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The Tory Party from a parallel universe

The Tory party has been an ideology-free zone for quite some time now, defying any but the more internally focused Tory activist to really have any notion of what the Tory Party truly stands for. Not that the Labour Party actually wears its ideological heart on its sleeve any more, but at least the Labour Party clearly still believes in the Labour Party. The Tories on the other hand, well…

There is a very strange article by Peter Osborne in The Spectator in which he marvels that Tories cannot see that Ken Clarke is the solution to their woes, by which presumably he means that what the Tories need is a leader who wants to give more power to European Union institutions and run the economy pretty much as Tony Blair has. He also marvels at the ‘lurch to the right’ that the Tory Party has taken…

Yeah, that notion had me rather puzzled too. In short, Osborne seems to think that rather than search for ideological purity (!), the Tory Party need to just throw their lot in with Ken Clarke’s favour of regulatory statism.

So I guess I must have missed the Tory Party advocating scrapping the NHS and coming up with a non-rationing based healthcare system. I must have missed the plans to end inheritance tax completely, the bold decision to scrap entire government departments and reduce the state take by 15% in the first term…

If the Tories had quixotically adopted meaningful ‘right wing’ (whatever that actually means) policies, that would indicate the Tory Party actually believed in something. Yet even flirting with a moderate and rather inconsequential idea like the flat tax apparently makes you ‘right wing’ in Osborn’s universe. I guess departing materially from the post-Thatcher Labour world view seen as weird extremism, which of course means only the CINOs like that clapped out old milker Ken Clarke actually seem ‘sensible’ to someone for whom politics only ever means arguing over the rate at which the state should grow.

But the Tory party as a whole have not seriously even had that discussion and unless David Davis actually gets into the hotseat, it probably never will. I think Peter Osborn must have had a Tory Party from some alternate reality in mind…

77 comments to The Tory Party from a parallel universe

  • Findlay Dunachie

    Isn’t it Peter Oborne? But I, too, have wondered where the usual “s” went.

    How important is a “leader”? Who replaced Lloyd George, charismatic as he was (except the word hadn’t been rediscovered?) Can’t remember? Attlee replaced Churchill. Who was the greater “leader”? Was Heath more charismatic than Wilson?

    Try to recall that Margaret Thatcher in 1979 was hardly regarded as anything like what she became, in policies (she didn’t know what they were herself) and character (who thought of her as an iron lady?) William Hague was generally regarded as more effective at the dispatch box than Tony Blair. Did that help him?

    Elections are lost rather than won, combined with the feeling “Time for a change”. After a year or two of bumbling Brown, the country may feel that way.

  • Tim

    Oborne is right in that Ken Clarke is the Tories’ best hope for wresting power from Labour. Unlike you, Perry (from what I can tell from your writings, and please correct me if I’ve misconstrued you), I’m an ‘incrementalist libertarian’, to coin yet another splinter term. I’d dearly love to live in a no-tax minimal-government country, and of course Clarke doesn’t stand for anything approaching this (though nor do David Davis or any of the others). But it’s not going to happen overnight, because cultural change never happens that quickly. A Clarke victory might at least loosen the Blair/Brown stranglehold on political power, and that needs to happen before we can come anywhere near a decent national political discussion about taboo subjects like ‘freedom’. So, to paraphrase Polly Toynbee before the last election: hold your nose and vote Clarke.

  • and of course Clarke doesn’t stand for anything approaching this

    He is just Ted Heath warmed over. There is simply no meaningful difference between Tony Blair and Ken Clarke. Frankly I would rather vote for… well… the LibDems (shudder).

  • Tim

    Perry: No, there is a difference. Clarke doesn’t appear as desperate to be liked by everybody as Blair does. This is a political difference as well as a psychological one. Voting for Clarke would increase the chances of people of a vaguely libertarian bent getting into power, something that can’t be said for any of the other Tory contenders, not to mention those in the Lib Dem or Labour camps. I suppose there’s an argument to be made that supporting a Gordon Brown victory in the 2009/2010 election might lead to socialist catastrophe along the lines of the late 1970s, and would thereby pave the way for a radical renaissance like that of Thatcher’s coming to power, but times have changed and the electorate are on the whole far less commonsensical nowadays than they were back then, and would probably vote Brown back in in 2014 even if the country was falling apart. No, a vote for Clarke, unappealing though he is, is the last best hope for conserving civilisation in Britain. Anything else is fiddling while Rome burns, unless you opt for armed revolution or emigration.

  • Tim

    Is it too late to join the tories to have a chance of a vote? Anyone know?

  • Tim S.

    Ah… another Tim. Henceforth I’m Tim S. (I posted the first two comments here under the name Tim in case anyone wants to respond.)

  • Verity

    I don’t like Ken Clarke either, but admit that he appeals to a broad swathe of voters, many of them socialists. But I also feel, pragmatically, that power must be wrested away from Tony Blair and his Cabinet of Corpses at all costs. He is the most dangerous prime minister Britain has ever had, and he is getting bolder. Now he has Muslim “advisors”. (I wonder why, given that his cooked figures show there’s only a desultory 1.5m of them in the country.) And they are telling us to dump Holocaust Day – a memorium of a horrible episode of European history that we wish to have on record. I am sure Sickbal Sacristry and Cat Stevens have further ambitions for later. Already there are no prosecutions for female genital mutilation and “honour” murders.

    Za-NuLab is a runaway train and my feeling is, it must be derailed, no matter what. Reluctantly, I agree with Oborne that Ken Clarke can probably do it. He’s non-confrontational, he appeals to the man with his elbows of the pub bar, he comes across to women as a genial man who is competent. Once in office, not being a driven messianic like Blair, Clarke could be held back because he would appoint a real cabinet.

    I would prefer David Davies or Liam Fox, but that is not going to happen just yet. I believe Ken Clarke can punch Tony Blair out of the ring, and that is what counts just now.

  • Robert Alderson

    I’ve toyed with the idea of voting for the libdems on the basis that they are the only party to contemplate ending the war on drugs, they favour PR which is probably the best hope for advancing truly libertarian ideas and they have soundish attitudes to civil liberties. But then I looked at the type of candidates that they field. They’re all librarians, secondary school social studies teachers, real ale fanatics and assorted beardy weirdies. You would have to very try hard to find a bigger bunch of state worshipping, mercantilist, producer-centric hacks. The town council of where I lived in England before I left had about 6 Libdems and just 1 Tory, the Libdems all seemed to have jobs in the library or the tourist information office and our town was twinned with about six other towns around the world … need I say more?

    I haven’t been able to find the relevant statistics but I believe that under Ken Clarke’s chancellorship the state’s total share of GDP dipped down to the lowest level for a long time. Verity made the very wise point on another thread that Clarke is basically too lazy to set off spending large amounts of money and increasing the scope of the state. At any rate he’s a better bet than Gordon Brown by a mile…. unless you believe in Tim S’s conjecture that a disastrous Brown government might pave the way for a truly radical opposition.

    Replying to the other Tim, I don’t think that the voting rules have been agreed so the answer is that nobody knows whether it is too late to join and have a vote.

