A bit of fun…
Filed under: Blogging, Elections, General election, Gordon Brown, Politics | Tagged: Attack posters, Boom and bust, Campaigning, General election, Gordon Brown, GordON/GordOFF | 8 Comments »
Tower Block of Commons Episode 2
Posted on February 9, 2010 by toryrascal
Mark Oaten is, err, in da hood. (Image: C4)
Channel 4’s Tower Block of Commons makes for impressive, albeit painfully exploitative, viewing. You should, by now, know the premise – a bunch of archetypical, seemingly expense-addled MPs volunteer (with one notable exception) to spend a week living with people who endure grinding poverty. Channel 4 calls this a ’social experiment’. I’m not sure that’s strictly accurate, but it’s certainly good TV.
I grew up in similarly dirty and miserable conditions to those of some of the residents of the various estates. Thankfully, though, one excellent comprehensive school and a career in the Armed Forces turned out to be good escape routes; with those, my family’s descent into chaos was infinitely more bearable than it would have been had I lived on a run-down, drug-infested and largely forgotten council estate – and definitely more bearable than it would have been had the heroically offensive Austin Mitchell dropped by with his fragrant wife Linda, a bunch of friends and a hefty serving of Grimsby fish pie.
Mitchell, I’m afraid, isn’t faring too well. Whereas the other MPs – Nadine Dorries (who recounted her South Acton experiences on this very blog last year), former LibDem leadership hopeful Mark Oaten and shadow children’s minister Tim Loughton – are all living with poor families, Mitchell has refused to live with the residents, and manages to blunder from crass remark to crass remark in an incredible display of buffoonery and oafishness.
Harriet Harman was not best impressed by Mr Mitchell's "joke".
I don’t doubt for one moment that Mitchell is truly moved by the people he meets, but when he refuses even to try to live on Jobseeker’s Allowance for a week (“that’s silly,” he sagely observes), preferring to vanish for a delightful, pesto-soaked dinner party with his mates, you do have to remind yourself that this is a Labour MP. (That said, when he describes grocery shopping as ‘women’s work’ you could think his days under the Labour whip are numbered. It’s too easy to imagine Harriet Harman turning purple with rage at his outrageous chauvinism – perhaps with a single, engorged vein pulsating on her forehead with sheer feminist indignation.)
The other three MPs all fare better. Nadine – replacing Iain Duncan Smith (who left after his wife, Betsy, was diagnosed with cancer during filming) – seems to be getting on well with her host family, despite unintentionally offending them by producing £50 from her bra to buy gifts for the children (as she explains on her own blog). Mark Oaten and Tim Loughton are both attentive, sensitive and uncomfortably aware of how privileged they are – particularly in contrast to people like Oaten’s host, who spends a third of her disposable income on cigarettes (‘my only pleasure’, she explained – echoes there of John Reid).
So, are there any lessons? We all know how odd and out-of-favour many MPs are considered to be, not least by the media. We also know how tough life is for those left behind by the rest of society – poor families, drug addicts and single teenage mothers, and all the rest. Certainly there’s nothing wrong with bringing the harsh reality of life on council estates a lot closer to Channel 4’s viewers. The problem for me is that Tower Block of Commons adds little new; it’s a freak-show – or, worse, a soap opera – with uncomfortable MPs and disgruntled poor people as the unwitting stars. Yes, it’s entertaining, but it just leaves me feeling… empty.
Had Channel 4 spent some time looking in detail at failing schools in poor communities, the welfare dependency trap, Britain’s shocking level of drug addiction, absent fathers and other contributors to social breakdown, the programme could be so, so much more than the pathos-laden melodrama it appears to be. Of course, however, in exposing those problems – and shedding light on Labour’s abject failure to grip them – it would be straying into serious politics, rather than busting a gut to show how odd, out-of-touch and wealthy are the MPs who should be doing something about life in those awfully dispiriting estates. Worse still – it might actually teach us something.
We couldn’t have that, now, could we?
Filed under: Blogging | Tagged: Austin Mitchell, Broken Britain, Mark Oaten, Nadine Dorries, Poverty, Tim Loughton, Tower Block of Commons | Leave a Comment »
Guest post – Let’s agree to disagree, shall we?
