her.
Please don’t shoot, but along with Winterton, I am thankful that this is a ‘Christian’ country. Perhaps I should say that I am thankful that this is not a muslim country. For all our quarrels with the Government about the erosion of human rights, we are at least in a better state than many muslim countries. Here, at least, there is more than a passing regard for democracy, freedom of speech, and the rights of women. Daily we hear about the situation in places like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, and as a woman, I know where I’d rather be.
This should be an exciting week to be a neo-liberal or conservative. The Conservative Party Conference is taking place in Blackpool, and with a leadership election around the corner, the contenders are using this occasion as a platform to share their vision with the party faithful. This is therefore an opportunity like none other to reshape and articulate prinicples of modern conservatism. Thus far, five men have thrown their hats into the ring. It is important for Party members to listen to each man’s vision for the country and decide whom to entrust with the task of leading the Party into the next dispensation.
It is not enough just to field a candidate who can beat Gordon Brown at the next election. There is no point in being in power if one lacks the principle to bring about effective change in society. Far better to remain in the wilderness. What we should be looking to hear from the contenders is not how they intend to win the general election, but what they intend to do for the good of the country. Whatever is good for the country will be good for the party, but the converse is not necessarily true. It is unfortunate that the one man who appears to have properly grasped this truth is not standing. David Willetts has instead given his backing to David Davis.
Peter Oborne, writing in the Spectator, tells of a general election that took place during the dark days of Labour opposition. As the results were announced and it became clear that Labour had once again suffered a heavy defeat, the talk turned to whether the party needed to change to appeal to the general public. At this point, it is alleged that one of the leading party leaders defiantly pronounced: there is to be no compromise with the electorate!
That attitude has characterised the Conservative Party in recent years. Its response to election defeats and negative opinion polls has been to move even further to the right.
After the fiasco of William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and the negative campaigning of the last general election, the Conservative Party has finally learnt its lesson. The contenders are all now freely talking about the need for change, and the importance of occupying the centre ground.
David Davis is on the right of the party. He has however promised that there will be no ’swerve’ to the right. Davis has described himself as the ‘Heineken’ candidate, reaching parts of the country no else can reach. He is correct in thinking that as the son of a single mother, brought up on a council estate, he had an upbringing different from what one might expect in a typical Tory. Maybe so. While that in itself does not qualify him for the job, there is something to be said for having a leader who appears to reconnect the party to the working classes. Sometimes even the mere perception of a thing is good enough.
Liam Fox appears to be a genial, fun-loving man. It is important to have a leader who appears human. Of all the candidates, he has produced the most right wing manifesto, making abortion an issue in the election. As a former GP, it is only to be expected that he would have strong views on abortion one way or the other. He talks encouragingly of healing Britain’s ‘broken society’, thereby attempting to debunk the misconception that the Conservative Party does not care about the impact of socio-economic issues on the lives of the general public. The one thing that may count against Liam Fox is that he is Scottish. Were he to become Party leader, he may be facing his fellow Scot, Gordon Brown, at the next general election, and probably Charles Kennedy of the Liberal Democrats, another Scot. This may be too much for English voters to stomach. It is possible that this fact alone may persuade some Conservative Party members not to vote for Fox.
Malcolm Rifkind espouses One Nation prinicples, and remains a skilled orator. However he is trailing the others, and it is suggested that he may step down at the end of this week.
Kenneth Clarke. Well, what can I say? He is widely hailed, and promotes himself, as the man to beat Gordon Brown. This may be true. In addition, he scores highly with the non-Tory voting public who may be persuaded to vote for the party if he were leader. However, he has not told us what his vision is for Britain. His answer to the problem the Conservative Party faces seems to be simply: vote for me. Then there is the Europe question. The fact that Europe is on the back burner at the moment does not mean that it is safe to let Ken lead the Conservative Party. The first sign of trouble, and his pro-Europe views will split the party. In any case, with a Government hell-bent on surrendering our sovereignty to Europe, we need a Leader of the Opposition who will keep an eye on the national interest. I doubt that we will get that with Ken Clarke.
David Cameron is doing well, but he will not win. He is only 38, and lacks the experience. Then there is his background. He went to public school, and then to Oxford. I have no problem with that, but in a party trying to shed its image as an ‘out of touch’ orgainsation for the rich, this is creating a certain amount of nervousness. His ideas are good, though, and it will be a good thing if they are adopted by the eventual winner.
So let’s sit back and watch the week go by.
The past week has been rather eventful. There have been many stories in the news, almost all worthy of comment here. However, one cannot talk about everything, so I have to be selective. Below are a few events that gave me pause for thought.
Walter Wolgang, an 82 year old leftie, was thrown out of a meeting at the Labour Party Conference in Brighton. His crime was that he had dared to heckle the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, who was making some mealy-mouthed comment about the British Army being in Iraq to restore democracy. Wolfgang was manhandled out of the hall by two heavies, and then, when he tried to get back in, he was prevented from doing so by the Police who applied anti-terror legislation to achieve that effect.
My comment: this event has confirmed my suspicions about the potential for abuse of anti-terror legislation, and we should resist any attempt by the Government to extend the existing laws.
A hospital has advised its visitors not to coo at, or touch, any babies in the vicinity, on the basis that this infringes their human rights.
My comment: I agree with the ban on touching babies. I think it is rude to touch someone’s baby without being invited to do so. As to the cooing, that may be taking things too far. Speaking about babies, though, I could do with a ban on them touching strangers in public. How many times have I been on a train and had a baby wipe its grubby paws all over my clothes, to the amusement of its mother? The worst part is that everybody expects you to grin and bear it. Note to mothers: that aint cute, get your baby to stop it!
The electoral college of the Conservative Party has rejected proposals to amend the rules regarding the Party leadership election. This means that the old rules remain in place, and that all Party members still have a vote in choosing the next leader.
My comment: This is a good thing, because, if the proposals had been voted through, the Party membership would have been disenfranchised. The leader would have been chosen by the MPs only. Given that the Party has very little Parliamentary representation in the North of England, and only one or two seats in Scotland, that would have meant that those constituencies would have had no say in choosing the leader. Yet it is precisely from such areas that we need to hear. The Constituency chairmen and volunteers in those places are much better informed about what the Conservatives need to do to reconnect with the electorate. This is especially the case in marginal seats. Far from producing an unsuitable leader, we can trust the membership this time around to listen to all the candidates and make a decision for the good of the country. More about this in a coming blog.