  • Voting for Clarke would increase the chances of people of a vaguely libertarian bent getting into power

    You have got to be kidding. Ken Clarke is as statist as Hezaltine and actually wants to lock in the statist underpinnings at a European level. That people can be fooled by that old goat is exactly why I have long argued that the Tory Party needs to die and die ingloriously and quickly. We will never get a serious opposition when someone who is really just an undead Heath (the worst PM since Chamberlain) can even get a serious shot at running the Stupid Party.

    I would vote UKIP (the least-worst option) or even LibDem (just as a spoiler) before I would even dream of voting Tory whilst Clarke or Howard is a member of it, let alone running it.

  • Verity

    Robert Alderson – Don’t you understand? It is not about taxes and GNP. It is about keeping our country. Rome is burning, chaps.

  • Sandy P

    OT: You guys are doomed. Get over the history and animosity and petition to become a territory. Via Bros. Judd:

    From the Times:

    Europe wins the power to jail British citizens
    By Anthony Browne, Brussels Correspondent

    BRUSSELS has been given the power to compel British courts to fine or imprison people for breaking EU laws, even if the Government and Parliament are opposed.

    An unprecedented ruling yesterday by the supreme court in Europe gives Brussels the power to introduce harmonised criminal law across the EU, creating for the first time a body of European criminal law that all member states must adopt. The judgment by the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg was bitterly fought by 11 EU governments, including Britain, and marks a dramatic transfer of power from national capitals to Brussels…..

  • htjyang

    There’s no point in getting the Tories back in power if the best they can offer is a clone of Edward Heath.

    Remember that Thatcher was known as “Thatcher Milk Snatcher” even before 1979. Image can change.

    For anyone who wants Britain to move away from the statist path the Labour Party has set, it is vital to support one of Kenneth Clarke’s opponent.

  • Robert Alderson

    Verity – I presume when you write about “keeping our country” you are talking about the European Union. If you’re talking about something else feel free to ignore my post….

    I just can’t get very worked up about by the EU. From the point of view of economics there is a clear tendency to go the wrong way in terms of favouring interventionism and regulation but, on the other hand, and as I pointed out in another thread, the EU has been less protectionist than the US of late.

    The EU has and is doing something to further a common market and free trade within the union thereby increasing the prosperity of Europe as a whole – a very good thing for Britain because so much of our trade is with the EU (always has been always will be due to proximity.) The French would never have set about privatizing their utilities without the EU.

    That being said I would, on balance, leave the EU on the basis of its wrong headed economics alone. However, the EU is about more than just economics. There is a political and security dimension. Don’t get me wrong I’m not talking about the Chirac vision of a multipolar world. It’s just that there are quite a lot of plausible threats to Europe as a whole against which the US may not be willing or able to save Europe’s bacon (again.) How about an aggressive nuclear armed Belarus, large scale fundamentalist subversion within the EU, a new Balkans crisis, chaos in North Africa? All these things demand not a European army but simply a way in whcih European governments can talk and plan about their security concerns on a regular and structured basis.

    The rules have changed since the Berlin wall came down and the EU expanded. If we were still talking about a Europe of 12 run by someone as dangerous and effective as Delors then my emotions would be running much hotter. Britain is no longer in such a minority; the domination of the EU by a Paris-Berlin axis is history. It is a good thing that there has been no real agreement on new structures to run Europe. The sclerotic old ones will stop any agreement on new grands projets.

    There are plenty of things about the EU that are worthy of destruction. If we were to talk about specifics I would go along with declaring UK law to be superior to EU law; unilaterally leaving the Common Fisheries or Agriculture policies and probably a few other specific actions. What I couldn’t go along with was the idea of a total rejection of Europe. We should not be so naive as to think that pulling out of the EU would really leave the free trade agreements intact and not weaken NATO (probably to breaking point.)

    There is at least a generation or two of Europe building left to be done; before Europe reaches a settled form in terms of extent and structures. I want Britain to be in there obstreperously fighting its corner, opting out of the things it doesn’t like, forging bilateral alliances on specific topics, generally playing hardball and shooting down off the wall ideas for a superstate.

    If we reject Europe we will not be led inexorably into conflict with the rest of Europe. But, we will see Europe develop into a less free, less capitalist, more protectionist, napoleonic bloc with something of a chip on its shoulder about the UK. We would have failed in the constant goal of British foreign policy of preventing the emergence of a European alliance which excludes Britain.

    Sure, Britain alone could foster broader international links. We might even get into NAFTA but there is more money to be made by staying part of Europe. And money, GDP, tax rates are what matter to me.

  • guy herbert

    I really don’t like Clarke’s policies (though like many people, I do like him), but Perry, to claim his is the same as Blair is absurd.

    If I thought he was a winner, I would indeed hold my nose and vote Clarke. But I don’t. Just being popular in the coutry is not enough. The Tories need someone fresh for the public, someone about whom a general loathing of the Blair régime, should it ever surface, can create a new image and a new hope.

    What’s difficult for all of us to accept is that Blairite authoritarian populism is popular, whatever the people think of Blair himself. This, combined with the heavy bias of the current electoral system in Labour’s favour, means a bit of a swing against him is not enough. The whole New Labour edifice needs to be popularly despised and ridiculed, and that probably requires a severe economic collapse.

    No leader the Tories choose can win now, but the axes of politics may begin to shift and someone who can cope with that and be on the right side when the shift comes is what’s needed.

    Davis is the man. He’s a good strategist, is not a reflex enemy of liberty, and cannot be readily charicatured by the left as a toff or corporate fatcat. Though I doubt the opportunity may come in his tenure, at least he will be capable of taking it if it does come.

  • guy herbert

    Remember that Thatcher was known as “Thatcher Milk Snatcher” even before 1979. Image can change.

    Indeed. And public memory is flexible.

    I met someone recently who wasn’t born when Thatcher was Secretary of State for Education, but had somehow got it into his head that the milk was snatched away from him in the 80s under Prime Minister Thatcher.

  • guy herbert

    The other thing about that is that it is still regarded as a sin by MT, despite the fact that school milk as it was in my day would these days be banned as:

    (1) biologically dangerous because unhygenically distributed;
    (2) a health ans safety risk: glass bottles with loose tops among primary children, the children using scissors to pierce the tops–someone would be prosecuted immediately;
    (3) fatty, too easy to enjoy and over-indulge in, unhelpful in relation to the healthy-eating agenda; and
    (4) discriminatory, since children from some ethnic minorities, may lack the relevant enzymes to digest cow’s milk.

  • Julian Taylor

    Verity wrote

    I would prefer David Davies or Liam Fox, but that is not going to happen just yet. I believe Ken Clarke can punch Tony Blair out of the ring, and that is what counts just now.

    Fox would probably ensure the complete and final collapse of the Conservative Party. This man is without doubt the very worse individual that could be put up for leadership, he is an extremely vain, arrogant and an intolerably conceited philanderer – far worse than anything Bill Clinton ever aspired to. And these are just the printable insults that I can levy against this odious man.