Posted on February 8, 2010 by toryrascal
A first for Tory Rascal – a guest post. Andrew Hammerschmiedt, a potential Conservative candidate for Nuneaton & Bedworth Borough Council, on disagreeing with the party line…
Last week I was – for the first time ever – required to fill in a form in order to be considered as a Conservative candidate for the forthcoming council elections. In previous years it was good enough that the local association considered me fit and proper to do weeks of unpaid work. I had been able to trick the silly boys so far.
Now that the bureaucratic achievements of the Soviet Union have – in a European Union-shaped pile of sticky goo – enveloped and engulfed this country, however, it is all change.
I am not going to complain or wail about the new procedure; I actually understand the reasoning behind it, since some of the questions had not – and should have been – asked in the past. Stupidity as well as ignorance costs seats. And, at least, the form now provides a framework for interviewers of potential candidates.
However, there was one question which stood out (I hope I am not giving away state secrets here!): “Do you disagree with party policy …” etc.
The thing is, that is a very difficult query to satisfy. Political parties are coalitions. Daniel Hannan, for example, is a prominent member of the “Let’s Leave The EU Right Now” faction of British politics, whereas Kenneth Clarke is convinced the Euro is the way forward. Yet they sit in the same party, cheerfully defying the official line (overtly and covertly respectively), both too powerful to be sacked. Now, if either of them was a contender for a local authority ward (a fanciful notion, agreed) and put his honestly-held views on the European Union on the form, would he be selected by the party? Could Trotsky have thought up a subtler way to weed out dissent?
My point is this: it is not only absurd to ask Tories whether they agree with central authority, it is distinctly wrong. Toeing the official line (especially a few days before the election) is one thing, having independent thought quite another.
News just in: Conservatives do not have one ideology they all follow. Some have none, even. They do not agree with each other all of the time. That is the attraction.
If you are interested, when it came to answering the question on the form I stated the obvious. Do I disagree with CCHQ’s decisions?
No, they are flawless. Always. Without exception.
If you’d like to be considered as a guest poster on Tory Rascal, please drop me an email with your work. Articles must be original, concise and (preferably) no more than 500 words in length. I cannot promise to carry every article I receive.
Filed under: Blogging, Guest posts | Tagged: CCHQ, Conservative candidates, Council elections, Guest posts | 4 Comments »
So farewell, then, Sion Simon…
Posted on February 3, 2010 by toryrascal
Sion Simon is standing down as an MP to run for the mayoralty of Birmingham.
What a loss. Without doubt one of the most pathetic, laughable men ever to have held ministerial office, Simon has, nonetheless, been an absolute gift to comedy – albeit as a laughing stock rather than a joker. Guido’s article on this great loss to satire contains some excellent links.
Lest we forget Sion’s finest hour – his ’satirical’ YouTube horror – here is his subsequent cringeworthy encounter with BBC Midlands Today:
And, for good measure, here is his heroically useless performance on Sky News over the same issue. Watch these videos and ask yourself: does Birmingham (or, indeed, any city) deserve this as its mayor?
Filed under: Blogging, Politics | Tagged: Sion Simon | Leave a Comment »
The Pope’s views on homosexuality have shaken my faith…
Posted on February 2, 2010 by toryrascal
Pope Benedict XIV: doesn't like gay people. I'm saying nothing about the hat.
The Pope doesn’t like teh gayz. Really, REALLY doesn’t like them – they are, he says, a violation of ‘natural law’, and he calls upon his English bishops to oppose the Equality Bill with ‘missionary zeal’. In the Pope’s eyes, the fact that gay people stubbornly continue to exist does not mean that ‘natural law’, as interpreted by religious leaders, is illogical: that the Creator continues to create gay people in apparent violation of His own laws. It simply means that we are sick or sinful and have decided to be so. The same view, sadly, is shared by many (if not most) other religious leaders.
I have identified as Christian for my whole life; in times of trial, my faith has been comforting. But as bishops and other religious leaders queue up to demonise me, I find myself asking why I continue to believe in an apparently loving God whose self-declared representatives tell me that I am inherently wicked because of my sexuality. Does God think that my relationship with my partner – loving and committed – is of lesser value than my parents’ marriage, which dissolved in acrimony? Why would an apparently infallible God violate His own ‘natural law’ by creating a gay person in the first place?
As my faith is shaken, so is my Conservative instinct to cherish the UK’s constitutional settlement. Does establishment, which traditionally acted as a moral check on the Government’s power, make sense? Why should a small group of English bishops enjoy the right to sit in the House of Lords, when Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish and Catholic Christians are not represented at all? There are more smokers in the whole of the UK (about 13m) than there are regular churchgoers in England (7.6m); should FOREST’s leaders, then, have the right to sit in the House of Lords and attack public health laws? Why does the Prime Minister, who may or may not happen to be an Anglican (the current PM isn’t, nor was Thatcher), retain the constitutional responsibility of recommending the appointment of Anglican bishops to the Queen?
