If, as I hope proves to be the case, the Tories implode at the next election in a manner more spectacular even than the last three occasions, you will hear the sound of my maniacal laughter ringing across the London rooftops.

On the other hand, since these islands are now almost exclusively populated by twerps, coxcombs and nitwits, they'll probably fall for Cameron. Serves the bastards right, is what I say.

We sold our heritage for bread and circuses.

Currently re reading a new copy of the Rand collection

Capitalism the unknown ideal

Scary, the articles were written in the sixties but encapsulate Blair/Heath/Cameron et al to perfection

Agree with everything you say but vote libdem???? agggh a step too far. (then again there appears to be a small minority of actual liberals in the party who are for free trade)

UKIP need a name change, the obvious current trend is to name your party as opposite to itrs real position as possible

Good point about 'the obvious current trend' being to rename your party as opposite to its real position.

If UKIP, which I support on the basis that you can't bung up the statist ratchet until you get rid of the tap roots of statism, but which is in other respects hopelessly protectionist, renamed itself the Global Britain Party, or some such gutrot, it might indeed put on the backfoot anyone tempted to caricature its anti-EU stance as xenophobic or small-minded.

Well said, Mr. de Havilland!

We've been running through this debate in an earlier thread, during which it became even clearer that some of the boy wonder's strongest supporters are died in the wool Bliarites, looking for a fresh set of coat tails to hang onto.

If any waverers are still hoping that Cameron might one day emerge from the door of No 10 to announce that his entire campaign was a total ruse, before revealing a string of sensible proposals, then this is the evidence you've been waiting for. He's even more popular among true believers of the great helmsman, than among the bewildered blue-rinse brigade who were hoodwinked into electing him leader.

I agree with every word Perry wrote, except the headline. ZaNu-Tory is not New Labour Lite. It is Nu Labour. Possibly, under that vacuous I'm-rather-pleased-with-myself smile, there lurks the heart of an authoritarian. I'd bet on it. It won't be done with Blair's faux nervous explicatory intense "sincerity". It will be done with a confident smile and "there there; we know what we're doing" assurances.

Mark my words. The Tories have chosen a major wrong 'un.

Yes, UKIP needs a name change, but without losing the identity it has painstakingly built up. How about calling it the British United Kingdom Independence Party. BUKIP. Or British Independence Party (not initials) might be catchy and sound credible.

BTW, while we're on this topic, we need to wrest the name Great Britain back. It was removed from us by Yurrop when we mysteriously got reclassified as the UK. It was done by stealth, of course, probably under the repellent Traitor Heath.

UKIP should call itself the British Independent Party. And be known as the British Independents. That has a nice robust, confident ring.

Verity, I think the name 'UK' pre-existed the EEC ... I think it goes back to the Act of Union of 1801 (ish). It may even go back to Ramillies a century before that.

Perhaps the EU has indeed 'appropriated' its use as a way of sidestepping awkward questions about Britishness and I agree that use of the word 'British' is robust and confident.

Good post Perry. I think Cameron is, and would be if the Torys won an election, far worse than TB. He has already betrayed his party and the country. He is Blair with a new mask.

I know that UK elections have no abstention option.

However, what happens if more than 50% of the votes cast in any constituency are spoit/blank?

Best regards

Nothing. Winner always takes all. Quite right, too.

If you are a libertarian than the liberal democratic political system is never going to give you any satisfaction. Its a compromise and its micro-incremental.

Best you go off to some gulch with your guns and shoot at any approaching tax collectors. Or maybe just move to Monte Carlo or the Bahamas. Or keep a very low profile and liberate yourself in a libertarian version of Gandhi's non-cooperative resistance. If everybody stopped filling out tax returns...

But if you are not prepared to take that course - and its a difficult course - than you best engage with the political system as it is, not as you wish it was.

A lot of libertarians seem to have neglected Cameron's social liberalism - something that is enraging social conservatives. I know Cameron ain't the real deal, but he is the best game in town.

Therefore we should pitch in to the fight rather than whinge across the world wide web. We should be in the tent making sure we are pushing policies we want rather than complaining about the policies we don't like.

A lot of wasting talent prefers impotent protest to getting dirty in party politics. You are wasting your time. For every one of you who does actually write this era's Road to Serfdom there will be 9,999 who have as much effect as all those pamphleteering trots of the sixties.

The Tories have someone who has the look of a winner about him, its a good time to man the barricades after a lost decade. C'mon, get your hands dirty...

To be more succinct;

Vote for the lying regulating bastard with his hands in your pocket wearing a red rosette or the lying regulating bastard with his hands in your pocket wearing a blue rosette.

Isn't democracy empowering?

Thank you, Edward Lud, but I believe I knew the name of my country even without your helpful prompting.

To make myself clearer - Until the late Seventies/early Eighties, we were known as Great Britain.

After that, obviously on orders from the nomenklatura, we suddenly, out of the blue, became identified as the United Kingdom, or UK. We know this was by demand of Europe because on the official European festival of dreadful music, we suddenly stopped being Britain and became "the UK".

It was slyly done.

The name Great Britain offends them. Perhaps it sounded too powerful; perhaps it reminded them of all the ignominious defeats we had handed to them. Anyway, our identity was surgically excised at the behest of Europe.

That is why I suggested that UKIP make an issue of bringing it back.

Verity, how about the Albion Party? Has a nice ring to it.

The next step to confirm that Cameron is indeed a sham is for a respected, or at least well known, older Conservative to stand up and proclaim that Cameron has no clothes.

This has yet to happen, but must surely come to pass before the next election if Cameron's policies are as liberal as his new image. In the meantime I've no intention of giving Cameron the benefit of the doubt.

Similarly, if UKIP are able to make inroads into the right of centre vote, we should see movement within a year or two.

Lets not panic just yet, there's plenty of time left to sit back and enjoy the show.

John East, I wish Cameron's policies - assuming we know what they are in detail - were actually "liberal" in the proper sense of that word. For example, if Cameron actually vowed to block ID cards, reverse the assault on the English Common Law, reduce red tape and so on, he'd presumably get bouquets of roses from us all.

Such a pity that the word liberal has become a turn of abuse.