    Ken Clarke, like Rifkind, Fox and a number of other Tory relics from the last Conservative government, still exists in some limbo state where nothing has occurred since the 1997 election fiasco. These people are stuck in some bizarre scenario where they almost believe that they are still in charge of the UK and that the fact that Labour is in control is just a minor bad dream that they will soon awaken from. The only way to get the Conservative Party back up and running would be the gutting of the majority of the old John Major cabinet from the front benches and the election of David Davis, or anyone else who doesn’t believe that the world stopped in May 1997, as leader.

  • John K

    I hated school milk. It was always kept in crates in the playground and was warm by break time. I used to hide in the toilets rather than be issued with my third of a pint. Seems I’ve never been a conformist.

  • John K

    There are plenty of things about the EU that are worthy of destruction. If we were to talk about specifics I would go along with declaring UK law to be superior to EU law; unilaterally leaving the Common Fisheries or Agriculture policies and probably a few other specific actions. What I couldn’t go along with was the idea of a total rejection of Europe

    Don’t you realise that membership of the EU is not a pick & mix? You have to sign up to the whole deal. I agree with you about the above points, but I also understand that what you have just written amounts to a rejection of EU membership. Personally, I’d get on with it.

  • If like Perry you hate the Tories than its irrelevant to you who leads them to a large degree.

    If you prefer regime change, in so much that you would rather see a government that professes to desire to cut tax rather than a government that enjoys raising taxes…

  • John K

    Fox would probably ensure the complete and final collapse of the Conservative Party. This man is without doubt the very worse individual that could be put up for leadership, he is an extremely vain, arrogant and an intolerably conceited philanderer – far worse than anything Bill Clinton ever aspired to. And these are just the printable insults that I can levy against this odious man.

    Is he? I didn’t know he was a swordsman. Surely he is not so naive as to think this would not become an issue if true? I hope that fewer of his friends and cronies have ended up mysteriously dead than Klinton’s. Being a friend of Bill was more dangerous than patrolling Baghdad in your underpants.

    I agree with your points about Rifkind and Clarke. A complete pair of has beens, and in the case of Rifkind, a borderline never was. KC may have a sort of beery blokishness, but how could you trust a man who boasted that he had not read the Maastricht Treaty? He’s a convinced pro-EU man. His mindset on the “Common Market” seems stuck in 1975, when pretty girls wore tight t-shirts emblazoned with “Europe or bust”, and Britain was rapidly going down the plughole. I could never, ever vote for him.

    Dr Fox? Who he?

    Just seems to leave David Davis for the poisoned chalice.

  • simon

    The first problem is to get rid of New Labour. Then we (conservatives) can worry if we’ve picked the best leader or not. As New Labour have shown, the leader is just an acceptable figurehead to present to the people, and can spout any old rubbish to keep people quiet while the administration goes about its real business.

  • WJ Phillips

    Perry de Havilland hates Ken Clarke because he’s no stooge of Bush or Sharon.

    Perry thinks most British politicians are useless. They’re soft on guns (not enough) and hard drugs (too expensive); they don’t send enough British forces to help the worldwide wars of liberation fought by our glorious ally…

    And they do silly things like getting elected and passing laws, when they could be striking mighty blows for “freedom” by drinking cheap wine, photographing each other pulling faces in the back garden and banning Dr de la Vega for daring to contradict the consensus among Bombers for Libertarianism!

  • I banned Dr. Vic for posting under multiple names, so get your facts straight.

    No, Ken Clarke is no stooge for Bush, he is a stooge for Brussels. And since when did I ever suggest anyone support Sharon? I think your personal obsessions with anything Jewish is colouring your thinking.

    And we tend to drink rather expensive wine, actually, but then how would you know as we do not invite fascist racists to our parties.

  • KevinR

    I’m glad to see that Peter Oborne has mastered the conventions of the BBC/Al-Grauniad Style Manual, whereby a political party which moves to the left is said to have “shifted” there, but one that moves to the right is said to have “lurched” there.

    An argument often put forward for having a centrist for party leader is that you need to pick up the swing votes. The hard core party faithful have nowhere else to go anyway, so they will have to vote for the centrist, even if they have to hold their noses when doing so.

    But in this case they do have somewhere else to go, namely UKIP. Of course UKIP stands virtually no chance of picking up a single parliamentary seat, let alone forming a government.

    But at the recent election there were I think 20-30 seats where the UKIP vote exceeded the margin of Conservative loss. And this was with a eurosceptic of sorts (though prabably fake) at the helm. With a Clarke leadership this haemorrhaging of eurosceptic support would surely be much increased.

    And the BBC et-al may be takinging up Clarke now (nice bloke, likes jazz and a pint etc etc) but once he was elected leader they would soon change their tune (too old at 70, tobacco comany interests, exporter of lung cancer to the third world etc etc).

  • Tim Sturm

    I’m an ‘incrementalist libertarian’

    If you are an incrementalist libertarian then you should be looking for incremental ideological gains, not incremental political gains.

    Political gains without ideological backing will never be more than temporary.

  • HJHJ

    I am undecided about this.

    Ken Clarke would not be my choice policy or outlook-wise. However he has his good points, is popular with the general public and would set about Gordon Brown, exposing his economic incompetence, in contrast with the ridiculous deference shown to him by many tories. It is quite possible that he would be the opposition leader most likely to defeat Labour.

    But the second question is how he would be in govenment. Would he exhibit his more statist tendencies with little move away from Blairism or would he realise that much more radical change is necessary and appoint more radical ministers who would tear into the public sector and cut taxes? Would he appoint ministers who espouse localism instead of centralism? And so on. I think that there is a reasonable chance that he would be an elder statesman-type jovial and friendly type PM who could sell a radical agenda as unfrightening, indeed necessary, and appoint the people to implement it.

    I don’t know. But this is why I’m not implacably against Clarke even though he would not naturally be my choice.

  • GCooper

    I remain completely baffled by the spectacle of otherwise seemingly intelligent people falling for the ‘public recognition and approval’ nonsense being peddled by the BBC and other Clarkeites.

    It is, of course, a complete non sequitur . Who the hell had heard of Tony Blair before he was elevated to the throne? Or Margaret Thatcher, come to that?

    There is just one question that needs to be asked by an interviewer: ‘So, by your decision to take Britain into the EU, you would have wrecked the economy, Mr Clarke. What does that have to say about the quality of your judgement, should you be elected to office once again?’.

    It is, of course, never going to be asked by those who share his idiotic opinions.

    The entire argument in favour of Clarke is being dictated by two types. The first comprises those with a desperate yearning for power, who believe they are born to govern. Like Macmillan, they have not a speck of belief or ideology in their entire bodies, so couldn’t care less who leads them as long as they win.

    The second type are fifth columnists – CINOS, if you prefer – like that insufferable traitor, Chris Patten.

    If David Davis doesn’t get the Tory leadership, I shall not only continue voting UKIP, I’ll join the bloody party and donate money.

    Given the choice between saving a Clarke supporter or a Blairite from falling under the wheels of a bus, I’d let them both perish, there being little to choose between either.