I don’t like the Equality Bill. The State shouldn’t meddle with religious beliefs, and through the Bill the Government could limit freedom of religious conscience. I think that we have to accept that freedom of conscience means freedom to dislike – as long as that doesn’t turn to violence, it should not be outlawed. If churches don’t want to ordain gay priests, they shouldn’t feel compelled to; if they fear that they will have to appoint gay people instead of priests to church jobs, they should be allowed to make ordination a prerequisite for some those jobs. But surely those changes should be brought about through lobbying Parliamentarians, rather than from a special position of power in the House of Lords?
I’m happy to say that I keep an open mind. My faith is fading but not lost; I really do think that we need to consider disestablishment, which ties the Government to the Church even when they are pursing completely contrary views.
What, dear readers, do you think?
Filed under: Blogging, Equality, Liberty, Parliament, Politics | Tagged: Benedict XIV, Christianity, Church of England, Equality Bill, Establishment, Gay Rights, Homosexuality, Parliament, Pope, Religion | 5 Comments »
Gordon Brown pretends to be the soldiers’ friend
Posted on February 1, 2010 by toryrascal
Under bombardment - the Prime Minister pretending to like the Armed Forces.
I’ve posted twice today about defence – first about Labour’s serious damage to the future of the Armed Forces, as the MOD finds itself saddled with £35bn of unfunded cost overruns. Then about Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup’s rightly harsh assessment of the Government’s procurement planning ahead of the Iraq war. Together, those are condemnatory; Labour not only managed to put soldiers’ lives at risk to avoid domestic political difficulties, the Government has also probably irreversibly impaired defence capabilities thanks to a decade of vain, ill-thought procurement that puts marginal constituencies and EU integration before the Forces’ actual needs.
This afternoon, the former Chief of the Defence Staff, General Lord Walker, gave further evidence to the Iraq inquiry, joining Sir Jock’s attack by saying that that Labour ministers demanded such tight defence cuts in the midst of two wars that the service chiefs threatened to resign (credit to the Press Association via the Indy):
General Lord Walker said things came to a head in the public spending round in early 2004, when the Treasury gave military chiefs a tough target for budget cuts.
He said: “There was indeed a list of stuff that we were having to make decisions about and I think we drew a line somewhere halfway down the page and said, ‘if you go any further than that you will probably have to look for a new set of chiefs’.”
The former head of the armed forces confirmed that helicopters were included in the list but were “above the line”.
He added: “It makes it sound as though we were happy with what was above the line. We weren’t happy with any of it.”
Whose hand held the purse strings before, during and after the Iraq war? Who demanded cuts from the Armed Forces even as soldiers died in Iraq and Afghanistan? Why, our charming Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, who was the subject of a leak to today’s press concerning Labour’s increasingly vain and cynical defence procurement plans.
Pure coincidence that this leak occurred on the same day that two very senior – and very disgruntled – military officers were before the Iraq Inquiry, I’m sure. I mean, it wouldn’t be like Gordon Brown to try to pose as the soldiers’ friend for political gain, would it?
Filed under: Armed Forces, Defence, Gordon Brown, Labour | Tagged: Defence, Defence Procurement, Gordon Brown, Iraq | Leave a Comment »
Labour denied soldiers vital body armour
Posted on February 1, 2010 by toryrascal
Ok, the headline’s nothing surprising – back in 2002, Geoff Hoon refused to allow the MoD to purchase body armour before the invasion of Iraq, fearful that it would ‘give away’ Labour’s plans to tack on to GWB’s ego trip.
Today the Chief of the Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, gave evidence to the inquiry:
We made it absolutely clear to ministers that if we were not allowed to engage with industry … there was a serious risk that [equipment] would not all be delivered by the assumed start of operations.
The other area where we could have done better is in terms of enhanced combat body armour. We didn’t have enough of that in theatre at the time. And I think, in part for both clothing and body armour, the issue was it was all done so rapidly at the last minute. No one was quite sure who had what. For example, just before the start of operations, the clear message that we were receiving in the Ministry of Defence was that all unit demands for enhanced combat body armour had been met. But quite clearly not everybody who needed it in theatre got it.