Why don't the UKIP call themselves the Whigs? As any fule kno, in the late eighteenth century English politics could be divided into two fiercly opposed parties - Whigs and Tories. The Tories thought that there was a divine right of Kings (=approx today's "Prime Ministers") to rule, i.e. they were empowered by God. Whigs believed that their ruler was there at the request and goodwill of powerful English families and so could only run the place with their approval.
Sounds not unreasonable to me, in the event one is to have a rule of any sort, of course.

Johnathan,

Yes, it's a shame that a good Victorian word like "liberal" has lost its original meaning. In the interests of communication I usually use this word in its American sense otherwise it only confuses people.

The words "labour" and "conservative" seem to be undergoing a similar metamorphosis. In fact, if things continue to develop as they have been over the last few years all three words will become synonyms.

Tuscan Tony - Sadly, fules "educated" in the state system certainly do not no. We'd lose them. It has to be something they understand and feel comfortable with and can get behind. Nothing is as strong as Britain and British. Also, Tuscan Tony, they would be accused by NuTories and NuLabour as "harking back".

Sorry, Jonathan, but with respect, the same applies to Albion, in my thinking. Also, it excludes Wales, Scotland and NI.

I still think the British Independence party, with its members calling themselves the British Independents, is strong, very pleasing - except to the BBC and Jon Snow - easy to remember and easy to say. Both words are strong.

Short note to Verity: "Great Britain" did not become "the UK". They are different entities, not alternative terms for the same thing.

Great Britain is England, Scotland and Wales. The UK is the United Kingdom of Great Britain AND Northern Ireland. A quick glance in your passport will confirm this.

I still think that Cameron would beat Brown but not Blair (love him or hate him). Very unimpressive start by Cameron who is coming across as an aristocratic luvvie - which is so 1990s and a real turn off. The electorate is focussed on (i) their wealth and that of their families and (ii) their security. Why is it that politicians find it so hard to simply say 'we are going to cut taxes and make public services efficient; and we are going to take any measure that we need to, irrespective of the EU, to exterminate radical islam?'. Nah - lets talk about the environment, poverty and organic foods. Nice, soft, trendy, fluffy. When I saw Goldsmith getting a hearing my stomach turned.

So if its to be Cameron v Brown I'd say Cameron will win it, unless Brown can mould himself as a moderniser and not one of the old guard. If Blair stays on I think he is far more talented a performer and politician than Cameron and will defeat him hands down, especially if Blair gets rid of the lefty die hards and possibly also replaces Brown.

Thanks for the lecture, HJHJ. I am referring to common usage by the government, the BBC and our European (snigger) "partners".

The Americans still mainly refer to us as British. However, Socialist usage for our country is "the UK" - no matter what the pedantic niceties.

UKIP????

Replace nasty statist Tony with nasty statist nationalist loons. UKIP, like all nationalist parties, remains statist and collectivist to the core. Among it's statist/national socialist policies are increasing the state pension. It also wants to "Protect farmers from the excessive buying powers of big business by allowing the expansion of farmers’ co-operatives." and "Reward farmers who use ‘green’ and ‘organic’ methods and those who farm in difficult terrain like hill farmers and coastal marsh farmers."

Why? Wouldn't a libertarian let the market decide? Is farming so special? Do farmers have such a mystical bond with Mother Earth that they deserve special subsidy? It would appear that UKIP think so. This is diametrically opposed to anything to do with freedom.

UKIP's immigration policy has always been barmy. Here's a version of it from the 2005 manifesto:

"Having taken Britain out of the EU, the UK Independence Party would aim to approach zero net immigration both by imposing far stricter limits on legal immigrants and by taking control, at last, of the vexed problem of illegal immigration."

Zero net immigration. That is like a night club. One in one out. How mad. Anyone who thinks that can work have no idea how the world really works. Only a nationalist-collectivist could every consider putting that into force. Would it apply to tourists? People on working holiday visas? Retired people come to spend their pensions in the UK? Foreign students? Business people on secondment? It reminds me of the old Soviet 5 year plans. An earlier manifesto that had the ludicrous statement that Britain was 'Full'.

Other non-libertarian, prescriptive policies include:

"Insist on school sports, encourage school trips and provide the necessary facilities."

Why insist? Is it to create a fit healthy nation? And a UKIP Youth? Will said Youth wear brown shirts?

And what about this:

"Cancel top-up fees, give maintenance grants as necessary, and scrap the student loan scheme."

So universities according to UKIP, should be funded from Westminster out of central taxation. Again, a statist, centralist policy. What about privatising the universities? Or would that be too libertarian for statist-nationalist UKIP?

Real libertarians could not possibly ever consider voting UKIP. Unfortunately, too many self-styled libertarians blinded by their raging hatred of anything related to 'Europe' don't consider what nationalist parties like UKIP are really offering. They're not offering more freedom. They're only offering more state control, with nasty nationalist and collectivist overtones.

Any lingering hope of a return to sanity after the next election has now gone. I'm emigrating.

Rob, no. There won't be any return to sanity after the next election after all. By the time the election after this occurs, there will be a couple of generations who have never known anything but communist lunacy and think it normal. They won't know it was ever any different, because their history lessons will all have been black history and the history of women.

John East says a "respected ... older Conservative" should stand up and opine that the emperor (Dave) has no clothes.

Not only do I think we have heard quite enough about every subject under the sun from the so-called Tory grandees - the manky bunch of toothless "big beasts" like Hurd, Chris Patten, Michael Portillo and whoever I'm missing, would be Dave's greatest fans. They're all softcore socialists. They are probably absolutely thrilled with Dave, which is why they've been so quiet. Sipping their Chateau d'Yqem and giggling happily.

Rob - ah, a light dawneth! The light of the rising sun...

I agree with Paul - a vote for UKIP is simply an alternative kicking of the Enlightenment.

What Paul Staines said.

I'm in the tent, and it is surprising and comforting how many former FCS and younger, innominate, genuine liberals one comes across. I don't suppose the 80s and 90s libertarians are giving up their fundamental values for power any more than did the erstwhile New Left activists found in every festering pustule of New Labour.

Mike,
If you want a party exactly matching your beliefs then the only option is to start your own party.

UKIP are less statist than Nulab or Nulib. In fact, they could be described as anti-imperialist if one considers their main policy.