  • GCooper

    By ‘EU’ I meant ‘Euro’ in the post above. I know it’s obvious, but pedantry abounds.

  • Old Jack Tar

    GCooper, amen to your entire comment! It is a testiment to the credulity of people that Clarke is seen as an alternative to Blair.

  • Johnathan

    I have actually met Clarke a couple of times and he is a nice person on the conversational level, but I would not trust him an inch. Although admirably un-PC in his health habits, his obeisance to Brussels, arrogance, and assumption that nothing much changed since 1997 makes him unfit for the job.

    The Tories need someone who realises how much has changed since 1997 and can confront the authortarianism and destruction of civil society by Blair and what Verity has rightly called his Gramiscian agenda.

    As for Peter Oborne, I intensely dislike his brand of conservatism, which amounts to a sort of little Englander routine coupled with reflexive and snobbish anti-Americanism.

  • The Last Toryboy

    Ken Clarke would be a disaster, if only for his views on Europe. To be honest I’d rather have Gordon Brown who at least seems to be a realist on Europe.

    Verity is wrong. Clarke is just as messianic is Blair is, and while Blair may make a mess of things at least we, Britain, will get to fix them in the end. If Clarke has his way Britain won’t even get the chance, we’ll the be the State of Seracia in the EUSSR.

  • The Last Toryboy

    And incidentally, in a slight topic shift, that issue of the Spectator – dear god. That publication has really gone downhill lately.

  • Verity

    Robert Alderson – Anyone who has ever read one of my posts knows that when I talk about “our country”, I am talking about Great Britain. (Not the politically correct “UK”, and I don’t know where you got the notion that the EU is a country.) I loathe the EUSSR and the socialist, levelling out, internationale it stands for and it is dying on its feet. You say, “Sure, Britain alone could foster broader international links” That’s what we’ve been doing for 400 years and it seems to be working out OK. The EU’s finished. Can’t you recognise a corpse when you see one?

    Johnathan – that phrase “little Englander” is an ancient insult resurrected for their own purposes by ZaNu-Lab. This was from the 20s and 30s when the vast majority of people had never been out of the UK and didn’t want to go. Today, if you know of a single person, including the unemployed, who doesn’t take holiday breaks in Europe, Florida and Thailand, I would be astounded. The phrase has no resonance today except as a fascist construct of Za-NuLab to be flung at people who want out of the EU.

    I broadly agree with HJHJ. I would add that Ken Clarke is too lazy to push any agendas with much vigour, and I really don’t think he feels deeply about anything anyway. I think he’d be quite happy to go along with Cabinet decisions. (At least he’s not a control freak.) All I care about is getting rid of Blair, the way I feel about getting rid of a giant cockroach in the kitchen. Whatever it takes, work with it for four years and see who to put in next once the Tories have developed a national presence again. I think Clarke could show Blair up for the ridiculous little puppet he is. I don’t really care for him, but I think he might be able to get rid of Tony Blair and that is all I care about. The rest, we deal with as it comes.

  • John Thomas

    Perry said
    I banned Dr. Vic for posting under multiple names, so get your facts straight

    Well the man seem to have amended his way of blogging and should have been forgiven for his past/minor misdeeds

    “No, Ken Clarke is no stooge for Bush, he is a stooge for Brussels”

    You sound like one of these paranoid Neocon and/or UKIP activists who accuse Jacques Chirac, Korfi Annan and the “Trilateral” commission of having secret plans to impose “world government” on “freedom-loving nations“!

    Back in the Halcyon Eurutopian days of Chief Commissioner Jacques Delors, Rev. Pat Robertson compared the emergence of a “twelve member beast” to the expected arrival of satanic monsters that would mark the beginning of the Apocalypse…

  • Julian Taylor

    Johnathan,

    So have I. KC is charming, witty and a damn good BAT ambassador. Unfortunately that is as far as it goes – he certainly should not be allowed near the leadership of the Conservative Party.

    John K

    Liam Fox’s apparent inability to keep his hands off any woman in his immediate vicinity would certainly cause a problem. I would hazard a guess that the only reason he is standing is to possibly just deflect sufficient votes (6 so far?) in order to guarantee his future as Party Chairman under any new leader.

  • Robert Alderson

    I hold no particular brief for the European Union, if you took my words to mean that the EU was a country then I was not sufficiently clear in my writing – it is not a country.

    The EU in terms of the Delors – Mitterand – Kohl vision is dead. Something new and more beneficial for Britain will steadily emerge, over a couple of generations, as long as the UK spurns a rejectionist / isolationist stance and stays basically participatory. If we were to simply leave, our relations with Europe would somewhat resemble the Republic of Irelands’s relationship with the UK throughout most of the mid 20th century. Not hostile, open borders but no serious contructive engagement and all of the mundane decisions like product standards de facto imposed on us by the economically more potent block next door.

    As to the point that the EU is not pick and mix. I suppose that this is true of the EU itself but in the broader sense of all European relations there is a great deal of pick and mix; Shengen agreement, the Euro, NATO, Council of Europe, EFTA, Eurovision, European Space Agency, military co-operation etc.

  • There is no question to which Clarke is the answer. He is sound on nothing and will do a wonderful job at destroying what is left of the Tory Party. He might win the leadership but he will be leader of memberless party.

    Clarke is a bloke I would love to go to a jazz club with for cigars and a few jars of ale. I, however, think he would be a horrible Tory leader and terrible PM.

    Politically he is sound on nothing…

  • John Thomas

    The real reason for the Tories’ continued weakness is that Tony Blair and his gang of “New Labour” crooks invaded and annexed (most of) the ideological turf of right-wing Thatcherites and other kinds of pseudo-British Neocon parrots.

    Only a few non-Thatcherite old school conservatives such as Ken Clarke and Michael Portillo were clairvoyant enough to understand early on the totalitarian ideological roots of “New Labour” and were truly willing to fight against that terrible threat.

  • John Thomas, as you probably are Doc Vic under yet another pseudonym, forgive me if I am unconvinced.

    But unlike wacko conspiracy theories, Ken Clarke’s views on Europe are hardly a secret known only to the Rupert Murdock and the Mont Pelarin Society.

  • John Thomas

    The real reason for the Tories’ continued weakness is that Tony Blair and his gang of “New Labour” crooks invaded and annexed (most of) the ideological turf of right-wing Thatcherites and other kinds of pseudo-British Neocon parrots posing as “Libertarians” whatever that means…

    Only a few non-Thatcherite old school conservatives such as Ken Clarke and Michael Portillo were clairvoyant enough to understand early on the totalitarian ideological roots of “New Labour” and were truly willing to fight against that terrible threat.

  • GCooper

    John Thomas writes:

    “You sound like one of these paranoid Neocon and/or UKIP activists..”

    You are Matt Frei and I claim my ‘spot the parrot’ prize of £5.

    Don’t you just love people who use words like ‘Neocon and UKIP’ in the same sentence simply because they read it in the Grauniad or heard it on Newsnight?

