Conservative Party

The Great Left Wing Race Card Scam

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

George Osborne with despatch box

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The cynical, virtue-signalling Left think nothing of abusing the term ‘racism’, using it as a blunt cudgel to bash right wing policies when reasoned debate is too much effort. In this hysterical universe, even the Chancellor’s Budget can be deemed ‘racist’

Just so we are all on the same page, here is the dictionary definition of racism:

  • the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.
  • prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior.

There’s not too much ambiguity here, it should be fairly simple to understand. But not for Varinder Singh, Left Foot Forward pundit and secretary to an unnamed Member of Parliament.

Singh is possessed of a racism detector whose needle jerks from “Just about OK” to “Ku Klux Klan” if affirmative action isn’t baked into absolutely every government policy working its way through parliament. And the latest target of his ire is George Osborne’s 2015 summer Budget, which he casually labels “racist” for failing to sufficiently patronise and condescend to Britain’s ethnic minorities.

In order to arrive at this surprising conclusion, Singh relies on a report by The Runnymede Trust, which deduced that ethnic minorities will be disproportionately worse off as a result of George Osborne’s fiscal tinkering. And then he changes the definition of the word “racism” to mean “policies that fail to actively promote my own personal agenda”.

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Where Is The Conservative Party’s Jeremy Corbyn?

Samuel Hooper24 Comments

 

Where is the Conservative Party’s Jeremy Corbyn? I don’t mean an ornery old relic from the 1970s with dubious facial hair – the Tories have plenty of those. But where is the charismatic Tory personality who – like Corbyn does for his supporters – makes their fellow conservatives walk a little taller?

Owen Jones is happy at the moment. Cheerfully, blissfully happy. Almost too happy for someone who only months ago felt trapped in a Thatcherite, “neo-liberal” dystopia ruled over by the faceless, unaccountable grey men of the Establishment. But what a difference a few months and a resounding election defeat makes. What a difference Jeremy Corbyn’s presence on the ballot makes.

Read or listen to Owen Jones now and the excitement is palpable. This is not Cleggmania revisited, where the former LibDem leader briefly surged in the 2010 general election campaign by simple virtue of sounding like a human being (in contrast to the wooden Gordon Brown and the plastic David Cameron).

Nick Clegg’s brief spell of popularity was based on style, on appearing like a decent bloke. But Jeremy Corbyn’s surge in the Labour leadership election is the product of style and content – of sounding authentic, but also refusing to draw from the same deck of centrist policies automatically adopted by nearly everyone else.

No wonder a generation of young people who came of age during the tyranny of Consensus Politics, when holding strong political beliefs and refusing to apologise for them mark a politician out as a heretic unfit for high office, are finally sitting up and taking notice.

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Our Long Term Economic Madness

Guest Contributor1 Comment

George Osborne - Budget 2015 - Long Term Economic Plan - Fiscal Conservatism - Balanced Budget

 

By Ben Kelly, blogger and editor of The Sceptic Isle.

In May, the Conservative Party portrayed the election as a choice between Tory competence and Labour chaos; Labour’s spending and borrowing compared to the Conservative “long term economic plan”. The electorate made their choice and the current government received a mandate to cut the budget deficit and fix the economy.

Britain is now purportedly on the path to economic sanity, but you can be forgiven for having some moments of doubt. In the year 2015, after nearly six years of “austerity”, we will still spend £70 billion over budget. Should we redefine what the word “austerity” means?

The economic madness really began when Gordon Brown and Ed Balls implemented their plans for a high tax, high spend, much enlarged state with a continental-style economy. As we know only too well, it grew completely out of control.

The current government has the opportunity to reshape the British state permanently, and when ideas are floated about “thinking the unthinkable” and slashing budgets by 40% there is a flicker of hope that they might grasp it with both hands. Sadly, there is too much evidence to the contrary to believe anything serious is really being done to end the public spending spree and return to a sensible, sustainable fiscal situation.

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Is Jeremy Corbyn The Cure For British Conservatism’s Centrist Virus?

Samuel Hooper10 Comments

Samuel Hooper Labour Party signup - Labour Leadership - Jeremy Corbyn - 2

 

First published at Conservatives for Liberty

Today, I took the plunge. I got out my debit card, opened my laptop, held my nose as I navigated to the Labour Party website – and then paid £3 to become an official Labour supporter, solely in order to advance the leadership candidacy of the MP for Islington North, Jeremy Corbyn.

No, I haven’t taken leave of my senses, and no, I haven’t had a miraculous conversion and become a Born Again Socialist – far from it. My earnest desire remains the same: to see British politics move in a far more libertarian, pro-individual freedom direction.

But I have come to the reluctant conclusion that the Conservative Party currently has no intention of governing in the pursuit of smaller government and a strong nation state, and that therefore the best way of advancing the cause I believe in is to act externally to force the Conservative Party to sharply change direction.

I stumped up my £3 not out of any desire to “consign Labour to electoral oblivion“, like the Telegraph’s Toby Young, or to cause low-level mischief of any kind at all. I vehemently disagree with most Labour Party policy, but the vast majority of members are good people and I bear them and their party no particular ill will. I have always wanted to see conservatism win, not see socialism lose.

I became a short-term Labour supporter today because I am putting my money where my mouth is, and seeking to reward success, steadfastness and political courage. And when it comes to steadfastness at least, Jeremy Corbyn has more of this quality in his little finger than the Conservative Party leadership possess in their entire bodies.

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2015: A Good Time To Be Eurosceptic

Samuel Hooper8 Comments

Europe - EU Flag - Brexit - Eurosceptic - Fading Flag

 

First published at Conservatives for Liberty

It’s hard to remember the last time it felt this good to be a Eurosceptic, to love Europe but abhor the mid-century anachronism that is the European Union.

Since the dying days of the Major government we eurosceptics have been on the back foot, forced to watch Britain sign the agreements and ratify the treaties which lashed us ever more tightly to the post-war dream of ever-closer union, totally incapable of mounting an effective defence. And when we did speak up, we have consistently been portrayed as cranks, obsessives (and far worse) by left-wing politicians, Conservative sympathisers and the media.

Aside from the recent morale boost courtesy of Nigel Farage and UKIP, it has often felt as though we eurosceptics were waging a lonely and futile battle against progress itself – that the inevitable world of 2115 would be organised into huge, supranational, protectionist trading blocs, with nation states stripped of power and relevance, and representative democracy having long since slipped down the crack between the two.

But not now, not in 2015. Not after Greece.

It should not have taken the immolation of a small, southern European country – sacrificed for the “greater good” of monetary union – for so many people to finally wake up and realise that the European Union does not mean them well, that the Eurogroup’s treatment of one recalcitrant member is the rule, not the exception.

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