And on the subject of their main policy, let’s not forget that as long as any party is pro-EU, whether it thinks of itself as left, right, or centre is completely irrelevant. When the EU eventually takes full control whichever pro-EU party one may have supported will effectively be a toothless parish council.

Paul writes:

" They're only offering more state control, with nasty nationalist and collectivist overtones."

Now that's just plain silly. You might very well not like the UKIP, but to suggest it is more statist and collectivist than Za-NuLabour or a Cameron-led Conservative party is so far from the truth as to be absurd.

Given that no party is going to represent exactly what I think on every issue, and if I am going to use my vote at all, then the UKIP looks like the best bet.

Applying some libertarian purity test will simply result in one of the big two walking away with the prizes yet again.

At least we should be trying to move in the right direction.

I tend to agree with Perry.

My heart likes to think that DC has undertaken a very successful repositioning exercise. My head, history and what Cameron has said lead me to think he no longer wants people with my views in the party.

It was all very well New Labour stealing Tory economic clothes as it (excepting the disaster of ERM and Black Wednesday) generally made sense. But since it really was the economy stupid, why try and out Labour Labour in other policy areas many of which have been a disaster for this country.

My real concern is that beneath all the waffle the Notting Hillites are simply next generation Tory wets. Despite all their touchy feely concern for the poor, I would be more convinced of their stated aims and their competence if they talked more about lowering the income tax burden for example by massively increasing personal allowances. They could also salve their consciences by reducing indirect and stealth taxes (which Major kicked off with raising and Brown turned into an art). Indeed at the other end of the scale they could get rid of some of the tax breaks for the rich which paradoxically appear to have prospered under Labour as anyone involved in the area might tell you.

I also understand the new Tory leadership accepts devolution. Well I hope that does not mean they accept the unfair voting system that applies in the Commons. And perhaps we could have some proposals to deal with the scandal of the House of Lords not to mention ID cards and civil liberties generally.

Despite all the PR I feel there is something disturbingly patrician about this. But my problem is that I cannot stand New Labour and for the moment am not sure what I should do. Should we give the new Tory leadership the benefit of the doubt? My own MP is a good man who I am sure has similar views to my own but then it is not a faux but a real rural constituency and about as far culturally from Notting Hill as it is possible to be.

Prediction: Seeing the danger, Blair will stay on for the next election and will win it. Even with a decreased majority once again, he'll win it because he is a more seasoned politician, more skilled and a better actor.

Even if the LibDems desert in large numbers and go to NuTory, the Tories will even out the balance by fleeing the Tory party and heading for UKIP. Result: game, set and match to NuLab - in for five more years, four of them under the ghastly George Brown.

Of course, Cameron could fizzle out, or be kicked out, long before the election, meaning Tony could leave office and let Brown, barring upsets, become prime minister.

UKIP???? Replace nasty statist Tony with nasty statist nationalist loons. UKIP, like all nationalist parties, remains statist and collectivist to the core.

Because as I have written many times before, one should not vote for the UKIP because you want them to form a government (that will simply never happen) but as a way to destroy the Tory party. UKIP is by far the best weapon to make the current Tory party permanently unelectable and as long as they choose people like Howard and Cameron as their leaders, it is essential to make them permanently unelectable. Only once all hope is gone can the Tories or whatever comes after the Tories, have any chance of forming a serious and meaningful opposition to the regulatory statist social democracy model of all the parties at the moment.

If the Tories were at least trying to set the ideological agenda for the future, I would not be calling for their destruction, but as they are moving to make themselves even less distinguishable from Labour, they have to be made unelectable... and the best way to do that is to build up UKIP. It is a purely tactical matter.

Ooops. Gordy Brown.

That is like a night club. One in one out. How mad
Well if the night club is FULL, that sounds like common sense to me!
My wife has shown me how to cut and paste!
You're all in for trouble now.

I'm no supporter of UKIP but their centrist policies have only been drawn up to detract from the fact that they are a single-issue party. And any self-respecting libertarian would want out of the EU...

On David Cameron I'm as libertarian as the best of them but I really believe Cameron's saying what he thinks the public and media want to hear. If you look carefully at what he says it can be read as right-wing and pro-freedom.

There's nothing to worry about and no need to jump ship yet!

Hmmmm Gavin, nice to hear from someone with such a sunny outlook. Personally, having read the boy Cameron's comments, I'm feeling a bit like Nick Ross must have done when his doorbell rang the day after his co-presenter Jill Dando was shot answering hers.

Reading the exchanges above seems like watching a game of ping-pong, each trying to score points off the other. Like Esbonio I too can't decide who to support. Politicians of Left, Centre or Right seek only the three P's of Power / Perks / Pension. All politicians have two agendas, their manifest agenda [what we can do for you if elected] and their hidden agenda [the three P's as defined].

We need a 'tsumani' to sort this lot out. A squadron of tanks in Whitehall is good for starters. It would certainly clear the air.

Verity,

It wasn't meant to be a lecture, just pointing out a fact that is not widely appreciated. Personally, just as Scots (rightly) get annoyed when people refer to England when they mean GB or UK, I can understand how people from NI may not like being left out when people say GB when they mean the UK.

I used to work abroad with a Scottish colleague. He appreciated it when I pointed out to foreign colleagues that he wasn't English (when they referred to him as such) and that England does not equal GB. He was never 'chippy' with me as so many Scots are with the English.

Incidentally, on the subject of DC, Anotle Kaletsky wrote a good article in the Times about the doubts he has about him:
www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1061-1916783,00.html

Tuscan Tony - Well, if somewhat gruesomely, put. (Did they ever find her murderer, by the way?)

Re Boy Dave, I have a feeling he is going to crater early.

Verity - re Jill Dando, too lazy to google but , I think they got him, and he was styling himself Mr. Bulsara or something like that, which for those non-Queen afficionados was Freddie Mercury's birth name (he was a Madagascaran (?) if I recall). Incidentally and totally and similar;y spurious/trivially off topic, had an excellent chap who was an ex-boyfriend of hers staying with us here in Tuscany for a couple of weeks last summer.....