  • Verity

    The Last Toryboy – This is a serious, i.e., non-sarcastic, question: Do you think Clarke has the energy to push the EU project through? I don’t. Now, I am not saying he might not let some thing slip through by default, but if the Tories had a majority, he could be controlled.

    Blair is uncontrollable. Do you think we can fix Islamofascism, now being encouraged by Blair as a means of appeasement? To me, the most urgent thing is shovelling Blair and the slithy toves around his ankles out of Downing St.

    I absolutely agree with you about The Speccie. I read everything I wanted to read in five minutes. What a bore.

  • The Last Toryboy

    I have no idea, Verity, but I don’t think it’ll be pretty to watch him try. I do think he will try at least. IDS may have done little but he did manage to put the Europe issue to bed in the Tory ranks more or less, Ken Clarke would open up that can of worms all over again and probably completely shatter the party.

    Islamofascism doesn’t bother me as much as the EU does, the EU is closer to achieving their goal of a loving grip on my life than the resident jihadis are it seems to me. Hell, they are almost there, as Perry’s post just above this one makes clear.

  • Chris Goodman

    What the Tory Party requires is intelligence and backbone – something which is only rarely evident in its Members of Parliament (who are by definition professional politicians who aspire only to drift with the tide while sucking on the public teat).

    In this context backbone means standing up against the parasites, time servers, and nutjobs that inevitably inhabit public life – upholding the supremacy of British Law, reducing the burden of taxation, and seeking to put in place radical reformsthat return power to users rather than producers within the Public Services, would be a good start.

    Does anybody seriously believe that the sort of BBC types who read El Gruniad will not scream blue murder at the merest hint of a threat to their tax funded existence?

  • Michael Taylor

    GCooper,

    Like you, I have grave reservations about Chris Patton’s politics. However, for you to call him a traitor is appalling. During his time as Hong Kong governor he “did the right thing” despite the sort of sustained pressure from China the like of which I doubt any western politician has had to face since WW2. (And, oh yes, China’s campaign co-opted a number of British Establishment figures only too keen to stab him in the back – they know who they are. . . . ) Whatever views he may now hold, those who were there know him to be an exceptionally tough and brave politician, who fought under dreadful circumstances, to advance liberty. You should reconsider your insult.

  • Verity

    Michael Taylor – However he tried to advance the cause of freedom in Hong Kong, Patten is an apologist for the EU, which means he favours Britain giving up its sovereignty in favour of being ruled by Brussels as part of a meaningless, spiritless, pointless superstate. That doesn’t fit my definition of patriot. I call that perfidious.

  • John East

    Verity is making a good point. The EU is probably a non-issue. Even if Clarke wanted to embroil us further into Europe I don’t think the party would let him. The EU is on the wane, here, in “old” Europe.

    My personal preference for PM after the next general election would probably be David Davis, but I’m still far from convinced he’s acceptable to the people who really count, floating/swing voters. Perhaps a few years in a Clarke cabinet might do wonders for his profile with the electorate.

    I’m surprised that all right wing blogs I’ve seen, including this one, seem so impatient that they willing to risk all to see Davis enthroned immediately. By being more pragmatic, a future Davis premiership will be far more likely by using Clarke as a caretaker PM.

  • Verity

    John East – I agree with you. Clarke has a recognisable personna and is generally regarded as a genial character. No meanness of spirit (whatever he hides, he hides it well) and people like that. We know he could savage Gordon Brown. And in any debate in which Blair took part, Blair would come across looking snippy, yappy and mean spirited in comparison with a relaxed, expansive Clarke.

    I have said before that I don’t like Clarke, but I think he could be controlled by his Cabinet and Conservative MPs. But I think he could possibly win the election for the Conservatives and he would be – to my mind – an acceptable interim prime minister while David Davis was developing a much more defined profile and gaining experience in government.

    When the next election rolled by, Davis would be high profile, tested, seasoned in government, important looking and have a public personna that people would recognise.

  • The Last Toryboy

    Alright, i think I’ll concede that one John East.

    But, ugh. Ken Clarke. He makes me itch. I’d have a real problem voting for the blue torch with him as leader. I suppose I’ll bite my tongue though.

    I want Davis too.

  • GCooper

    Michael Taylor writes:

    “You should reconsider your insult. ”

    You’re right. I have reconsidered my insult.

    Make it “bloody traitor”.

    Chris Patten (note spelling) is a Europhile of the very worst, patrician kind. He epitomises all that is most disgusting about the quisling Conservative Party.

  • Verity

    Chris Patten is out of the same mould as Douglas Hurd – another patrician who loftily knows better than the little people what would be good for them.

  • Chris Goodman

    What is required is somebody capable of steering the United Kingdom (or if need be England) through the, for wont of a better expression, second generation of the Thatcherite Revolution i.e. dismantling Socialism.

    This is a tall order. Both Major and Blair have tried and (for different reasons) failed to achieve this reform; despite the fact all but the morally and intellectually weak-minded have long recognised its desirability.

    In the Second World War the country needed a leader who cared about the future of the United Kingdom sufficiently to confront the reality of the problems they faced head on, and the same applies to the period following that nadir of good government the Heath/Wilson years.

    On both these occasions the Tories came up with people who could do the job, but both were widely disliked by the higher echelons of the Party.

    I have no idea whether David Davis has the required qualities to enact these reforms, but the notion that either Kenneth Clarke or Malcolm Rifkind is the answer is laughable. If you want to win an election you need to put people capable of recognising what is wrong. Both of these figures are part of the problem not part of the solution.

    What is required above all is moral and intellectual clarity, from a leader with the guts to take the side of the people against the morally corrupt Leftist establishment.

  • Verity

    Chris Goodman, who must be young, says,”What is required above all is moral and intellectual clarity, from a leader with the guts to take the side of the people..”.

    No. First they have to win an election, which means getting the backing of people who think this individual can lead them to victory. Tony Blair does not possess “moral and intellectual clarity” by any measure – in fact, the opposite. He probably can’t even spell “moral” – but his party bet on him being able to win an election.

    That’s what’s needed. Someone who can win the reality TV watchers over. Tone Bliar and his people carrier or whatever it was called, talking fake Estuary convinced people that one of their own was in control. “Educayshun, educayshun, educayshun”, social justice, elimination of poverty, fair trade coffee, who knows, but he was, and is, a shill for NuLab. That’s all. He got them in.

    I believe Ken Clarke has the same popular appeal and doesn’t have the record of ineptitude and failure as Blair’s micro-fiddly administration. Clarke comes across as older, wiser, more relaxed, experienced in office and good-natured as opposed to messianic and yappy.

    I think people are sick to death of the hyperactive Blair and all the little 70s student union presidents in his cabinet and constant interference in areas where he has no business (Glenn Hoddle should be sacked for believing in reincarnation, for one) and someone who is a deputy chairman of BAT and says he didn’t get into politics “to try to control people’s lifestyles” might have just that appeal.

    Other aspirants may have better points to make, but right now, the Tories need someone who can capture the popular sense of “he’s one of us” and I believe Clarke can do that.