Nondescript though it may seem, this is stunning stuff – the current, serving Chief of the Defence Staff publicly attacking the Government’s deliberate choice to ignore the chiefs’ warnings and to put troops’ lives at risk – all, in the final analysis, in the interests of political expediency. Need I say more?
Filed under: Armed Forces, Blogging, Defence, Iraq | Tagged: Armed Forces, Defence, Defence Procurement, Geoff Hoon, Iraq, Iraq Inquiry | 1 Comment »
Labour’s future defence cuts – inevitable and shameful
Posted on February 1, 2010 by toryrascal
Sunk yet?
This morning’s Telegraph carries a story about a Centre for Policy Studies report warning that Labour’s wasteful record on defence spending risks denting public support for defence in the near future. Sadly this extends to politicians, too; when the next government (of whatever hue) casts around for things to cut, defence is undoubtedly going to be ripe for the axe thanks to the imminent £35bn of unfunded overspends on projects such as Typhoon and the new aircraft carriers.
Labour’s risible approach to defence procurement has seen money flow to Labour constituencies (CVF) and pointless European vanity projects (A400M and Typhoon) even as Geoff Hoon (and others) deliberately refused to provide the requisite body armour to the Army prior to the invasion of Iraq. The RAF has, arguably, seen the worst of Labour’s incompetence, with air-to-air capabilities designed to fight the Soviets supplanting the UAVs, reconnaissance aircraft and strike capabilites that everyone agrees are most likely to be needed in the future. The now almost unavoidable cuts to the size and capability of the RAF and Royal Navy – and, therefore, to our ability to project power on a global scale – are a direct consequence of Labour’s mismanagement and waste, not a peace dividend or a strategic shift in Britain’s global priorities.
HMS Hermes - could have been scuppered. Along with the Falklands.
So, what’s the damage? The Royal Navy will probably lose one or both of its future aircraft carriers (along with a sub or three), and the RAF will end up smaller and weaker in terms of its offensive capabilities. While we flounder in Afghanistan the public’s indulgence will not extend to unforseeable future conflicts: insurance policies, no matter how vital, tend not to be high on voters’ lists of spending priorities, especially when a bloody ground war is in such sharp focus. There is, however, a lesson to be learned from history here – had John Nott’s proposed defence cuts gone through before 1982, we’d have had no aircraft carriers and Port Stanley would probably be under an Argentine flag today.
Of course, the Army – which does the bulk of the work in Afghanistan – must be protected from the axe. But, as Sierra Leone, Iraq and the Falklands showed, seapower and airpower are also vital parts of Britain’s ability to project power. We lose those capabilities at the risk of losing our ability to influence world affairs. A switch to commercial off-the-shelf procurement – though long overdue – can do little now to prevent cuts and guard against strategic shocks. When those shocks happen – and they will – it will be down to Labour’s waste that we lack the ability to fight back. Is there a more shameful legacy than that?
Filed under: Afghanistan, Armed Forces, Army, Defence, Labour, Public Spending, Royal Air Force, Royal Navy | Tagged: A400M, Aircraft carriers, Army, CVF, Defence Cuts, RAF, Royal Navy, Typhoon | 2 Comments »
Blair, Chilcot and Iraq’s missing weapons
Posted on January 29, 2010 by toryrascal
There’s not much point in covering the same ground as the MSM. Tony Blair is, of course, appearing before the Chilcot inquiry today. I’m a bit gutted that I missed out on a ticket – but hey ho. I’m sure it’s going to be almost entirely predictable.
Speaking of which, Nick Robinson reveals that Blair is likely to say that the lack of WMD in Iraq didn’t matter, because Saddam had the ‘capacity and intent’ to build them. On such specious grounds we could invade almost any country to displace a tinpot dictator. If we apply power consistently, Kim Jong-Il and Mahmoud Ahmedinejad should be quaking in their boots.
If you are seduced by Blair’s mendacious attempt to rewrite history, you might like to recall the famous dossier that set the pretext for invasion. It gave a very explicit assessment that Iraq possessed WMD retained from the first Gulf War – you can read the very words for yourself, because the whole dossier is still available on the Number 10 website.