HJHJ - No probs. I was just pointing out that the word Britain, which is an ancient and powerful word, has been surgically excised from our identity in order to level us out with the others in the EUSSR. It is repulsive that we are allowing ourselves to be defined by others (the losers over whom we have triumphed), instead of ourselves ... especially as we have around 2,000 years of triumphs (OK, there were the Normans and there was the Danegeld, but all in all, a damn' fine record).

If UKIP were to change its name, and it should, it should claw back British identity. British people still like the word Britain. Not UK.

Whilst HJHJ is technically correct, I think Verity has a point.

If my memory serves me right , when I was a child overseas, the UK was just as often (incorrectly) referred to as Great Britain as it was the UK. Whilst the term UK was constitutionally correct (and it was the UK representative at the UN who sat between those of the USA and USSR), the term GB was much more widely used then. Indeed cars in those days had GB stickers. I wonder if the casual use of the term Great Britain fell out of favour with the progressive classes because of its (imagined?) connotations?

Sorry, Verity, but I can't say I'm too worked up about the uses and abuses of UK / Britain. Perhaps it is as you say and the EU apparatchiks decided 'UK' was to them a more useful term of reference. I used to consider myself British, but I'm so sick of hearing the whiny gits north of the border and so sick of subsidising their whiny arses that if they want to push off that's fine by me. 'British' is a lovely word, robust, as you say, but the 'United Kingdom' also has a venerable pedigree and I would be loth (sic?) to think that it should be put out of use because of having been appropriated by our European masters for their nefarious ends.

By the by, can you quote sources for your claims? (they are the sort of thing I am quick to believe, but I would like some references, if possible).

The actual map of Europe ,
if you paricularise on what Verity and I still like to call Great Britain,
The EU map of Britain, that is, names Ireland (eire), Scotland and Wales, well they all now have their own assemblies/parliaments.
But England or Great Britain, you will find no mention.
Instead you will find regional districts named the South West administrative district, or the North East....
The last EU yearbook managed to leave Wales off the map entirely.
Hmmmm.

Perry wrote:

Because as I have written many times before, one should not vote for the UKIP because you want them to form a government (that will simply never happen) but as a way to destroy the Tory party. UKIP is by far the best weapon to make the current Tory party permanently unelectable and as long as they choose people like Howard and Cameron as their leaders, it is essential to make them permanently unelectable.

I doubt this, if it worked, would transform the Tory party. More likely it would just make a Labour government permanent. There are two ways to bring more a more libertarian aspect to British politics. One is to join the Tories and work from the inside for policy changes. The second is to join the LibDems and work to promote the Whiggish element (which is still reasonably strong) in it. The proper liberals in the LibDems were in the ascendancy last year, but it remains to be seen whether it will last.

However, it is my view that libertarians will always be in the minority. The electorate don't like freedom, it seems they just don't know what to do with it. They'd rather be told to do, so they'll always vote for a mixture of socialism and nationalism given half a chance.

Edward Lud - I can't quote sources because these are things I know from experience - not reading about them. I'm sure there are thousands of references on Google, but I can't point you to any of them, I'm afraid.

I will say that when I was growing up, the words were Britain and British and occasionally, when for something formal, Great Britain. No one spoke of the UK - not even on the Beeb, but only because they hadn't thought of it yet.

Then I went overseas for a number of years and didn't really pay much attention. But when I went home to see my mother, I began to notice on the telly the term UK, which had never, as I said, been in common currency before. Then, going to luncheons and so on overseas, where there were speakers, I noticed speakers using the term UK when the reference was to Britain. This was in the mid 80s. I suppose it struck me, and probably others living overseas, because we hadn't been subject to the daily drip, drip, drip of propaganda.

It seems - I may be misremembering, but I don't think so because I noticed it particularly at the time - that it was around the time EFTA morphed into the EEC - but before a morph too far into the EU. Or maybe it was around the same time. I didn't notice the time because it was done with sleight of hand rather than fanfare.

On the World Service, it was seized upon with pathetic gratitude by the Beeb, of course, and they began referring to the UK instead of Britain in their newscasts. You had "a UK spokesman said" and "the UK ambassador to blah blah received ..." etc.

The Queen, of course, is Her Britannic Majesty and the EU and the Beeb haven't managed to julienne that yet.

As no one speaking or writing talks about "the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", the word Britain, which defines "United Kingdom" got quietly binned as being too much of a mouthful. But the "United Kingdom" could be a united kingdom of anywhere. It is completely anonymous. It's like the word "country". It's like the word "nation". What country? What nation? What united kingdom?

The idea, as I see it in my suspicious mind, was to denude Britain of an identity, all the easier to consume it without unnecessary and tedious debate.

Not so strange is the fact that less powerful kingdoms have not had their identity butchered on the quiet. The official name of Sweden is the Kingdom of Sweden. Denmark's name is the Kingdom of Denmark. Norway's official name (I know it has held its skirts aside from the pig trough of the EU) is the Kingdom of Norway. Yet there is no mention, on the BBC World Service of "the Kingdom". It is Norway, or Denmark, or Sweden. Their ancient names. But Britain is "the United Kingdom".

The name Albion refers to the whole island of Great Britain. It has not been in common use since William Blake talked of 'Albion's ancient rocky shore' (I quote from memory), except for a football team, so I think we can extend it to include Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands and Rockall and the Isle of Man if we like... but why does the name have to be geographical? A name can be a convenient and attractive abstraction. How about the Verity Party? No, dammit, something too close to that has been tried by the orange-faced one. I rather like 'Young England' which was something in the early 19th century, but we can't use the E-word, I know.

"If you want to oppose Blair via The System, for goodness sake stop thinking about the Tory party."

People, please get a grip: the only party to eject Labour (blah, blah with the monickers) will be the Conservative party.

All this BS about 'left & right' and 'statist or libertarian' is a simply a intellectually defunct set of arguments that should remain in the 1970's.

Face facts: we have to accept that DC will win the next election on a wussy manifesto (read blurb) and over the next 3 parliamentary cycles the Government will become more right wing.

Barring any of us being elected Leader of the Tories and PM then we should all be reminded to bide our time and wait for the second coming (i.e. a Thatcherite with balls, conviction and principles).

Paul, two of your comments that I would like to comment on. The first:

"One is to join the Tories and work from the inside for policy changes."

The Tories have apparently just lurched violently to the left. Now is not the best time to invite right of centre support to work from the inside to restore the party to where it stood a few weeks ago.