    I want Derek Davis to have his turn, but I do not think he has a broad enough base to win an election against the fascist Za-NuLab machine with its millions in illegal contributions. I think Ken Clarke stands a chance to win this next election. That’s all I care about. Blair and his manager Chere out of Downing St.

  • guy herbert

    Chris Goodman: Both Major and Blair have tried and (for different reasons) failed to achieve this reform; despite the fact all but the morally and intellectually weak-minded have long recognised its desirability. despite the fact all but the morally and intellectually weak-minded have long recognised its desirability.

    Either you deceive yourself, or you are using the rhetoric of Bolshevism to discount the views of everyone who disagrees with you as “weak-minded”. Collectivism and the managerial state in its various forms has plenty of supporters, Blair and Major–and Thatcher–among them. A lot of the more powerful ones have a steel of mind and will that it is hard for any advocate of liberty to compete with.

    They may be wrong, they may occasionally be inadvertently driving forward the statist agenda while trying to rein it in (Thatcher) but they are not weak. Why do you think they are winning?

  • rosignol

    I just can’t get very worked up about by the EU. From the point of view of economics there is a clear tendency to go the wrong way in terms of favouring interventionism and regulation but, on the other hand, and as I pointed out in another thread, the EU has been less protectionist than the US of late.

    http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050915/NEWS06/509150301

    […]

    And the greatest obstacles to achieving these goals are the tariffs and subsidies and barriers that isolate people of developing nations from the great opportunities of the 21st century. Today, I reiterate the challenge I have made before: We must work together in the Doha negotiations to eliminate agricultural subsidies that distort trade and stunt development, and to eliminate tariffs and other barriers to open markets for farmers around the world. Today I broaden the challenge by making this pledge: The United States is ready to eliminate all tariffs, subsidies and other barriers to free flow of goods and services as other nations do the same. This is key to overcoming poverty in the world’s poorest nations. It’s essential we promote prosperity and opportunity for all nations.

    […]

    -President G. W. Bush.

    You were saying. 😉

  • John Thomas

    Comment deleted: I am pretty much convinced that you are the idiotic Dr. Vic using yet another pseudonym

  • Robert Alderson

    If GW was a convinced free trader then he would be eager to let the US population benefit from tariff free imports from the rest of the world without waiting for the rest of the world to scrap their tariffs.

    There is no economic reason to wait. GW hasn’t grasped that and neither has the EU.

  • rosignol

    It’s not about economics, it’s politics. GWB doesn’t have the political capital to discard those subsidies and tariffs without something to show for getting rid of them.

    He probably doesn’t expect the EU to take him up on it… but at least he’s called their bluff.

  • Chris Goodman

    Verity [who I imagine to be middle-aged and menopausal, but is that relevant?] who only yesterday it seems was gushing over Robert Kilroy-Silk, suggests that Kenneth Clarke would be a good leader of the Conservative Party.

    This is not because she believes in his ideas, or has any faith in him as a politician [lazy old hack who is less dangerous than Brown seems to be the gist of the argument] but because she believes that he is most likely to win a General Election.

    I appreciate that subtlety is not your forte Verity but the argument, for what it is worth, is that if you want to get people to switch their vote to the Conservative Party you will most effectively achieve this not by putting forward leadership candidates whose views you despise, but by supporting somebody who is capable of articulating and implementing a persuasive moral vision of the future direction of the country.

    Verity if I may say so, quite rightly points out that Blair is hardly known for his intellectual or moral clarity, and yet has won three elections in a row. I believe however that it precisely because of his cynical legacy of empty rhetoric that a principled opposition that seeks to supply and defend a coherent moral vision has most to gain.

    The moral vision that I find persuasive upholds the objectivity of standards while recognising the limits of central control – for example in a free society education [however it is funded] should not be directed by governments.

    Guy Herbert, from its beginnings there were critics who pointed out that collectivism [or ‘socialism’ as I would put it] would be a disaster, but it was possible for intelligent people [however deluded] to advocate it on the grounds that it had never been tested.

    Well those days have long past. Every permutation of collectivism has been applied, and found wanting. If you are an advocate of collectivism these days you are rightly perceived to be either dim or insincere.

    This is not of course to say that there is no room for vigorous debate about what ought to be the limits of government control – if you want intelligent reflection on these issues from the Left see for example the wrirtings of Stephen Pollard. I do believe however that there are entrenched interests who would rather that debate does not take place.

    You can call the argument that they do this out of self-interest Marxist if you like, but I believe that Marx is not the only person to have identified self-interest as a motivating force in human society.

  • Chris Goodman

    Not the ‘only’ motivating force I hasten to add! Indeed that is the crux of my argument. We have to be persuaded by a moral vision.

  • Ken Clarke would achieve nothing for the Conservative Party for one simple reason. In order to win we need to rebuild the party.

    We need a leader who can motivate people to want to join and make a difference. That needs ideas, a vision, a little ideology.

    Clarke has the ability to motivate people to leave the party.

    As leader of the opposition it would be his job to challenge the government over further surrender to the EU, something that is very much continuing and is not yesterdays news. This is not something we can trust Clarke with.

    We need someone who can spell out a real alternative to Blair / Brown socialism. This is not Clarke.

    He may be capable of winning a few more seats (although UKIPs gains might wreck that ambition) but he is certainly not the man to get the Conservative party to believe in itself again.

  • Verity

    EU Serf – then who?

    Chris Goodman – I did, for a few days, think Kilroy-Silk might have a chance because I thought the average Labour voter would be stupid enough to vote for a TV personality and take votes away from Blair. This was ill-founded.

    You say: Every permutation of collectivism has been applied, and found wanting. If you are an advocate of collectivism these days you are rightly perceived to be either dim or insincere.

    But that is simply not true. All the sheep who vote for Labour are more than happy with collectivism; that’s why they keep voting for it. They like being taken care of. They like believing “the government should do something”. They like being given parenting classes by the government and having the state take care of their children for several extra hours a day (“Kelly Hours”). They like having nationalised health care and being “advised” on what to eat and what not to eat by the government. They quite like having Big Brother speed cameras monitoring motorists because they “might save a child’s life”. Most of them think “we need the UN”, for god’s sake. They think our fortunes depend on Europe.

    The problem is, although collectivism doesn’t work, large tranches of British voters, far from finding it wanting, think it works very nicely. They would just like more of it, that’s all.

    Chris Goodman, you are free to speculate about my age, as I am free to speculate about yours. But speculating about supposed physical conditions is beyond ridiculous. I can tell from your touchiness that you are a one-eyed Han dwarf.

  • Tim Stevens

    Tim Sturm:

    “If you are an incrementalist libertarian then you should be looking for incremental ideological gains, not incremental political gains.

    Political gains without ideological backing will never be more than temporary.”

    God, another Tim? And one whose surname begins with S? Looks like I’ll have to change my handle yet again.