You might also be interested to recall the Commons motion put by the former PM that ‘authorised’ military action (my emphasis):
[That this House, inter alia] … supports the decision of Her Majesty’s Government that the United Kingdom should use all means necessary to ensure the disarmament of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction …
Well, this is all old ground, and we know what happened next – and that most politicians supported it, either out of slavish loyalty to Tony Blair or out of a misguided notion that the dossier was infallible. I remember hearing the decision, as a young officer, and supporting it as well. Hindsight, unfortunately, can’t do much for the soliders and Iraqis who have died since that vote.
There are many reasons why Blair should be ashamed, one of which is going to be noticeable for years to come in the form of a much diminished role for Britain as a world power. When Blair came to power he trumpeted a new approach to foreign policy – that of liberal interventionism. It worked – at first. In the Balkans and Sierra Leone we saw what our Armed Forces can do to strengthen international peace and security. In Iraq – and, sadly, increasingly in Afghanistan – we see what ineffective and ill-planned military adventures can do to destabilise peace and security.
Liberal interventionism could have signalled a new, useful role for Britain in the world. Now, defeated in Iraq and humiliated worldwide, Britain can look forward to a much lower-key part to play in world affairs.
Thanks, Tony.
Filed under: Afghanistan, Armed Forces, Defence, Foreign Policy, Iraq | Tagged: Dodgy Dossier, Iraq, Iraq Inquiry, Saddam, Sir John Chilcott, Tony Blair, Weapons of Mass Destruction, WMD | 1 Comment »
Muslim Council of Britain vs Ministers… pots vs kettles…
Posted on January 27, 2010 by toryrascal
There used to be a name for Britons who urged foreign enemies to attack British forces around the world: traitor. If, say, an influential British imam called on his coreligionists to attack Royal Navy ships in the Middle East, most people in this country would be, quite reasonably, appalled, and our hypothetical imam would be rightly castigated as a traitor.
If the same imam called on Muslims throughout the world to carry on a violent jihad against Israel, led a group that opposed plans to outlaw glorification of terrorism, and called on British Muslims to boycott Holocaust Memorial Day (beacuse, you know, Jews are all Israeli savages and gays don’t deserve sympathy), you’d probably assume that I’m talking about Abu Hamza or Omar Bakri Mohammed, or any one of the other crazies that have made merry with attacking British values over the years. Alas, no. I’m talking about Dr Daud Abdullah, the leader of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB).
Dr Daud Abdullah.
To the Government’s credit, when Abdullah last year signed the Istanbul Declaration, calling on Muslims to attack ‘foreign’ navies operating against murderous Palestinian arms smugglers, among other charmingly violent notions, the MCB was ostracised (Pickled Politics has a translation of the relevant passages). Hazel Blears (remember her?) decided that the Government could not deal with the organisation for as long as Abdullah remained leader. Abdullah responded by threatening to sue Blears for defamation and, basically, chanting ‘Hell No, I Won’t Go’.
And, indeed, he didn’t. He is still the leader of the MCB. His name remains stubbornly appended to the Istanbul Declaration, giving his backing to terrorist attacks against Royal Navy ships. He has not apologised to the Nazi-persecuted European Jewish people whom he confuses with the modern State of Israel when condemning Holocaust Memorial Day. And yet, recently, the Government has decided to bring the MCB back on board.
Those charming chaps of the EDL.
The reward? A statement this morning from the MCB complaining about the Government’s ’silence’ on ‘rising anti-Muslim hostility’. Now, I’m happy to concede that the disturbing rise of the racist English Defence League and the demented British National Party indicate that there are people in this country who truly hate Muslims. I would suggest, however, that hatred is confined to those groups’ moronic members. Most normal people are, I think, happy to live and let live – as long as other people respect that attitude and our collective values.
However, a large number of people remain generally suspicious of Islam. In the wake of years of high-profile Islamist extremism and terrorism, that’s hardly surprising. Although those things are part of a broader range of issues inspiring some people to be upset by Islam, the MCB cannot pretend that anti-Islamic attitudes have arisen spontaneously and without provocation (even if that provocation is down to a handful of Islamist nutcases). Nor can Daud Abdullah pretend that he has not made himself part of the problem. Extremism will never beat exremism: until Abdullah’s name is removed from the Istanbul Declaration, which so clearly incites hatred and violence, any claim the MCB makes about the Government’s failure to tackle anti-Islamic attitudes is little more than the pot calling the kettle black.
Filed under: BNP, Citizenship, Politics, Terrorism | Tagged: BNP, Daud Abdullah, English Defence League, Hazel Blears, Islam, Muslim Council of Britain, Pickled Politics | 4 Comments »