The second comment:

"The electorate don't like freedom, it seems they just don't know what to do with it. They'd rather be told what to do..."

This is spot on.

I have been excusing the electorate for a long time because they may have been hoodwinked into a false sense of well being, busily getting on with their lives, happy with the current state of society, or whatever. However, in my more exasperated moods I beginning to wonder more and more whether there has been a more fundamental shift. Are people more stupid than earlier generations? Is there something in the environment like lead from petrol emissions, dysgenics, estrogenic hormone feminisation, food additive poisoning?

It would be a relief to uncover a specific reason to explain the complacency, lumpen inactivity, and indifference that I see all around me.

People, please get a grip: the only party to eject Labour (blah, blah with the monickers) will be the Conservative party.

But that does not answer the question of WHY that is a goal worth pursuing if there is really no difference between the Tories and Labour.

Face facts: we have to accept that DC will win the next election on a wussy manifesto (read blurb) and over the next 3 parliamentary cycles the Government will become more right wing.

Then please provide me with these 'facts' I am supposed to be facing. If the Tory party wins then we are still being governed by a Blairite government which is not even going through the motions of trying to lay the intellectual groundwork for something better. Sorry to sound rude but it is you who need to face facts: a vote for the Tory party of David Cameron is a vote for a Blairite government. Don't believe me? Well I am just going by everything that David Cameron has said and done... ie the FACTS rather than what I would fondly like Cameron to stand for.

mbe writes:

"Face facts: we have to accept that DC will win the next election on a wussy manifesto (read blurb) and over the next 3 parliamentary cycles the Government will become more right wing."

Face what facts? All we are hearing is a string of hollow assurances that David Cameron is a Conservative - when all the evidence is that he and his little patrician playmates are even further to the Left than the last generation of 'one nation' Tories like Heath, Heseltine, Clarke et al .

I'm damned if I will vote for a party that is to the Left of Bliar - and I'm equally damned if I will accept on trust that Cameron doesn't mean precisely what he says.

If the Conservative Party suffers from people like me voting for the UKIP, tough. Maybe, one day, they'll get the message. And if not, in precisely what ways will idiots like Cameron, Lilley, May, Letwin and Willets be any better than their Labour doppelgangers?

John East asks:

"It would be a relief to uncover a specific reason to explain the complacency, lumpen inactivity, and indifference that I see all around me."

Affluence.

When people go hungry, they care.

Why on earth would I accept Dave's word? I don't even know him. Every statement that has issued from his mouth and his office (including his moron secretary's response to my very brief letter about forcing women candidates on the poor old electorate) tells me he's a fake.

Why would I go against my own judgement?

That Theresa May (Tessa Jowell dressed in blue with kitten heels, dear god) is in the Shadow Cabinet tells me everything I need to know.

The Tories, as such, are road kill.

If England were independent of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland we would have had far fewer socialist governments and be richer and more free as a result. I don't feel any enemity towards these other British nations but they have their own identity and should make their own way forward in the world. The principal thing binding England and Scotland is the crown and the English language which applies equally as well to independent nations such as Trinidad and Canada.

I can well believe that Verity detected a marked swing towards using UK instead of Britian after being out of the country for a few years; I have noticed changes which probably would not have seemed so obvious if I had lived in England continuously. I suspect that this is an attempt to be inclusive towards Scotland, Wales (and especially NI which is not geographically part of the island of Great Britain.) Certainly, when I went to school we were taught very clearly that England + Wales + Scotland + NI = UK and I think we are just seeing the increased influence in the media of people of my generation.

People of England arise!

Robert Alderson - No. The use of UK is not to "include" people who live in Wales and Scotland. They are already "included" under "the United Kingdom of...

The point is to formulate a demasculating anodyne description of the most powerful people in "Europe".

I don't blame Brussels and the French for feeling a bit chippy, given that we always win and they have to live on sops for a bit.

But why has Britain given away her birthright and consigned her people to slavery under the brave new world of the EUSSR?

We're not even a part of Europe any more. Not since the 1700s when our people went to America. Our family ties and our traditions are with N America.

That's the puzzle, innit?

John East wrote:
"It would be a relief to uncover a specific reason to explain the complacency, lumpen inactivity, and indifference that I see all around me."

A group of soon-to-be-former British colonials explained it like this some 230 years ago:
"[A]ll experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

I'm in agreement with Verity here in that whatever we discuss about Cameron is irrelevant since Blair will undoubtedly win the next election and stay in power at least until after the 2012 Olympics - an event that does now seems to be the pivotal factor for a number of seedy leftwing politicians.

The fact is that Cameron, Osborne and the other 'NuCon' factions within the Tory Party are seemingly only capable of reacting to Blair, often coming in far too late with the same tired drivel that Blair espoused some years ago, instead of providing anything that the electorate might regard as a new and innovative form of leadership. At least UKIP do have some form of set manifesto rather than what the Conservative Party now seems to have, i.e. a set of looseleaf binders where new ideas and policies can be easily removed and replaced according to the intensity of the media spotlight.

John East: my explanation for your conundrum is what I refer to as 'statist false consciousness'. This is perhaps a pseudo-patrician way of saying people don't know what's good for 'em, dammit.

Yes, yes, I know this is somewhat at odds with the libertarian's championing of the common man and his ability to be the best judge of his own interests, ahem.

In other news, there has been a variety of comments here about how we should all recognise Cameron as the best bet and face realities. One such comment was "For every one of you who does actually write this era's Road to Serfdom there will be 9,999 who have as much effect as all those pamphleteering trots of the sixties".

I take issue with this: the pamphleteering Trots of the sixties now find their slogans are mainstream reality: people not profit, flowers not finance, war is not the answer, etc. etc.

Those same Trots may indeed have become fat, middle-aged and comparatively rich, but the influence of their outside-the-tent-pissing has been extensive.

You know what Orwell said, more or less, control the language by which people speak, and you can control their minds.

The UK/Britain shift highlighted by Verity is truly an interesting observation. It's like they're trying to expunge British history from the consciousness of the people, or something.

