Sunday 7 October 2007
The failure of Cameronism
Isn't it ironic that, after all the endless attacks that Cameron and his minions have launched upon the sanity, intelligence, and moral decency of the true right, and after all the endless crap they spouted about "modernisation", it was a traditional conservative pledge to cut taxes that saved their bacon (for the time being, at least)? Why, it's almost as if traditional conservatism has more popular support than Cameronite liberalism!
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4 comments:
These attacks on Cameron are self-indulgent posturing. The Tories always intended to support tax cuts, referenda on all future EU treaties and a crackdown on crime. In the period ahead, they will unveil tougher action on immigration and more details on the scrapping of the Human Rights Act.
The problem that Cameron had to wrestle with first was the contamination of the Conservative brand which led to the ridiculous and harmful position in surveys whereby right-wing positions were popular with the public - until they were associated with the Conservative Party.
Cameron is the only game in town. There is NO viable alternative for the right, other than empty ranting from the sidelines as degenerate leftists maintain their grip on power and continue with their project to ruin Britain.
You're a smart guy, FR - please use your intellect to help the right, not act like a Hefferite curmudgeon.
I'll admit that the Tories have been proposing some more sensible policies in the last few days, or at least making vaguely sensible noises. Some immigration controls are clearly better than none at all, a referendum on the EU constitution is preferable to no referendum.
However, I still have a lot of problems with Cameron. For a start, he did seem very, very, enthusiastic about the "modernising agenda". Look at his attack on "delusional" supporters of grammar schools, for example, and his disastrous attempt to turn that issue into some kind of Clause Four moment. That went some way beyond decontamination. And, regardless of what Cameron himself thinks, it is clear that there are plenty of Cameronites who are genuinely ideologically committed to "modernisation".
Then, of course, there's the fact that even now, Cameron is not going nearly far enough. He may not want to hand over more powers to the EU, but neither does he want to withdraw, or take significant powers back. As a result, any pledge to limit immigration (for example) is going to be subject to the proviso that only non-EU immigration can be limited. Besides which, I prefer the position now espoused by both UKIP and the BNP, that we should have a complete moratorium on immigration. Equally, despite the recent pledge to reduce some taxes, the Tories are still pledged to match Labour's exorbitant and increasing levels of public spending, for at least three years. And then, of course, so far from challenging the increasing the Islamification of the UK, he appointed the awful Sayeeda Warsi to the shadow cabinet! Who on Earth wants to vote that woman into a senior government position?
As for the Tories being "the only game in town": well, there's no guarantee that things will stay that way in the long term. Support for the main parties is falling at each election.
But even if they are at present the only party that can beat Labour, then that's still not a reason for voting for them, unless they would actually represent a significant improvement over Labour. It's still not entirely clear that they would.
Finally, it is still rather difficult to know what, if anything, Cameron does actually believe. You say that he has merely been decontaminating, yet it is equally possible that he believes the liberal crap that we've had from him for the past two years. I have yet to see much evidence of him having any firm beliefs about anything. Until I am convinced that he actually has genuine and sensible beliefs, I'm going to find it rather difficult to believe that he should be PM, or even that he would be an improvement over Brown.
"The Tories always intended to support tax cuts, referenda on all future EU treaties and a crackdown on crime."
Sure, that must be why we only heard about them in the last week or so. Before that, it was full-on 'Hug a hoody', 'Save a polar bear','Down wiv grammer skools'....
"Cameron is the only game in town. There is NO viable alternative for the right..."
Rubbish! There is no 'one shining light' in politics, and there never will be - but then, we know where Camoron got that idea from - a certain Mr T Blair!
And just like him, all he believes in is getting elected, at all costs.
One of the best things about being a right winger is that one doesn't have to act like a leftist. The left, demented with ideological fervour, mistakes pragmatism for betrayal. We don't.
I'll admit that Cameron is not a militant right winger. He's a practical Conservative with broadly the right instincts on most subjects. I think the hug-a-hoodie stuff was a misplaced attempt to get on top of the 'tough-on-the-causes...' agenda (not a bad idea but woefully cack-handed in execution). As for grammar schools, Cameron is right on policy but was inept politically. He (and Gove) believe in selection within schools and the right for heads to have much more control over admissions policy but not in the return of the 11+ where it doesn't operate.
The people who Osborne derided as 'uber-modernisers' are few and far between. I regard myself as a moderniser because I studied public opinion intensively and came to the conclusion that the degraded state of the Tory brand was contaminating the right and closing down options for the implementation of right wing policies.
As a vanguardist, I maintain that there is no realistic alternative route to power for the right other than through the Conservative Party. By all means support the BNP and UKIP if you want to but on the clear uunderstanding that they will never win. In order for their ideas to triumph there will need to be a party in charge that is not ideologically hostile to such ideas.
David Cameron will probaby end up as PM (that's increasingly likely given the demented behaviour of Brown) and the real action on the right will be the battle to influence him. Some are doing so from the media (Charles Moore, Matt d'Ancona). Others are doing so from the think tanks (David Green at Civitas, Anthony Browne at Policy Exchange). But most of us are working within the Conservative Party itself to select patriotic MPs and MEPs like Dan Hannan. We are also seeking to influence candidates and future leaders. For example, Zac Goldsmith's green policies might not suit everyone but his views on law and order, Europe and localism are brilliant.
FR, you're too talented to waste yourself on the fringe. I love this blog because it tells the truth and acts as an encyclopedia of the political and cultural war we're in but the reason I've warned you in the past to guard your identity is because you may - at some point - wish to move into the mainstream and this stuff would hang around your neck like a millstone.
The left is a dark force. To defeat it we need to be relentless, subtle and disciplined.
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