    Tim, you’re right in a broad way. But in the very short term – 10 years or so – I think a Clarke victory, however ideologically opposed many of us here are to him (and I certainly am, and like many others prefer Davis), would at least shake Labour’s grip on power. Clarke would be unlikely to serve more than one term and once he’d got a few more voters on the Tories’ side a more freedom-orientated successor might then emerge. I’m a bit pessimistic about even this modest scenario, though. I predict: Davis will win; Brown will take over from Blair a year or so before the next election and play it safe so that he doesn’t put off the voters with too much nationalisation; and the Tories will claw back a handful of seats in 2009 but will still lose. Then Brown will go into socialist overdrive and will have knackered the country by the time of the 2014 poll.

  • HJHJ

    Verity (somewhat disconcertingly at first) seems to agree with some of my comments and is is quite nice to me these days so I feel that I should point out to Chris Goodman that making speculative personal comments about her is not relevant (as he knew) so he should not have made them. Perhaps an apology would be in order?

    Nevertheless, I do concur with his point that Verity’s views do tend to swing wildly and are prone to huge exaggeration (no offence meant Verity – it’s my honest observation). Nevertheless, the case for Clarke should be taken at face value and despite disagreeing with him on points of principle it does not mean that he wouldn’t tolerate, or even yield to opposing views were he PM and therefore I wouldn’t discount him (although I’d prefer, all other things being equal someone with a clearer set of principles) . If I judged that he could win and other Tory leaders couldn’t, perhaps he would be my choice (as for those that point to his views on the EU – they’re not very different from Blair’s/Browns and if he’s the only Tory that could win, what are you proposing?) Clarke also certainly has his competences. For example, his record on the public finances was good – unlike the incompetent Brown.

    David Davis has not had a terribly high profile over the years, but if his reported views and principles are correctly reported, I think that he would be my choice. But I don’t know what sort of leader he would be (i.e. how he’d work with colleagues, etc.) and these factors can outweigh those of whether I not I agree with a politician in principle.

    I’m a bit confused about Chris Goodman’s view of Stephen Pollard. Pollard writes quite a lot of sense at times but has no logical consistency. He opposes practically every Labour policy and principal but claims that he always has and will always vote Labour because he didn’t like what he considered the Conservatices repressive policies on homosexuality in the 80s (policies which they no longer have). At the last election he claimed that he would support labour because of the overwhelming importance of Labour’s strong defence policy despite opposing practically everything else in their manifesto (whilst forgetting that they have cut defence spending and that the Conservatives’ policy was near identical, albeit with slightly higher spending).

    Now Pollard has written in a paper (which otherwise contains a lot of sense) that the Tories should both champion private provision of public services and choice of provider for all (albeit publically funded in many cases) whilst committing all their MPs only to use state-provided services. He contradicts himself in the same paper (which is available at the CPS web site, I believe)!

    If Stephen Pollard set out to confuse (himself?), he could hardly have done a better job.

  • Verity

    Yes, HJHJ it is disconcerting to be in agreement, but you have been writing some though-provoking and interesting posts. Chris Goodman’s comments were just silly – making personal comments about someone you’ve only encountered on a blog! – but thank you for coming to my defence, HJHJ.

    Actually my views are constant, although of course, like everyone here, I react to events and try to figure out how they could fit in. As with Kilroy-Silk – I thought there may be enough daytime TV viewers who would vote for him because he’s on the telly and this would bite into Labour, which is what I want. I was wrong about that. I do, though, think getting Blair out of the picture is the most important task, and whatever it takes…

    Like everyone else here, I don’t like Kenneth Clarke, but David Davis, who I do like, doesn’t have a track record in government and he doesn’t yet have enough of a public personna. I would rather see Clarke in – possibly as PM, with Davis in a high profile job – getting experience of being in government, being seen as being an effective, and developing a personality that people would come to know. He would have time to develop the gravitas that people expect in someone who is contending to be the leader of the government. He needs this.

    I agree with HJHJ that Clarke could probably be held back on Europe by Tory MPs and his cabinet. As HJHJ says: what is the alternative? Tony Blair, who is selling Britain down the river to Europe at a rate of knots and no one daring to say him nay. I’d rather have Ken Clarke who could be controlled and probably wouldn’t stick around for more than one term, and get Davis in next, with experience under his belt.

    I think it is too early for David Davies, who I like, to run for PM. He has no record in government. To lose would be a negative for him that he would have to overcome in the next election. If I thought he could lead the party to victory, I would be for him this time round, but I think it is too early for him.

  • Verity

    PS – HJHJ, re Stephen Pollard. He didn’t always vote Labour. I believe he was a Conservative Party member and quit – probably for he reasons you cite. But he has not always voted Labour. Nevertheless he excoriates the government frequently, although he admires Tony Blair which, as far as I am concerned, renders his judgement on anything else political a little iffy.

  • HJHJ

    Verity,

    I have seen Stephen Pollard write that he has always voted Labour. But then Blair made that speech (to an EU audience) where he claimed to have always been passionately pro-EU, despite having personally (i.e. not just the party line) campaigned for withdrawal from the EU earlier in his career. This sort of mendacity is perhaps New Labour par for the course, so it would not surprise me if Pollard had made a different claim elsewhere (my apologies to him if this is not true).

    I must admit that I am warming to David Davis now, partly because David Willets has now come out in his support. I don’t always agree with David Willets, but in my opinion he is probably the most honest and thoughtful Tory MP around and someone whose views I would always listen to.

  • Michael Taylor

    Chris Patten,

    Look, there’s no doubt at all that he is woefully wrong about the EU. If you think that the EU can possibly succeed or even survive, then, yes, pour on the invective if you must. But since the EU is doomed, and the British Establishment’s embrace of it futile, Patten’s wrongheaded views on it won’t, in the end, matter much. Do we, for example, remember Churchill for his views on Gandhi?

    As for his “patrician” knowledge of what is best for us, once again, he’s pretty much guilty as charged. And that should certainly make us hostile to anyone like him leading the Tory party (which rules out K Clarke etc).

    So, his faults are very clear and obvious.

    But his strengths are less obvious. To repeat, he used his “lofty, patrician” position in HK to advance the cause of freedom against some of the toughest people in politics – viz, the Chinese Communist Party who were at the time in full post-Tiananmen crackdown. And there were plenty of (British)people at the time completely prepared to call him a traitor and a quisling at the time. His courage then to do the right thing for me outweighs his complete lack of judgement about Britain and Europe. My guess is that in 50 yrs time, Patten’s enthusiasm for the EU will be forgotten by an independent Britain, whilst his enthusiasm for democracy will be remembered, finally, in China.

    For anyone interested in freedom, he is a standing contradiction. If you think the future of the EU is more important than the future of China, then feel free to damn him. I think in the end he will turn out to have played a small but very brave part in bringing liberty to 1.3 billion+ Chinese. And that’s more important, in my honest opinion.

  • Verity

    Michael Taylor – He betrayed his own country. That’s all I need to know about Chris Patten.

  • Verity

    Julian Taylor – I agree. And Fat Pang had no leverage whatsoever, so why would anyone listen to him? Hong Kong was being returned on a certain date at midnight. The lease was up. End of story. He wasn’t in a position to lay down terms or negotiate terms or agree to terms. Or anything else.

    In fact, I got the impression they were only tolerating his acting out this role of a colonial governor and counting the days ’til they could see him off.