If anyone wants to think about moving Britain in a more libertarian direction by working from within the system, let me suggest the best way might be to join the Labour Party and work from within it.
1) Labour, under Blair has shown it understands it must move to the right to stay in power. Even with Brown as leader it would be likely to grudgingly accept this.
2) With the perceived threat from a resurgent Tory Party, Labour can't afford to move to the left and will be looking for new ideas to stay one step ahead of Cameron.
3) Labour are actually in power now and likely to be so for many years to come so what they do is more important than what the opposition do.
4) If Labour does move in a more libertarian direction it will force the Tories to follow suit. Cameron seems to want to emulate Blair, so let him emulate Blair doing the right thing.

If anyone wants to think about moving Britain in a more libertarian direction by working from within the system, let me suggest the best way might be to join the Labour Party and work from within it.

Good point.

There's been some interesting Blogging recently about working from within the Labour party but from the other perspective. Pointing out how many currently quite rabidly Libertarian/Right of Centre think tanks are packed with former hard left activists from the 70s and 80s.

The fun conspiracy theory is that they are now working from within NuLab etc... to put across insane theories which will bring down the system from within.

Of course, the Armani suits and sports cars are just a bit of comfort while they wait for the revolution.

What is often missed, here at least, is that the majority of the British public have consistently voted for statist left leaning political parties. The Tory hegemony of the 80s was more an artifact of the voting system rather than a political choice - the actual numbers voting and the percentages don't match up with the results.

Here's a link to a Charlie Stross blog entry on the Conspiracy Theory I mentioned. Makes interesting reading to be taken with hefty grains of salt.

The Whig Party has a nice ring to it and is far better a name than UKIP. I always thought UKIP's name and image needed a bit of a tweak.

If you are looking for another apologia/rant against dissenters then check out this post.

It does make me laugh that I am hearing Tory types ranting about right-wing bloggers apeing Nu-Labour's terminology on the blogosphere.

Pointing out how many currently quite rabidly Libertarian/Right of Centre think tanks are packed with former hard left activists from the 70s and 80s

Who exactly?

AID - No matter how appealing the Whig name, Zanu-Lab and the Tories would sneer at it as "harking back to the past", "living in the past", "looking back to past glories that are long gone", etc. I am afraid Whig is out.

I like the British Independents.

You people who want to "work within" Labour, this is delusionary. Do you know how many years, and with what fanatical dedication you would have to "work from the inside" in order to claw your way up to have a a particle of a smidgeon of influence? And there would have to be an army of you, all dedicated to changing the Labour party. The best thing to do is kill the Labour Party, as Margaret Thatcher almost did.

All you brave people who are going to work within the Labour machine and "change it from within" didn't offer a peep when the identity of your country was surgically excised.

What you should be doing is working on closer ties with the developed Commonwealth nations (the undeveloped ones are a drain, they're communist, they're corrupt, they are not salvagable unless they save themselves, which they have precious little interest in doing) and the United States - let's call it the Anglosphere. It's already far more powerful than that sack of pigswill, sclerotic, moribund Europe. We should dump it. It's holding us back.

Oh, gawd - I've just read that Cameron has commissioned and is building an eco-friendly house, including a wind turbine on the roof. Bob Geldof, cycling to the Commons, Zak, a smug, greedy face - this guy is so easy to hate.

I said yesterday that I think he will crater early, and indeed, Alice Miles in today's Times has written a fine, catty article about Dave. (Link)

I think Dave's tide is already going out.

Can't believe these posts. Proof that Samizdata is off its bleeding rocker. DC is using Blairite language because that's where the votes are. If you despise your fellow countrymen as much as these posts suggest, you could always leave. And as for the UKIP suggestion...that lot were too nutty even for Kilroy-Silk. I always wondered where Simon Heffer's readership was, it seems they are all here at Samizdata.

DC is using Blairite language because that's where the votes are.

That seems to be the sum total of DC's political strategy. Toni has won three elections, so if he can be like Toni he will win too. That's it.

To be fair to Dave, he looks and sounds more like Toni than Gordon does, and like Toni he seems to have no firm political views or beliefs. He has now attached the NuCons to an unreformed NHS, a system of state health rationing which was introduced by the most left wing government ever elected by a western democracy, a system so successful that it has been copied in exactly no other country on earth.

Yes, by aping Toni DC might get elected as a NuCon PM, but what would be the point? We've already gor one Bliar, we don't need two.

My prediction is that this vapid airhead will crash and burn, and that's why Hague has given up his directorships to go back in the shadow cabinet. If there is ever going to be another Conservative Prime Minister (and that's by no means certain), it will probably be Hague. He stands head and shoulders above this prissy little ponce Cameron.

Err - Mike, your memory's playing tricks on you, old thing. Kilroy-Silk wanted to join UKIP, and had talks about joining UKIP, made a huge fuss about joining UKIP, organised loads of publicity about joining UKIP - except, he wanted to be assured that he would become the leader at some point. UKIP told Kilroy-Silk to take a hike. So he swanked off and formed his own party. Only because he had been rejected by UKIP. Let us not start any myths here.

BTW, Mike, what, exactly is "nutty" about UKIP? You don't believe in a free Britain?

DC is using Blairite language because that's where the votes are. Which votes would that be, Mike? Not Conservative votes, that is for sure.

Maybe hoover up some LibDem votes. Maybe, just maybe, some of the Tories and floaters who went over to Zanu-Lab will come floating back. Some. Others will not bother as there's no difference between Emily and Dave. Meanwhile, Conservative votes will hemorrhage, leaving an exsanguinated Tory Party.

Will it be enough? No, because Blair will stay on and, with greater political skill and infinitely more experience, will win again for Labour. After which, he will finally resign.

John K - Re the NHS, there is a comment (recommended by 14 people) over on the Beeb's Have Your Say, which says, to the effect, "Anywhere you go in the world, people say the one thing they really envy us for is our NHS." Obviously, this person has never been out of Britain. As you rightly say, out of the 300 or so countries in the world, not one has been motivated to copy this mess. Yet all the developed countries, without exception, have been motivated to copy privatisation. Hmmm.

Mike writes:

". DC is using Blairite language because that's where the votes are."

Another Bliarite living in the past.

Tony is finished. Get used to the idea. Things have changed.

Yes oh yes John K!
The latest talking up of the Health service and promising free point of use is a 180 degree turnaround, and makes no sense at all. He wrote the 2005 manifesto for christ's sake! Now he's chucking pages of it away day after day!
Dave will fail because he has no consistancy of belief, well no beliefs at all as far as I discern.
Hague is, I re-iterate, playing a long game.Tap of the nose to the wise.
UKIP is an unfortunate acronism. It can be used by it's enemies as " You sleep on in the past if you want to but WE Nulab/Blutory march on to the future!" or some such bullshit.
I voted for them in the European elections, as befits one who wants the whole sheebang shut down, but baulked at the last general election and voted Tory.
Ha I didn't even have the courge of my convictions that my old far left friend, George Thomas, displayed when he voted UKIP in 1997.
To paraphrase Jeffery Bernard " He could see a train when it was coming".

John K said:

My prediction is that this vapid airhead will crash and burn,

I think I agree. I'm sure the wheels will come off the Cameron bandwagon. Once Oliver Leftwing started going on about redistribution it seemed they'd lost the plot.

According to politicalbetting.com Cantor Spreadfair is quoting prices for the next general election, putting CON on 260-267 and LAB on 296-303. This makes Conservative a sell, IMHO, looking to close out the bet when Cameron inevitably trips up.

Bravo Mike! Samizdata is populated by the type of people who used to attend Young Conservative conferences in the 1980s, wearing "Hang Nelson Mandela" T-shirts. Now they're all whingeing because Cameron has sensibly decided that the Tories must resume their historical function of being an election-winning machine rather than a backward-looking clutch of grumblers and gripers, who hate everything about modern Britain. You can take virtually anything they've said on this thread, substitute "Labour" for "Conservative" and "Kinnock/Blair" for "Cameron", et voila! You have the collected wisdom of the Loony Left from the 1980s/90s.

I'm disappointed that Verity has already broken her New-Year resolution to post more intelligent comments.

I said 'DC is using Blairite language because that's where the votes are.' and John K responded negatively that 'that seems to be the sum total of DC's political strategy.' Well guys and gals winning votes is pretty important if you are to stand any chance as a succesful politician. Good God people, when even Rupert Murdoch states that Tory polices on immigration are crazy (as he did during the last election) the Tories must be in trouble. Still, I bet Samizdata types probably think Rupert is a dangerous pinko too. Cheers to Tomahawk by the way!

Are you the same Mike who lives in Hong Kong?

Tomahawk, your analogy between Labour in the early 80s abd the Tories now is dumb. Labour in the 80s believed in nationalisation, punitive taxes, exchange controls, unilateral nuclear disamament, trade union privileges, etc, etc. It was political madness. The situation is not the same for the Tories since if their ideas are supposed to be so mad, why did Blair steal, or pretend to steal, so many of them? Answer me that.

The Tories' problem is that Blair initially looked and sounded like a moderate Tory. By making the BoE independent and sticking to Tory spending limits in the first two years, he and Brown ensured the economy would not implode and thus, with a lot of luck and help from Mr Greenspan in the US, the economy did well. And the Tories failed to fight back properly and frankly, their reputation suffered from the sleaze factor.

The Tories certainly must come across as reasonable and likeable - I have no problem with a bit of spin if it can win over the voters - but they have to put something different on the table otherwise the electorate will have no meaningful choice at elections. And that is bad for democracy because people will cynically conclude that all politicians are in it for themselves.

And that, Tomahawk, is the problem. Democracy needs its main parties to be distinct for it to act as a healthy check on executive power. To quote Barry Goldwater, voters need a choice, not an echo.

No Verity, I live in England. However, I did once see a sign in a Hong Kong bar that said 'special cocktails for the ladies with nuts.' By the way, are all these references to Albion anything to do with Pete Doherty's Babyshambles song of the same name? Now that would be cool, you mad-for-it samizdata libertarians!

Well guys and gals winning votes is pretty important if you are to stand any chance as a succesful politician.

Obviously, but there has to be more point to being in politics than winning elections. You have to be prepared to do something when you get into power. What does Dave plan to do, other than maintain the Blairite consensus?

Good God people, when even Rupert Murdoch states that Tory polices on immigration are crazy (as he did during the last election) the Tories must be in trouble.

This will be the Rupert Murdoch whose papers are supporting NuLab will it? Why should he support Conservative policies? Murdoch is devoted to the cause of Murdoch and nothing else. He's also in bed with the Chinese government, because it makes him money. Does that mean he's a communist?

Oh mister Murdoch knows a bit about immigration.
How many nationalities has he been now?
Australian, British, American?
He just follows the oppertunity and his money.

JP

RFLOL! You've now resorted to quoting Barry Goldwater! A hard-right fruitcake (LBJ's campaign slogan against BG was "In your guts, you know he's nuts"). Still, Goldwater's ideological purity was enough to see him massacred in 1968, winning just 38% of the vote. There's the analogy with the Labour Left. Labour won 28% of the vote in 1983, prompting a cheery Tony Benn to announce to the nation that "8 million people had voted for socialism". Yeah, and gazillions more voted against it. It's certainly true that the Tories are nowhere near as extreme as Labour was in the 1980s, but I wasn't really comparing the two parties, as such: my observation was directed at the Samizdata bloggers and commenters. Your preferred policies of withdrawal from the EU, abolition of the NHS, and handguns for all are not exactly vote-winners, are they? This blog is populated by extremists.

The problem facing the Tories is similar to the one that faced Labour in the 1950s and early 1960s. They introduced policies that provided the basis for a new political consensus but saw that consensus dominated by their rivals (Tories in the 50s, New Labour now). That left Labour in the 50s and the Tories now asking themselves what their purpose was/is. Eventually, policies had to be tweaked but an image change was the essential condition for electoral success.

BTW I'm pleased to see that you have now adopted my own analysis of the Tories' predicament, in that they face a Labour government that is centrist, rather than "communist", as some of your wackier commenters appear to believe.

Mike - I hope you'll continue posting here - this blog needs more people like you. I tried to knock some sense into this lot on the "David Cameron's Interesting Start" thread last week, but most of them seem impervious to logical arguments.

I had some very important things to write here, but the spam filter keeps holding me back, a bit like Gordon Brown's taxes and the state control of our entire national life which makes everything so expensive.

I wonder if there is a moral in all this.