    And I will say something else about Hong Kong and Fat Pang. If he had ever been a real governor of Hong Kong – as in having real control as opposed to that final charade – rather than one of the first, genuine free port chaps, Hong Kong would never have become the rich, industrious place it is today. He is a socialist at heart and would have had levies and taxes and regulations imposed at the drop of a hat.

    It is the market that is bringing about the shoots of democracy in China. They’ve grasped that capitalism is aces. Absolutely nothing to do with Chris Patten (who is a socialist).

  • Julian Taylor

    (note: this comment by Julian reposted by Samizdata Admin after it was eaten by overzealous anti-spam system)

    I was in Macao just before the sell out …oops … surrender … damn … ‘hand back’ to the PRC of Hong Kong. I can recall a massive dartboard in one of the casinos with a blown up picture of Fat Pang (Chris Patten to the rest of us) and an invite to score a bullseye on his mouth – with a $50 reward per hit.

    I don’t think Patten played very much of a part in bringing ‘democracy’ to the Chinese at all. Their gradual acceptance of open trade with the West owes far more to commercial interest and necessity than it does to a tired old ex-MP, who was only granted the position because he lost his own seat and he just happened to be a great friend of the then Prime Minister. For anyone to suggest otherwise is just to massage Fat Pang’s already turgid ego.

  • Michael Taylor

    I can’t believe I’m weighing in again on Chris Patten’s behalf, because much of the criticism offered by Verity & Julian et al is unanswerable. As for “bringing democracy to China,” I don’t think even his “turgid ego (sic)” would claim that. I thought at the time, and still think, that if the fates are kind, he’d be damned by the Chinese for five years (dartboards etc), forgotten for fifty, and subsequently quietly rehabilitated as someone who helped them inch along the road. China has colossal problems of political legitimacy, and whilst I for one can’t imagine the sort of institutions which could make China a recognizable democracy (try building a representative democracy for 1.3 billion people), I’m pretty sure that an attempt in which there are steps in that direction would be better for all concerned than the obvious alternative – national socialism. And it’s in that context that Fat Pang may yet be rehabilitated.

    But there are two things I’m pretty certain about. First, so far as I know, he didn’t betray his country – he’s just another fatheaded politico swalling the Euro-nonsense. I think you should keep this invective for those who deserve it. (And you might want at this point to look at other British worthies who intervened to subvert Patten’s liberalising attempts during his in Hong Kong. No names, because those who (literally) took the Shanghai dollar and then used their influence with the British government to undermine Patten, are still around, very interested in how the history books treat them, and doubtless very litigious. But they know who they are, as does anyone who watched what was going on.)

    Second, the post-Tiananmen Chinese Communist Party is strange company for libertarian types to want to hang around with. Patten was loathed by them, and that’s a pretty good recommendation in my book.

  • Verity

    Michael Taylor – Patten had absolutely no leverage in Hong Kong and the Chinese did not appreciate his attempts to instruct them in how to run their colony. His posturing about as a grand panjarandum with the common touch must have been very irritating.

    My view at the time was, once we knew we weren’t going to be able to renew the lease/or had decided not to, we should have packed out bags and gone instead of hanging on until one minute to midnight on the last day. I found that leaving ceremony intensely embarrassing.

    I do not believe Chris Patten had a thing to teach the Chinese and I believe this view is shared by the Chinese. He embarrassed everyone by donning the appurtenances of a genuine governor.

    Re the EUSSR, he wanted to give away his country’s hard fought for sovereignty, a sovereignty we possess through the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands who went before us. That tells me all I need to know about Chris Patten. He is a traitor.

  • Michael Taylor

    OK Verity, one last go – and not just because I seem to enjoy being insulted by you.

    First, “Patten had absolutely no leverage in Hong Kong.” Correct. And actually, that’s part of the point. Right from the off, he was playing a hand he knew by definition he was bound to lose. His courage was to play it in such a way that some incremental gains were made.

    And gains were made. The Hong Kong democracy movement contains some real heroes – people who have risked life and limb for years in order to win incremental gains. I’m thinking about people like Emily Lau. These people have fought the fight for years, through some tough and dangerous times, and usually with no visible support. Patten’s obduracy – which you’re right, really did get up the noses of the Chinese – at the very least gave her some covering fire. Emily’s still doing her stuff, and last month, the Democrats were finally invited back to the mainland. And no, of course I’m not going to say that Patten’s responsible for it. But the British could easily have snuffed out dissent in the run-up to the handover, and been paid a good penny by the Chinese for doing it. Indeed, there were no shortages of Britons who’d have done the job. Patten’s obduracy, even if you believe it was solely motivated by vanity (as some allege), made sure that didn’t happen. This, Verity, is a Good Thing.

    Second, your view that once the game was up we should have left at the earliest possible opportunity. Yes, that would certainly have been more dignified. But recent history suggests such haste can have devastating consequences – think Mountbatten and partition for example. Once you’ve shot your bolt as an empire, you have one outstanding ethical responsibility, which is to unwind it as responsibly as you can. You stay and look a prat in the pouring rain at midnight, because that’s your job.

    Finally, Patten and the EU. Yes, totally inglorious and fat-headed and wrong. No arguments. I’m not sure it makes him a traitor though – it’s not quite the same as Philby, Maclean, Blunt, Lord Hawhaw etc, is it?

    Thomas A’Becket and Rome? Churchill proposing unity with France in 1939? Cromwell proposing unity with the Netherlands in the 1640s?

    Above all, be sure that the EU is such a disaster, such an outrage against common sense, that it is doomed to early failure. It’ll surely take more than a bunch of subsidy-swilling corrupt Belgian bureaucrats to conquer Britain.

  • HJHJ

    Verity,

    Quite apart from other considerations, it would not have been simple to suddenly leave Hong Kong when it was apparent that there would be no lease renewal. This is because, I believe, that the lease did not cover the main island of HK itself. Britain could legally have kept this in perpetuity. The point was that it was not viable on its own as the New Territories etc. (covered by the lease) comprised most of the land area and supplied all the essential utilities, without which HK island would have collapsed. So an accommodation needed to be reached to hand over the non-leased territories at the same time.

  • Verity

    Michael Taylor – Where to begin? First, I don’t believe I have insulted you. I disagree with you, but I believe I have made a fair fist of answering your arguments without being offensive.

    If a man wishes to hand over the sovereignty of his country to foreigners (who have failed to conquer Britain in any other way), yes, he is as bad as Philby, Blunt and crew. Chris Patten is an ignoble man.

    Emily Lau and the wonderful Michael Li were around for many, many years before Fat Pang favoured Hong Kong with his glorious presence. The work was done by them and their followers, not Patten.

    I take HJHJ’s point in the post below yours. However, I believe such negotiations are undertaken by the Foreign Office (or would it have been the Home Office?), not by one man who was held in contempt by the Chinese.

    In view of what HJHJ has said, they would have been better off putting a civil service administrator in to oversee these critical details. The last governor should have been the last real governor – the last one with any power. After that, it was an administrative job and there was no place for a politician calling himself Governor. It was all very badly managed.