As I've said before - the very fact that the Bliarites are so approving of Cameron is all anyone needs to know.

Seeing the great helmsman sinking slowly into history, they're desperate to keep the inane 'Third Way' going and have cast around for someone to assume his mantle.

As Johnathan Pearce writes:

"To quote Barry Goldwater, voters need a choice, not an echo."

Quite! But Bliarites don't believe in choice. They believe in micromanaging society without opposition and calling it 'consensus'.

Anyone who suggests an alternative is immediately damned with juvenile insults from the Za-NuLabour handbook. And never once is policy debated - only ridiculed.

Tomahawk writes:

"RFLOL! You've now resorted to quoting Barry Goldwater! A hard-right fruitcake (LBJ's campaign slogan against BG was "In your guts, you know he's nuts")."

What did I just write? Instead of disputing Goldwater's (undeniably true) remark, Tomahawk's immediate response is to puff his chest out and bluster a few tired ad hominems.

Golly - if this is what passes for intellectual debate on the Left, these days, we've not got much to worry about!

A hard-right fruitcake (LBJ's campaign slogan against BG was "In your guts, you know he's nuts").

Sure, LBJ is a fine upstanding man from whom to draw inspiration.

Goldwater's ideological purity was enough to see him massacred in 1968, winning just 38% of the vote.

1964 actually. Remember who won in 1968? Chap by the name of Nixon.

I doubt any Republican would have won in 1964, the Democrats had such a wave of goodwill following the assassination of JFK. In addition, the fabulously unscrupulous LBJ managed to paint Goldwater as a warlike hawk who would lead America to disaster. Good job LBJ did so well in Vietnam.

Goldwater's policies bore fruit in 1980 when Reagan was elected. Together with Thatcher, the whole political horizon changed, and the seemingly inevitable progress of the socialist ratchet was broken. Dave does not seem to know anything about this. For him, it will be enough to be in office but not in power. What's the point?

Tomahawk, Goldwater was indeed heavily beaten and I am not a defender of his actual policies, I just liked his catchphrase. Anyway, he was defeated in 1964, not 1968, and lost to a candidate borne on a high tide of sympathy for the Dems after the murder of JFK.

But you did not answer my question about the need for political parties in a health democracy to be different and distinct. That does not mean I want the Tories to be rabid extremists, but there has to be a meaningful choice for voters, not just a choice between statists and careerists.

I don't understand the anger of some of you NuLab camp followers. Some of us actually are interested in ideas, values, principles rather than just grabbing power over other people. This is a blog trying to spread the libertarian meme, not a friggin' career office.

Well said Johnathan.

Tomahawk, another thing you should realise, if only you could overcome your crashing arrogance, is that when people disagree with you, it does not mean they are idiots or bigots. I used to make that mistake before I realised what an arse I was becoming.

LBJ used to give interviews sitting on the can - such an example of the dignity of ace behaviour for the Commander in Chief. He also started the Great Society rolling, creating generations of welfare-addicted state dependents, many of whom to this day do not have a single relative who's ever had a job. And Viet Nam ... Hey, hey, hey, LBJ - How many kids did you kill today? Does the word 'quagmire' ring a bell?

The left certainly do have some inexplicable heroes. LBJ, Ché, Castro, Marx. As two posters have commented above, LBJ got swept into office on a tide of sorrow and sentimentality over Kennedy, a limousine lefty along the lines of Katherine Hepburn, and his wife and young family. Had Kennedy finished out his term, we may never have had a President Johnson and the Great Society.

Tomahawk seems to forget Reagan; who turned around the US by using some Goldwater's ideas.

I fail to see how apeing Blair when people are getting fed up with him is going to help the Tories. Cameron seems to be keen on returning to the failed policies of Heath. If he thinks disowning Thatcherism is going to help him he has gone loopy.

Tomahawk, another thing you should realise, if only you could overcome your crashing arrogance, is that when people disagree with you, it does not mean they are idiots or bigots.

It does on this site, more often than not. You seem to have forgotten (very conveniently) that when I posted my first comments at Samizdata a few weeks ago I was a model of politeness - and received a torrent of abuse in return. Strangely, JP, I don't seem to recall you chastising the regular commenters then (or now). Frankly, I don't really care because I generally give a lot better than I receive here - maybe that's your real problem. Anyway, get over it and stop blubbing.

Meanwhile, here's GCooper complaining about

juvenile insults from the Za-NuLabour handbook

Tomahawk, all I asked was for you to show some basic civility. I directed that point at you but of course it applies generally. And you want to know why we call Blair "Bliar" - it is because he lies. Constantly.

But you did not answer my question about the need for political parties in a health democracy to be different and distinct. That does not mean I want the Tories to be rabid extremists, but there has to be a meaningful choice for voters, not just a choice between statists and careerists.

Go and read Anthony Downs's "An Economic Theory of Democracy", which is famous for its "spatial model" of party competition. In two-party (or largely two-party) systems the parties converge on the median voter (among all voters mapped along a left-right policy scale). When both parties are highly competitive the policy differences between them will tend to be quite small. If one party is extreme and the other moderate, the moderate one will usually win in normal circumstances. Radical parties can usually win only in crisis situations. Weimar Germany is an extreme example but a better one is Thatcher in 1979: the Callaghan government was utterly discredited and after the winter of discontent voters were ready for something more dramatic. Even then opposition parties don't usually reveal how radical they'll be until they get into government - people nowadays forget that Thatcher became fully and openly radical only after she achieved electoral success.

Anyway, many political scientists now believe we are moving away from old-style left-right competition to a system in which parties generally agree on ultimate goals but compete on managerial competence. Delegating policy-making to swivel-eyed moonbats who want to privatise the NHS does not convey competence.

Tomahawk writes:

" Hmm... I see, and what exactly is "Za-NuLabour" if not a juvenile insult? (Or "Bliar" for that matter?)"

It's a returned compliment.

Now how about you trying to address a direct point once in a while, instead of responding to them with tired old insults?

For example (and for entertainment value, if nothing else) perhaps you could explain your objection to "Bliar"?

Surely, you can't believe he isn't a habitual liar?

Of perhaps (as self-confessed supporter) you were there by his side, the day (before he was born) that he watched Jackie Milburn play football for Newcastle? Or maybe holding his hand, the d